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FARE EVASION "closed system" — requiring riders to tap their cards for entry and exit — and increasing the height of the gates. More recently, last year MARTA ad- justed its gate speed as well, Davis Al- len, assistant GM, fi nance, at MARTA, says. One caveat was that MARTA's wide fare gates initially did not require a customer to tap to exit. This allowed for its regional transit partners to ful- ly transition to its Breeze fare media. As of October 2011, the gates require customers to tap to exit. Breeze media is used for exit and entry, and allows MARTA to better align exit and entry numbers to help determine ridership and fare evasion rates. As a result of the change, MARTA ex- perienced a clear reduction in fare eva- sion, Allen says. The evasion rate for Fiscal Year 2005 was 4.1% and 1.8% for Fiscal Year 2012. "If nothing had been done to up- grade the fare collection system, the es- timated loss for weekday rail fare eva- sion would have been $2.4 million," he adds. "The measures have saved MARTA approximately $1.4 million in Fiscal Year 2012." INSPECTOR SWEEPS Spurred on by a fare increase, MBTA kicked off "Operation Fare Game" in July and issued 636 tickets, explains Transit Police Chief Paul MacMillan. The operation consisted of both uniformed and plainclothes offi cers monitoring the fare gates. Uniformed offi cers are sometimes used as a visible presence to deter riders from dodging fares. However, people will sometimes skip paying even with a uniformed of- fi cer there, MacMillan says. Before the fare increase went into ef- fect, the public asked the agency to step up its efforts to capture people who were not paying, MacMillan says. In re- sponse, MBTA started "Operation Fare Game" to conduct fare enforcement at some of its larger stations, where eva- sion was more likely to take place. CITATION CRACKDOWN On top of a fare hike, the fee for fare evasion increased from $15 to $50 on July 1. MBTA also asked the state legis- lature to increase the fi ne and shorten the time frame that someone who re- ceived a fare citation was able to pay. The old system required almost 18 months before payment was due. "There was a notifi cation period where we had to notify the Registry of Motor Vehicles that the [person's] li- cense could not be renewed and there was a time period that delayed the pay- ment of the fi ne," MacMillan explains. "We asked the legislature to shorten that. Now, you have to pay your fi ne in 30 days or we'll notify the Registry of Motor Vehicles to not renew your 90 < mETRO mAGAZINE SEPTEMBER • OCTOBER 2012 metro-magazine.com