PSA shift to buses, coronavirus drive down Adelaide fare evasions
Fare evasions dropped as public transport policing stepped up, the minister says, with credit card checks and inspectors on buses key to putting the brakes on commuters after a free ride.
SA News
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Tougher policing has led to a large decrease in fare evasion on Adelaide’s public transport network.
The decrease started when, in 2017, the roles of passenger service assistants (PSAs) were extended from trains and trams to also work on Adelaide’s buses.
Recent COVID-19 restrictions accelerated the decline.
Transport Department figures revealed during 2017-18, there were 19,451 fare-evasion offences.
That compared to 18,102 in 2018-19 and 13,574 in 2019-20. Fare evasion by students almost halved between 2017-18 and 2018-19 – from 2034 to 1026. That dropped to 517 in the past financial year, because of COVID-19.
“Continuing to crackdown on fare evasion means we can put more money back into the public transport system and deliver better services for all South Australians,” Transport Minister Corey Wingard said.
“We’re also trialling an easier way to buy a ticket on our tram network with the rollout of tap-and-pay technology.”
That technology allows people to pay for fares via credit card.
“PSAs are out and about, and also monitoring credit card payments, and will issue fines to people caught attempting to get a free ride,” Mr Wingard said.
If a passenger tells an inspector they paid by credit or debit card, the inspector can verify the fare using only the last four numbers on the card.
They can be checked against online fare sales data without the inspector having access to the full card number or any other personal details.
The same applies to app numbers for payments done by smartphones.
Meanwhile, bad behaviour on public transport, unrelated to ticketing issues, continues, with police handing out fines for more minor incidents and criminal charges for more serious behaviour.
Police figures showed of the 150 people caught behaving badly on public transport in 2019-20, fines were most commonly issued for alcohol offences. In the past 12 months, 50 incidents of alcohol offences were recorded, followed by abusive behaviour, with 30 incidents. However, those numbers were well down on 2018-19, when far more people were using public transport.
In the previous year, 346 were people caught behaving badly on public transport; 126 of those related to alcohol offences and 56 were abusive behaviour.
Last financial year, another 139 people were caught smoking near public transport shelters. But, again because of COVID-19 lockdowns and restrictions, that number was significantly down on the 240 caught in 2018-19.