One Saskatoon city councillor wants to look into the issue of unpaid fares on transit buses and is asking for a report identifying a number of items, including how much revenue the city may be losing to the issue.
Ward 1 Coun. Darren Hill is also asking city administration to identify the percentage of riders who pay compared with those who don’t, and the routes most affected by unpaid fares.
“We can’t be making decisions on fares without all the data in front of us,” Hill said at Monday’s Standing Policy Committee on Transportation meeting.
Other items Hill wants administration to look into include identifying trends in regard to dates and times of incidents, determining whether a fare enforcer position has ever been considered, and researching the current status of fare boxes such as missing or inoperable boxes.
City of Saskatoon general manager of transportation, Terry Schmidt, said that when a fare is not paid, the operators are asked to record that on a mobile data terminal, meaning the data is available.
However, if a fare box is not operating, Schmidt said it is difficult for the city administration to determine revenue losses from that.
“For the most part, this data is captured and available. It is just a matter of then going through the data, compiling it, analyzing it and putting it back into a report format,” Schmidt added.
Hill’s motion was carried unanimously at Monday’s meeting and the administration will report back to the city council.