How much is bus fare evasion really?

When you talk to people about improving bus services most people, including those who rarely ride them, are supportive. They readily agree that buses should run 7 days or main highway buses should be better than every 2 hours on Saturday afternoons.

A few others aren't so sure. Some cite buses running empty. Or note that 'hardly anyone touches on'. They might add that if people don't touch on then it's hard to justify more services.

At the very least if few passengers pay the cost of adding trips is increased. This is because although well-targeted service upgrades build ridership the rise in fare revenue is less than it should be. 

Low fare compliance may also raise the chance that chronic overcrowding, including on hourly weekend buses that leave intending passengers behind, gets ignored. This could be for reasons including (i) the resulting poor quality data, (ii) DTP's lack of efficient demand responsive funding and processes to address crowding and possibly (iii) only a limited personal bus using culture amongst top executives.  

In modern organisations what is not counted doesn't count. If low touch-on rates understate patronage then there won't be a data-driven trigger to increase service, especially without automatic passenger counters on all buses. Thus if data is bad then the message needs to reach government via other means including social media, citizen journalism and advocacy to get problems fixed. 'Barking dog-based transport planning' is a poor approach for a department of nearly 5000 people and a $560m payroll but may be necessary when expected 'collect data and respond' processes break down.  

Attitudes to fare compliance

Some passengers go out of their way to always pay their fare. Others try but give up if paying is made too difficult. Another group is influenced by what they see, so if they see many others not touching on then they won't either. Fare evasion can even become legitimised in some subcultures, such as was the case in inner suburbs about 25 years ago with trams (even amongst people who could afford to pay). Such social acceptance turns a behaviour into a habit and makes campaigns to change it less credible and effective. 

Are we now at the same stage with buses?

We could be but let's first go back a bit. 

The seeds of the problem some have with myki on buses were sown more than a decade ago. An early (and I think wrong) decision under Labor was to specify disposable cardboard smartcards rather than simple paper tickets for short term travel. These had the benefit of being able to open myki barriers at stations without needing physical inspection by an attendant. But, having the antenna and chip of a full smartcard, short-term mykis were outrageously expensive to produce relative to a typical short distance 2 hour fare (in some cases then under $1 for concession holders). 

Short-term mykis were used on Geelong buses during early public testing but were one of the features understandably scrapped when the Baillieu government descoped myki. Thus even a casual trip  required pre-purchase of a relatively expensive plastic myki card. This discouraged ridership amongst the honest and fostered evasion amongst the dishonest. Many of myki's problems for tourists and some of the impetus for the counterproductive CBD Free Tram Zone stem from the non-availability of a good value convenient ticket option for spontaneous or casual users.      

What about COVID-19?

Public transport usage (and thus fare revenue) on all modes took a big hit during the pandemic. Weekday peak train and tram patronage remains subdued but bus usage has recovered fastest, especially on weekends. However new factors risk undermining bus fare compliance in the last few years. These include: 

* The falling number of passengers using periodical (myki pass) as opposed to spontaneous (myki money) payment options due to less 5 day commuting. Unlike myki money users, those using an activated myki pass would not be evading a fare if they sometimes did not touch on. 

* The pandemic era (and now permanent) removal of cash myki top-ups on buses has removed a  widely accessible payment option, especially in suburbs with few myki outlets or train stations. 

* Bus drivers now being physically screened from passengers and unlikely to ask people to touch on, with the Labor government influenced by TWU advocacy over safety concerns. Unlike station PSOs, who typically work in pairs, bus drivers are on their own, are not particularly highly paid and commonly take a 'play it safe' attitude for their own safety. 

* The continued low chance of encountering Authorised Officers on buses, thus encouraging the calculating type of serial fare evader who remains ahead even after several fines per year.    

* The politically-driven $10 statewide fare cap, that by flattening the fare scales, make $5 short trips look punitively expensive, especially if a myki card also needs to be purchased ($11 total per adult). I've added this point because perceived fairness aids legitimacy and compliance. Flat fares are simple to understand but are widely viewed as less fair, especially for shorter trips (which are made by more people more often than longer trips).  

* Wider economic conditions including inflation, housing costs and falling real incomes especially for those under 40. These may make fare evasion tempting if it is easy and there is a low chance of getting caught.  

It's true that the government promotes some other payment options, including online and mobile phone myki top-up. However the latter requires an NFC chip that not all phones have. Fare payment will get easier once credit/debit card tapping on/off becomes possible. But for now the above points may weaken compliance from those who find payment inconvenient, not what their friends do or easy to avoid.  

What DTP reports

The above is the pessimistic view. What do the numbers say? DTP's 2022-23 annual report says that bus fare compliance was 96%, or 24 out of 25 passengers. That looks pretty high and would seem to validate current policies and administration. That high proportion is also likely near the point where throwing more resources into fare enforcement is unlikely to return its cost in added fare revenue. 

Want to delve into those numbers more?  You can do so via the revenue protection and fare compliance part of the PTV website.  There you can find fare compliance survey numbers and the Network Revenue Protection Plan for 2023. Of note is a big uptick for buses, with the reported 96% in October 2022 the highest in the data series. Having said that there's much more data volatility than for Metro train and trams, so I'd want to see more data points before concluding there's a real trend.  

