Saskatoon’s Standing Policy Committee on Transportation reported an estimated $67,800 revenue loss as a result of passengers evading transit fares in 2022.
The transit operators are trained to record the fare evasion of passengers if they are not paying when the transit fareboxes are working.
In 2022, 20,705 instances of fare evasion were recorded, with the highest number of evasions occurring at the Confederation Mall, where no transit tickets are sold.
“We have to meet them halfway if we don’t want them to evade the fare,” said Coun. David Kirton.
City transit operators are not allowed to confront a passenger and enforce fares if payment is not offered.
“I would suggest that we need to sell tickets in a mall if there is a terminal in a mall,” Kirton said. “People would not expect to walk blocks in order to get a ticket.”
The transit committee said that they would consider the idea of looking at making tickets more accessible to passengers.
If the fare box is inoperable, the fare is just considered unpaid, not evaded. Unpaid fares due to inoperable fare boxes still cost Saskatoon Transit approximately $165,000 in 2022.
The committee reported that the number of evasions and unpaid fares increased in the last three months of the year.
It was stated by the committee that a report will arrive in the next couple of months that will provide information on the number of negative interactions between transit operators and passengers.
“There are cases where some of those incidences have been related to disputes on fare collection,” said city transportation general manager Terry Schmidt.
“My concern is not revenue,” said Kirton. “My concern is the possibility of the safety of the operators or the transit riders.”
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