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Accounting for fare evasion in estimates of transit ridership

Fare evasion has been a problem for transit agencies since the days of horse-drawn omnibuses. However, over the past few years fare evasion rates have been up across the country. In New York City, the Metropolitan Transit Authority estimated that 48% of bus riders did not pay, compared to 18% pre-COVID. Similar trends have been observed in other parts of the country, including in California. Fare evasion can have many impacts for the transit agency and its riders. First and foremost, it results in a loss of revenue at a time when agencies are fighting to maintain operations funding at acceptable levels. For this reason, agencies regularly attempt to combat fare evasion and have many techniques to do so both in practice and from the literature. However, fare evasion may also impact the ability of an agency to estimate their ridership. It is vital to understand ridership trends in general and specifically ridership recovery. If increasing fare evasion rates are not accounted for, the data used to gauge transit’s recovery in terms of ridership may be systematically wrong. While transit agencies must report their transit ridership data to the National Transit Database in the form of Unlinked Passenger Trips (UPT) and Passenger Miles Traveled (PMT), no information is systematically available about how the data are collected. The main objective of this research is to assess and document methods used to determine UPT and PMT at transit agencies across California, including sources of potential error such as fare evasion. The predominant source of this data will be a statewide transit agency survey. To reduce respondent burden, the second objective of this research is to develop a new initiative across the state to coordinate research involving surveys or other large outreach efforts across multiple transit agencies in partnership with Caltrans, state agencies, advocacy organizations, and research organizations. It supports a key area of responsibility with regard to tracking and reporting transit performance measures and assessment of the suitability of new transit investments.

Language

  • English

Project

  • Status: Active
  • Funding: $219,827.00
  • Contract Numbers:

    DOT 69A3552348319

    DOT 69A3552344814

    Caltrans 65A1400

  • Sponsor Organizations:

    Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

    University Transportation Centers Program
    Department of Transportation
    Washington, DC  United States  20590

    National Center for Sustainable Transportation

    University of California, Davis
    Davis, CA  United States 

    California Department of Transportation

    1227 O Street
    Sacramento, CA  United States  95843
  • Managing Organizations:

    National Center for Sustainable Transportation

    University of California, Davis
    Davis, CA  United States 

    University of California, Davis

    1 Shields Ave
    Davis, California  United States  95616
  • Project Managers:

    Cliff, Sydney

  • Performing Organizations:

    National Center for Sustainable Transportation

    University of California, Davis
    Davis, CA  United States 

    University of California, Davis

    1 Shields Ave
    Davis, California  United States  95616
  • Principal Investigators:

    Watkins, Kari

    Pike, Susan

  • Start Date: 20260601
  • Expected Completion Date: 20270930
  • Actual Completion Date: 0
  • USDOT Program: University Transportation Centers

Subject/Index Terms

Filing Info

  • Accession Number: 01988438
  • Record Type: Research project
  • Source Agency: National Center for Sustainable Transportation
  • Contract Numbers: DOT 69A3552348319, DOT 69A3552344814, Caltrans 65A1400
  • Files: UTC, RIP, STATEDOT
  • Created Date: Apr 29 2026 5:26PM