Chicago Transit System Fooled By Federal ID Cards 196
New submitter johnslater writes "The Chicago Transit Authority's new 'Ventra' stored-value fare card system has another big problem. It had a difficult birth, with troubles earlier this fall when legitimate cards failed to allow passage, or sometimes double-billed the holders. Last week a server failure disabled a large portion of the system at rush hour. Now it is reported that some federal government employee ID cards allow free rides on the system. The system is being implemented by Cubic Transportation Systems for the bargain price of $454 million."
What's wrong with Tokens? (Score:5, Interesting)
Why are all cities moving from easy-to-use tokens to these expensive, complicated systems?
Re:$454 million?? (Score:4, Interesting)
People like to rag on China's rampant corruption and how their high speed rail minister got jailed for skimming $ millions.
Well, at least they have a functioning high speed rail. USA is just as corrupt, I guess Chicago politics especially, and unlike the Chinese we're left with nothing valuable at the end of the day.
Could this be streamlined? (Score:5, Interesting)
I just now hopped over to the CTA website and checked out their budget [transitchicago.com].
In broad terms, they take in about $650 million from fares, $650 million in public funding (from taxes), and an operating budget of $1.3 billion.
Hypothetically speaking, what would the budget be if they eliminated fares? The budget doesn't break out the expenses in a way to examine this (at least - I couldn't find it), but it would eliminate a big chunk of the expenses. Not only are there turnstyles and fare sellers, but collection and counting of the money, maintenance on the styles and ticket machines, and so on. Even the financial cost of maintaining a bank account and driving the money to the bank for deposit could be eliminated.
On the flip side, a person making $15/hr delayed by waiting in line at the turnstyle or purchasing tokens/tickets loses $0.25 worth of time for each minute of delay. A commuter would lose this much twice a day, and the loss would be more valuable if the commuter made more money.
And this change would benefit poor people the most. It's an efficient way to preferentially give them the benefit of a public service.
It seems like a more efficient method might be to eliminate the fares and increase public support to cover the difference. The net gain in customer time plus eliminating the fare network might be more than the increase in taxes. Just eliminating the fare mechanisms alone might reduce expenses enough to cover the loss of revenue.
Has anyone looked into this?
Re:What's wrong with Tokens? (Score:4, Interesting)