• LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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      2 hours ago

      I’d say a bit of both. The numbers they showed for it if I remember was that they spent $150m to catch like $100,000 of fares that were skipped. Then throw in 4 people dead and you didn’t do much to help. You just made it more miserable for people travelling.

      With fares making up 23% of your income, and payroll taking up over 30% of expenses… Odds are they could cut the number of guards patrolling tolls, ticket sales people, customer service reps, maintenance workers for all the machines/guard terminals etc by a shit ton and make the transportation free, and offset the costs elsewhere. It would also likely boost the economy of the area, do to people not needing to scrape together a couple dollars to take the train and spending it at businesses they otherwise may normally avoid do to costs or not having that extra few dollars.