MTA: Fare evasion crackdown helped boost revenue

The New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s (MTA) fare revenue rose to $5 billion in 2024 from $4.7 billion in 2023, due to ridership growth and a crackdown on fare evasions.

Last week, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul outlined MTA’s efforts over the past two years to prevent fare evasion and make it easier to pay fares. Fare compliance directly impacts the MTA’s operations, as 40% of the operating budget comes from fares and tolls, said MTA officials in a press release.

The MTA has been reducing evasion through turnstile modifications, installations of delayed egress on emergency exits and the deployment of gate guards. Ninety percent of turnstiles have been reconfigured to prevent riders from squeezing through without paying; 100% will be reconfigured by summer this year, MTA officials said.

More than 200 stations have been assigned guard gates, and those stations have reported a 36% reduction in fare evasion. At gates with delayed egress, there has been a 10% drop in total fare evasion since installation. The MTA plans to expand delayed egress from 70 stations to 150 stations by the end of 2025.

The authority will also begin testing different vendors’ modern fare gates across 20 stations this fall, and has shortlisted Conduent, Cubic, Scheidt & Bachmann and STraffic as potential vendors.

Also, the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North Railroad have adopted an onboard invoice policy, in which riders must provide a valid ID to be issued an invoice if they don't have a ticket. Since that effort was implemented in June 2024, there have been 66% fewer invoices issued on the LIRR. Gating is also now a permanent program on the commuter railroads.