5 days ago
We rode a SEPTA bus with its fare evasion task force in Philadelphia. Here's how it went.
Dawn Cooper says she's been driving SEPTA buses for more than 25 years now. Having spent that much time shuttling people across the city, she's seen a lot.
"Just when you think that's it, you see some more," Cooper said.
One thing she sees all the time: people not paying for their ride.
"Every day," Cooper said. "Over half, over half of the ridership does not pay."
Fare evasion has become a costly problem for SEPTA. The authority has long focused on the rails, where people frequently hop turnstiles to skip the fee. Last year, SEPTA installed full-length fare gates at the 69th Street Station to cut down on fare evasion on the Market-Frankford Line.
But, SEPTA officials tell CBS News Philadelphia, while they have more riders on the rails, they see a higher rate of fare evasion on buses. And when people don't pay while getting on a bus, it puts them face to face with drivers.
"I don't even feel safe approaching or having any kind of negative confrontation with anyone," Cooper said. "So I just let them ride."
Dawn Cooper says she's been driving SEPTA buses for more than 25 years now. Having spent that much time shuttling people across the city, she's seen a lot.
CBS News Philadelphia
Now, SEPTA is sending in reinforcements. This week, the authority launched a new task force with officers dedicated to riding routes with the highest fare evasion to make sure people are paying up.
On Wednesday, SEPTA invited CBS News Philadelphia to ride along with two officers on the Route 18 bus, from the Olney Transportation Center to Fox Chase and back. It's a route where officials say they've seen some of the highest fare evasion.
The officers were stationed at the front of the bus. One would get off to greet people who were getting on, while the other stood close to the fare box.
"The farebox is here and they'd have to get past both of us. So fare evasion drops to basically zero when we're on the bus," Officer Brendan Dougherty said. "Most people are just here to ride a bus, they pay, and they're not a problem."
From what CBS Philadelphia saw, Dougherty's assessment was pretty true. Most people who rode the Route 18 with us on Wednesday morning got on the bus ready to pay their $2.50. The officers did have to give a few reminders to some passengers, and one woman who was initially stopped just needed a second to put her bags down.
"It's not like 'Stop! Don't get on.' Sometimes they have to sit down and get their belongings, and we have to understand that's how the flow of it works sometimes," Officer Nicholas Epps said.
Still, there were plenty of people we saw turned away at the doors.
"Gotta pay your fare," Epps said to one young man, who simply turned around and walked off.
Dougherty talked with another man in the doorway during one stop.
"I just said, make sure you have your fare ready. And he said he didn't have it. He didn't argue, just said, all right, never mind," Dougherty said.
Officers Brendan Dougherty and Nicholas Epps riding a SEPTA bus as a part of the agency's fare evasion task force program.
CBS News Philadelphia
The officers say they also try to be nimble, hopping from bus to bus as they work their shifts. Epps says if everything looks good on the bus they're riding, they may get off at a stop and catch another bus going a different way. Epps says they try to send a message that they could be anywhere at any time.
"It's like an omnipresence where like, I might not be on this bus, but you do know we ride the bus. And when you get at the bus stop, you don't know if we're going to be on the bus or not," Epps said. "So why would you not come to the bus with your fare?"
We saw it firsthand during our ride-along as we hopped buses with the officers and headed back toward Olney.
In all, CBS Philadelphia saw around 10 people stop from getting on the bus without paying, far from the majority who rode the route with us. But that's still about 10 people in one hour on one route. Spread that across SEPTA's vast network of buses, trains and trolleys, leaders say the losses mount fast.
"It is a large sum of money," SEPTA Police Chief Chuck Lawson said. "In the millions. In the multiple millions. Could be as high as $30 million."
The crackdown comes as SEPTA faces a $213 million budget shortfall. The agency has already released plans for massive service cuts and fare hikes if more money doesn't come from the state government, a topic that's sparked controversy for the last two years in Harrisburg.
While stopping fare evasion won't fully fund that budget gap, every dollar counts for the transit authority right now, and Lawson says they'll be focused on making sure people pay.
"At some station you attend, you're going to see cops there," Lawson said. "We're going to be enforcing the fare pretty heavily."
Lawson said the task force will use data and focus on the routes that are seeing the highest levels of fare evasion. The chief also doesn't believe the task force will impact SEPTA's ability to keep an eye on the rest of its services. He says their officer recruitment and retainment has remained good, and force levels are at their highest in around 12 years.
On the bus, the officers say enforcement is only one part of what they do. It's also about changing a culture in which some people think paying is optional.
"We try to put that in people's heads that if it's anytime to start paying, it's today," Epps said. "We gotta get in the custom that this is not a free service, people have to pay their fare."
For drivers like Cooper, having the officers on board also brings a sense of safety to their daily rides.
"It definitely would make not only me feel better, but the ridership feel better also," Cooper said. "There's a lot going on on these buses, especially where we are right now, Broad and Olney. There's a lot going on. So seeing a police presence will definitely make a difference."
Lawson says there is no timetable for how long the task force will run and that SEPTA could move officers around the system to where they are most needed.
