Today I read about how Muni can’t make fare cheats pay over at SFAppeal.com.
Well, the truth is, San Francisco has probably the “worst” fare system in the world that I have ever seen (nevermind 3rd world countries).
Why?
Because countless times (or like every time I took Muni from Sunset to downtown SF), I have NEVER paid for a ticket.
Does that mean I am a bad guy?
No, it’s not because I didn’t want to pay but I COULDN’T!
This is how it works, there’s a Muni ticket system at my local Sunset station and there’s 4 of them. Most of the time, 2 of those ticket system are completely broken plus they don’t accept bills. Most of the time, I don’t carry change with me and there’s no place to get change anywhere around the ticket system (I think nearest 7-11 is like 20 minute walk away), so I just don’t buy a Muni ticket.
This is a huge FLAW in Muni system, which means that Muni is probably missing out on more than 50% of their revenue.
I know there’s a ton of other places in San Francisco where the situation is the same, people cannot buy tickets.
Another major flaw in San Francisco’s Muni system is that there’s no automated ticket-checking system when you exit. When you do this, there’s no way of telling if passengers have paid for their tickets. This gentlemen’s rule of paying Muni might have worked back in the 50s when there weren’t so many people but surely, it’s not going to work in the 2oth century.
I know I know, it’s going to cost the city millions of dollars to setup both better ticket systems and ticket-checking systems but if it is setup, Muni’s profits could be exponential what it is and it could be one of the major driving revenues for the city.
As a former resident of South Korea, where they have “wireless” ticketing systems for public transportation, San Francisco’s Muni is far the most “stupid” ticketing system I have ever seen, probably resembles a 3rd world country’s. I remember being in South Korea like 5 years back, everyone had these “wireless” option they can get on their credit cards, which will deduct fares via RFID direct from their accounts. That was 5 years ago, I know now they can even do it will cellphones. Of course, there’s far more people in Seoul, where I lived, but that’s still not a good reason to give out “free” fares for an outdated system.
If Muni loves giving out free tickets to the public and don’t care that they are donating to the people, I guess this system will work fine.
But if city of San Francisco actually intends to make profits that they deserve, the city needs to setup better “automated” systems for ticket fares.
As a resident of San Francisco, I am perfectly fine with broken ticket systems and free rides to downtown San Francisco but if Mayor Gavin wants to actually find where city’s losing most of its deserved revenue, it’s right under his nose.
One doesn’t have to travel to South Korea to see how Muni’s fare collection system could work.
When you use a BART ticket the turnstyles deducts the appropriate fare. When you park at a BART parking lot and pay the required $1, the system works. For that matter, when you park in any automated parking lot the toll collection system works. When you put money into an automatic ticketing dispenser at a movie theater the system works. When you feed your credit card into an ATM machine the money is virtually always dispensed correctly. When you use an automatated check-out station in a grocery store the system works. When you buy an electronic ticket at an airport the system works.
But because of defective equipment and/or a fouled up maintenance program, Muni can’t collect its fares. This says a lot about Muni. My suggestion would be to divide up Muni’s 70 bus and rail lines into groups of 10 and contract out each group to a low bid operating contractor under one year renewable contracts, and then hold each operator to very high operating and fare-collection standards. The likely result: a significant improvement in both Muni ridership and Muni fares collected.