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AI Software

NYC Subway Using AI To Track Fare Evasion 61

Posted by BeauHD from the smile-you're-on-camera dept.
According to NBC News, New York City is using surveillance software with artificial intelligence to track people evading fares in its subway stations. From the report: The system was in use in seven subway stations in May, according to a report on fare evasion published online by the Metropolitan Transit Authority, which oversees New York City's public transportation. The MTA expects that by the end of the year, the system will expand by "approximately two dozen more stations, with more to follow," the report says. The report also found that the MTA lost $690 million to fare evasion in 2022. Joana Flores, an MTA spokesperson, said the AI system doesn't flag fare evaders to New York police, but she declined to comment on whether that policy could change.

Tim Minton, the MTA's communications director, said the system tracks fare evasion to figure out how much money the subway isn't collecting. "We're using it essentially as a counting tool," Minton said. "The objective is to determine how many people are evading the fare and how are they doing it." Minton said the videos are stored on the MTA's servers and are kept "for a limited period." New York Gov. Kathy Hochul's office announced last year that the city's transit systems had more than 10,000 surveillance cameras.
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NYC Subway Using AI To Track Fare Evasion More

NYC Subway Using AI To Track Fare Evasion

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  • Why? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tailhook ( 98486 ) on Thursday July 20, 2023 @07:53PM (#63703232)

    Are we pretending NYC will actually prosecute someone? Inevitably a POC that jumps to "feed his family?"

    Suckers.

    The city "leaders" will get nice kickbacks for the contract, and the only impact on NYC will be the fare hikes rationalized by the excess ridership measured by this new "AI" system.

    • Re:Why? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by quenda ( 644621 ) on Thursday July 20, 2023 @08:25PM (#63703270)

      Why is this such a problem? Other cities seem to have it solved.
        Instead of turnstiles, have ticket inspectors, aka conductors or security guards.
      If you "forgot" to pay, you pay a penalty. Nobody is accused of any crime. Nobody has to run or fight.
      NYC already has contactless smart-card ticketing, so random but frequent inspecting could be an efficient process.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by DarkOx ( 621550 )

        Turn styles are not paid a salary. By the time you have enough additional conductors, inspectors, and security guards task with fare evasion prevention in addition to those needed for operations and safety you'll eat up a lot of that $690mil in loss with your cost of loss prevention.

        So yes that is the way other places have solved it because 'people' were the solution we had, but that does not mean there are not better answers. Additional as a passenger having the conductor 'papers please' you frequently i

        • Yeah..'cause it would be a damned shame if the missing funds were collected and then used to pay some additional workers honest wages. Sorry, but I still see that as a gain even if the net financial gain for the MTA is 0.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by DarkOx ( 621550 )

            Yeah, we would not want to have resources to pay skilled workers to do things like perform maintenance on carriages and tractors, or have money to improve facilities, clean things more often, update rider experiences with interactive maps etc - hell no we should pay some mouth breathers to stand around and look at ticket stubs.

      • Other cities have it solved where? Europe? Certainly not solved in SF. Also seems to be a growing problem in UK.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by quenda ( 644621 )

          Other cities have it solved where? Europe? Certainly not solved in SF. Also seems to be a growing problem in UK.

          My recent observation is in Asia and Australia. I was simplifying of course, but I hope the idea was clear. You can't post an essay for a comment.
          Barriers are still common, but where I live we have a mixed system. Some stations have barriers, but they are only used for smart-cards, and you can go around, where your ticket may be checked. Checks are frequent enough to be a strong incentive to pay.

    • What is the point of complaining specifically about people of color breaking the law? Are you saying that white people don't evade fares, or that they are disproportionately prosecuted for it? Please tell everyone about the corrupt "leaders" you are complaining about, and the use of "AI" in measuring ridership [scare quotes in original]. Your post is a bunch of stuff you imagined and then got mad about and I find it interesting.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Why is there a fee to access an essential service?

      NYC citizens pay taxes. The service should be free for residents and a boon to tourism.

      • Same reason people without cars donâ(TM)t pay a gas tax. People who donâ(TM)t own homes donâ(TM)t pay property tax.

