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FARE EVASION unpaid parking tickets, which brings up the question of how to make them pay the fi ne. "Let's assume you catch an offend- er," he explains. "What do you do with them? Across the nation they have all kinds of different laws, and some of the fi nes can be really high." Proof of payment generally is based on the honor system and overall works well for most transit systems, Green says. There may be occasional fl uctuations in compliance rates be- cause of increased ridership, but most people are honest and pay their fares. "There always has been debate about how much to spend and what kind of a system to [use] to make sure you get most of the people to pay most of the time," Green says. LOCKING FARE GATES This fall, Los Angeles' Metro will permanently lock the gates in its sub- This fall, Los Angeles' Metro will permanently lock the gates in its subway stations to prevent riders from skipping fare payments. way stations to prevent riders from skipping fare payments, Marc Litt- man, deputy executive offi cer, public relations, says. Only a few of the light rail stations will remain gated because of narrow platforms. Metro will initially have passenger ambassadors on hand to assist people with using the TAP card, which will soon be the only way to pay their fare. All gates will be locked by winter 2013. Metro held "demonstrations" last fall and winter, at about 10 stations each time, to see how people were paying their fares. Passenger ambassadors and law enforcement offi cers directed peo- ple to ticket vending machines (TVMs) and explained how to properly apply the TAP card to the fare card reader. Metro discovered that 59% to 75% of 88 < mETRO mAGAZINE SEPTEMBER • OCTOBER 2012 metro-magazine.com