01551713

Component

Fare evasion on public transport can reduce revenue by millions of dollars, undermining the financial viability of transit. However little research examines how public transport users think about fare evasion or attempts to understand why people fare evade. This paper presents the results of a program of qualitative research conducted in Melbourne, Australia to understand the attitudes toward and motivations behind fare evasion. A total of 67 people participated in face-to-face or online focus groups. Results established a spectrum of perceived circumstances where someone might travel without a valid ticket. ‘Fare evasion’ was considered to be at only one end of that spectrum. The degree of intent to evade was a critical factor explaining the severity of fare evasion from user perspectives. People’s attitudes toward fare evasion differed significantly; four key attitude segments were uncovered based on the attitudes and behaviours that group members tended to share. These included 1. ‘Fare evasion is wrong – the accidental evader’ who held strong views against fare evasion, 2. the ‘it’s not my fault’ evader who meant to pay but sometimes find themselves fare evading due to barriers to payment, 3. The ‘calculated risk-taker’ evader who deliberately fare evade if they think the reward outweighs risk and 4. ‘career evaders’ who always fare evade. Attitudes, feelings and motivations for these segments are described and implications for revenue protection policy are discussed.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AP030 Public Transportation Marketing and Fare Policy.

01550057

15-0808

English

13p

2015

Transportation Research Board 94th Annual Meeting

Digital/other

Figures; References; Tables

Attitudes; Fare collection; Public transit; Risk taking; Transit riders

Fare evasion

Finance; Public Transportation; I10: Economics and Administration

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2015 Paper #15-0808

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Dec 30 2014 12:21PM