        You should only pay for a service if you use the service. Having people in Buffalo pay for NYCâ(TM)s failing subway system makes zero sense.

        • People who donâ(TM)t own homes donâ(TM)t pay property tax.

          You should only pay for a service if you use the service. Having people in Buffalo pay for NYCâ(TM)s failing subway system makes zero sense.

          Renters pay the property taxes, unless you think the home/building owners eat that fee and lose money?

        • The 30% of people who do not drive in this country pay both in money and in health for people who drive.

          The gas tax does not even remotely cover the externalities and hidden costs of driving (infrastructure, land use, bad air quality, drinking water contamination, oil extraction mess, suburban sprawl, asthma, highways destroying neighborhoods, sedentary lifestyles, etc.).

          In almost all cases, it is the dense walkable cities that are forced to pay for sprawl.

          Reference Suburban Nation by Duany et. al.

    • Jumping the turnstile at the subway is only a small percentage of the problem in NYC.

      About 700,000 bus riders do not pay the fare on an average weekday. Skipping the fare on buses is as easy as stepping aboard without paying or dropping less than the full cost of a ride in the farebox. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/0... [nytimes.com]

      Additionally there may be some validity to the perception that POC are the main culprits:

      Arrests and summonses for fare evasion have disproportionately fallen on Black and Latino New Yorkers,

  • SMH (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bento ( 19178 ) on Thursday July 20, 2023 @07:56PM (#63703234) Homepage
    Okay so is the amount of money being spent here more or less than the amount of money fare evasion is costing the NYC MTA more or less than the money being spent trying to track and dissuade evaders? Maybe we should just stop all this foolishness and just make public transit free to the end user and manage the cost of running it through taxes. I'm not even a regular rider anymore (but used to be) and dealing with paying and the slowdowns related to paying were constantly making the bus late which just made riding it that much more of a pain. We just had a story about this a couple weeks ago too: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/23/07/09/1847221/should-public-buses-be-free [slashdot.org].

    • Re:SMH (Score:5, Interesting)

      by quenda ( 644621 ) on Thursday July 20, 2023 @08:37PM (#63703294)

      just make public transit free to the end user

      Or make it free except peak hours. That would help smooth out the load, and retain a big chunk of the revenue, but increase usage at under-utilised times when the marginal operating cost is next to zero.
      Would free travel create social problems that don't already exist? You might still need to require smart-card for entry at the station, and limit time.

    • Or the amount of money being spent on fancy new AI vs putting that money into repairs and cleaning the stations so people would actually want to ride a train. Taxing people who don't ride the subway already happens. I moved out of NYC because I didn't like how they were spending my tax dollars, for one. Also I felt like a target on the train; I never ever felt "safe" but after the pandemic it was a much different story: the homeless and crazies took their territory and weren't giving it back. Keeping your
  • We expect our politicians and industry leaders to be honest and then, a little fare evasion here, steal some fancy cheese at the deli there and next thing you know society is crumbling down around your ears.

  • You wouldn't download a subway ride! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by kmoser ( 1469707 ) on Thursday July 20, 2023 @08:32PM (#63703278)

    The report also found that the MTA lost $690 million to fare evasion in 2022.

    No, they didn't, just as the software industry didn't lose $million to piracy. They've just calculated what a fare-evader would have paid them in the ideal scenario. In reality, fining and jailing fare evaders does little to turn them into fare-paying citizens. Most of them will either continue to evade paying, or find an alternate method of transit, neither of which adds more revenues to the city's coffers.

    Better to use that research money to improve your shoddy service.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I'd say it's a little different, since they do take up a physical spot that another rider may have paid for.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by kmoser ( 1469707 )
        In the rare event that an entire subway train is filled to capacity, those riders who can't get on just wait a few minutes for the next one.

  • Other systems have solved this (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jonwil ( 467024 ) on Thursday July 20, 2023 @08:47PM (#63703302)

    Other systems (e.g. London) have solved this by having fare gates that are tall enough so you can't jump over them and (especially at stations where fare evasion is a problem) having staff to check that you aren't trying to avoid the fare (including people using a concession or special ticket/pass they aren't entitled to use)

    Why can't NYC install new gates that can't be jumped over and hire some ticket inspectors/security guards to do checks at stations and on trains?

