Last night, I attended a Connecticut Rail Commuter Council Meeting at Metro-North headquarters above Grand Central. In attendance were senior management from Metro-North, including President Howard Permut.

Among the topics on the Council’s agenda was their longstanding issue with ticket collection – specifically, how often it doesn’t happen.

After the meeting I took the 6 to the 5th Ave Apple Store to check out the new iMacs (sexy), and continued up the 6 line to catch a Stamford train out of Harlem-125th.

The conductor did not collect my ticket on the ride to Stamford.

I was sharing a 3-seat with another passenger, and there was one punch tag on the seat, so, evidentally, the Grand Central passenger fares had been collected between there and Harlem.

Currently I am an only an occasional Metro-North rider, not a commuter, but the council is mostly if not fully monthly pass holders. As such, they are understandably offended when fares are not collected – it doesn’t save them any money with the monthly pass, but the lack of collected fares contribute to lower revenue for Metro-North projects, service repairs, and contributes to future fare hikes.

The problem has become so serious, the council reports, that some monthly pass holders have switched to buying 10-trips instead – insisting they can get through the month cheaper via passive fare avoidance.

When posed with the question, President Permut noted that due to labor costs, it was indeed often an ROI issue regarding the collection of intermediate fares (trips between two stations not including GCT). He noted that this category of ride had reached collection rates as low as 85% in the past.

Metro-North has uncharacteristically massive intermediate traffic for a commuter rail system. (Interesting fact: more people get off at Stamford Station every morning than get on to go to Manhattan).

Reps from Metro-North went on to say that ticket collection was regularly audited and that disciplinary action was common. Overall the reps themselves, mirroring the response from Connecticut DOT at last months meeting, seemed to feel that the collection rates were within acceptable limits or better based on their audit data.

The Council disagreed. To be truthful, I agree that it is extremely unlikely that Metro-North could get a full sense of this issue through occasional audits, and that the everyday riders themselves are the only ones who truly see the scope of the problem.

Even as an occasional rider who *only* rides to Grand Central, I have to say it has always surprised me how often my ticket has not been collected.

When asked what other systems do to combat this, Permut referred to unnamed European systems, whose approach is somewhat draconian. There, uniformed police officers regularly tour the cars and check receipts – if the rider doesn’t have a receipt, they are cited, and the penalty is severe.

Ugh – I hated to write this post, but I had to. I like the Metro-North conductors alot and I sympathize with them. They are the only Metro-North employees who are on the ground with the passengers as part of their daily ordeal. Although they are not responsible for any of the decrepit conditions on the New Haven Line, they are the ones who get blamed and yelled at for it every day.

I sympathize with them when they need to collect tickets from an overpacked train with no air conditioning in August, or when an intoxicated passenger refuses to pay their fare. The list goes on and on. I actually consider it ‘cool’ for a conductor to not collect fares on a train overstuffed with riders in suits and skirts standing for an hour on a train that’s 89 degrees AND smells like a porta-potty.

However, I see both sides of the issue, and agree that one cannot argue both against fare hikes and bad train conditions and appreciate fare avoidance – that math just doesn’t work.