Tackling Fare Evasion in Transantiago: An Integrated Approach

In 2012, Santiago de Chile’s Transantiago public transit system recorded a staggering 27.7% average fare evasion rate, over 23 percentage points above the industry average and nearly five points higher than the previous year. Chile’s Ministry of Communications and Transport renegotiated the terms of the original contracts with Transantiago’s private operators in the first half of 2012. The new contract transferred the financial risk of fare evasion almost completely to the operators and incorporated incentives to maintain or reduce the rigorously measured evasion rate. Operator-implemented fare control strategies led to an 8% decrease in evasion by December 2012, but evasion increased again in March, 2013 to 21.5%. Achieving behavioral change and a sustained reduction in fare evasion requires a comprehensive solution that tackles not only the physical and technological enablers of evasion but also the cultural and political ones. This work proposes an integrated solution to tackle fare evasion in Transantiago based on strong collaboration between Transantiago and the private operators and built on international best practices that can be adapted and applied to the particular context and culture under which Transantiago operates. Legal modifications, economic incentives, quality of service improvements, and better communication are all key components necessary to achieve a cultural transformation of the system’s collective perception, which ultimately determines whether users value the service enough to pay the fare.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AP030 Public Transportation Marketing and Fare Policy.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Torres-Montoya, Mariana
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 93rd Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC
  • Date: 2014-1-12 to 2014-1-16
• Date: 2014

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: References;
• Pagination: 16p
• Monograph Title: TRB 93rd Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Fare collection; Incentives; Public transit; Quality of service; Transit operators
• Candidate Terms: Fare evasion
• Identifier Terms: Transantiago
• Geographic Terms: Chile
• Subject Areas: Administration and Management; Finance; Policy; Public Transportation; I10: Economics and Administration;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01519781
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 14-4641
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Mar 26 2014 10:11AM