    Combine that with fines for anyone caught fare evading (fines that go straight back into the budget for the NYC subway) and there wont be a problem anymore.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by kmoser ( 1469707 )
      Retrofitting every turnstile in the NYC subway system would be prohibitively expensive, not to mention time consuming.

      Hiring staff to check for fare evasion is also extremely expensive. It would also slow things down tremendously, especially during rush hour.

      Fines for fare evaders only help if they actually pay the fine. If you threaten them with jail, you're just adding to the burden of over-populated prisons, which will only cost the city more money.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by schwit1 ( 797399 )

        Do it where fare jumping is most prevalent.

        • Agreed. The should do a study to see where fare jumping is more prevalent ...

          • I get the joke, but the reality is even better. In "The City That Became Safe" (Zimring) the author proves that NYC became safe because of a) targeted enforcement in /certain/ high crime areas, and b) CompStat computerized policing.

            • I'm mostly amused that I saw other people making arguments that amounted to two conflicting positions: Why won't the government do anything? / Why is the government wasting money on studying the problem?

              I think a combination of good processes and a methodical approach that may include adopting new technology is the right way out of these sorts of social problems we face today.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by kmoser ( 1469707 )
            As soon as they institute stronger security at those stations, you can be sure fare evasion will increase in the stations where it was previously less prevalent.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by jezwel ( 2451108 )

        Retrofitting every turnstile in the NYC subway system would be prohibitively expensive, not to mention time consuming.

        These things don't last forever, so they're gathering data now to determine if it's worth doing anything about it when each station undergoes a refit. Apparently 50 are due this year alone.

        https://new.mta.info/press-release/mta-announces-another-thirteen-stations-be-refurbished-part-of-new-york-city-transits

        • MTA properly keeping stations up? Look at the date!

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by kmoser ( 1469707 )
          At the rate of 50 per year, it will take nearly 10 years to retrofit all 472 stations. That means years before they've made a significant dent in reducing fare evasion via more secure entry gates.

      • Cheaper than fancy AI cameras though surely?

      • I'm not sure it's so expensive it'd be prohibitive. Didn't someone in the US (writing here as a Brit) suggest build an unscalable wall along the entire length of a border with another country. What's a few thousand turnstile gates?

    • I was thinking the exact same thing. Estimating losses in the hundreds of millions but not willing to provide better "customer service" in the form of feet on the ground to prevent such activity?

      So instead, let's get a bunch of cameras and face ID tech and not use it to really do anything but identify people (which is what it does anyway).

      Yep, it's for lining other people pockets. Just follow the money, every time.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DarkOx ( 621550 )

      all good until people get trapped in fire or flood or something. Having gates its possible to bypass is actually a feature. At least it was in the original design.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      Other systems (e.g. London) have solved this by having fare gates that are tall enough so you can't jump over them and (especially at stations where fare evasion is a problem) having staff to check that you aren't trying to avoid the fare (including people using a concession or special ticket/pass they aren't entitled to use)

      Why can't NYC install new gates that can't be jumped over and hire some ticket inspectors/security guards to do checks at stations and on trains?

      Combine that with fines for anyone caught fare evading (fines that go straight back into the budget for the NYC subway) and there wont be a problem anymore.

      I largely agree with the gist of your post but no system is perfect. I've used the barriers that are too tall to jump over (most tube stations won't have them, let alone the hundreds of other railway stations across the UK) and most control gates will be a little bit above waist height, in fact most railway stations won't even have them. I've used the full body ones in Amsterdam and the fare evaders have just adopted to tailgating people through.

      To deter fare evaders there is nothing as effective as a bl

  • You cannot exist in cities without either using or benefiting from transportation. Passenger rail should be tax funded and as free as the sidewalk.

    Automobilists win bigly with fewer vehicles on the streets and should be fucking delighted as I would be if I still lived there.

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