What were they saying last year when the compliance numbers for buses was pretty dire? DTP appears to have removed the 2022 Network Revenue Protection plan from their website. But fortunately you can find it in this archived Wayback Machine version (direct pdf link here). The 2022 plan is worth reading as it had a bit to say about accommodating bus passengers who could previously top up with cash.  

It's important to get one thing straight first up. Fare compliance and touching on are different measures. Those who don't touch on are not necessarily evading a fare if they are travelling on some sort of periodical pass or, with myki money, have done prior travel and are still within their first two hours or have reached their daily cap. Thus the system could still achieve the claimed 96% fare compliance even if the touch on rate is lower. 

How much lower can the touch on rate be to support a 96% fare compliance? It depends on factors like the use of periodical type options (eg an activated myki pass as opposed to myki money) and people doing a lot of changing. If both these are low (likely for a lot of local off-peak bus trips) then the touch on rate will need to be much nearer to 96% than otherwise. 
 

What's bus fare evasion really like?

You've just seen two very different impressions of the extent of fare evasion on Mebourne's buses. What might be dismissed as hearsay says it's very high. Whereas the 'official line' from DTP, complete with graphs and reports, says it is very low at 4%. 

My hypothesis is that the truth will be somewhere in between. That is more passengers than 'hardly anyone' will touch on. But also that significantly more than DTP's claimed 4% will not be fare compliant. 

The simple way to do a survey is to ride some buses and count the number of people boarding who touch on versus those who don't touch on. That gives the touch on rate. The more complex (and better) method is to check each passenger's ticket for compliance. DTP has that power. I do not. 

Hence I went for the easier non-intrusive method of just counting touch ons. That won't give a statistic that can be directly compared to DTP's compliance figure. But it could put to bed some of the wilder claims. And if a low touch-on rate was observed then it could make a high claimed compliance rate like 96% seem unlikely.  

My testing involved taking trips, mostly in the south-east suburbs, to observe the proportion of boarding passengers who touched on. Here is what I saw: 

* Test 1: 14/11/2023 5:30 am approx Route 902 from Chelsea to Mulgrave
Validated / Total boardings 14/26 = 54%

* Test 2: 22/11/2023 1:45 pm Route 902 from Chelsea to Mulgrave
Validated / Total boardings 21/53 = 40%

Despite the above trip being before normal school finish time, the trip included a significant number of school students making local trips who did not touch on.  

* Test 3: 22/11/2023 2:59 pm Route 850 from Mulgrave to Dandenong North
Validated / Total boardings 3/50 = 6%

About 90% of passengers on this trip were school students who did not touch on. It is possible that some had student myki passes so were not fare evading despite them not touching on. 

* Test 4: 22/11/2023 3:52 pm approx Route 800 from Dandenong to Springvale
Validated / Total boardings 3/9 = 33%

* Test 5: 22/11/2023 4:31 pm approx Route 902 from Springvale to Chelsea
Validated / Total boardings 7/15 = 47%

* Test 6: 25/11/2023 2:30pm approx Route 822 from Highett to Chadstone
Validated / Total boardings 5/7 = 71% 

* Test 7: 26/11/2023 9:20am approx Route 408 from St Albans to Highpoint
Validated / Total boardings 22/53 = 42% 

Touch on rates from this selection of trips were typically about 30 to 70 %. Touching on was highest during the early commuter peak. It was lowest during school peaks with touching on rare amongst school students.

Authorised officers are rarely seen on buses. And even where a report of non-compliance is issued  it can be challenged and fines sometimes waived, as recently reported here.

With such a low touch on rate to start with, it appears unlikely that adding previous discussed factors would get the compliance rate up to anything near the reported 96%.  Instead one might be more inclined to the view that DTP has basically lost control of fare compliance on buses. Once people have got used to not paying it's going to be doubly hard to convince them to pay, especially given the non-availability of top-ups on buses, unfairness introduced by the statewide flat fare, the perceived low chance of getting caught and demonstrable cost of living increases. 

Conclusion

As inadequate as they are, my little surveys have led me to the view that the touch on rate for buses is often low. While fare compliance will be higher than that, 96%, as reported seems improbable.  

Improved means of data collection, such as automatic passenger counters on buses, could be helpful for several purposes including identifying overcrowding, prioritising service adjustments and enabling more efficient fare compliance and enforcement activity. 

The DTP annual report is an official government document reporting on its activities and performance. The public and stakeholders (including Parliament) have a right for published information to be correct. And the department has an obligation to make it so. It should not be possible for a few casual observations to raise significant questions on an important metric. After all we are told that lack of resourcing (ie funding) is a reason for such limited service levels on many key bus routes.  

On the matter of bus fare compliance at least, department secretary Paul Younis has some explaining to do given the large gap between rosy reporting and on-the-ground reality. Like I suggested for the auditor-general's a little while back, going on a few bus rides would have helped greatly. Maybe even the Sunday 6:11pm Route 408 trip from Highpoint for starters!