Comments on: Access Control on King County Metro Transit

By: chrislim

chrislim — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 01:14:53 +0000

Beyond the fare checking process, I heard that Transit Authorities lose alot of money due to employee theft. The farebox is not very secure and does have an audit trail of who opened it, so often times the person withdrawing the money from the box is able to pilfer without getting caught.

By: alpers

alpers — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 22:51:31 +0000

Thanks for your comments, all. I’ve had most of this floating around in my head for the past couple of years while relying on them for my main source of transportation and it’s nice to see some feedback on my thoughts about it.

Scott, I’m fairly certain that almost no bus routes (I’d be happy to see examples) actually pass through the ride-free zone. I think the 545, 522 may pass through it because they originate in deep SODO, but their terminus’ proximity to the ride-free zone pretty much nullifies the cost argument, since it’s only about five blocks out.

Thanks for you comments too, Greg! I’d like to be a bus driver when I get older.

By: Resona

Resona — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 04:27:11 +0000

Hi Alpers,
Here you have given a detailed description of bus service in the king country. Really, those people who are looking for such type of information will benefited by this. I got a clear idea about their system of service. As we know everything varies from place to place, so we should have more or less idea about this.

By: Gregory Orr

Gregory Orr — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 07:29:56 +0000

Metro has created this problem, and Metro has to fix this problem. Metro also states daily “NO FARES DISPUTES” THE NEEDS OF THE MANY OUT WEIGH THE NEEDS OF FEW OR THE ONE. I focus on a safe smooth ride and the common sense to open all doors when the bus is crowed.

By: Scott Rose

Scott Rose — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 16:01:38 +0000

One security-related aspect of the way the transfer are length-coded isn’t mentioned but is interesting: rather counter-intuitively, the earlier in the day the transfer is torn, the shorter it is. That’s because a customer could shorten a transfer but cannot undetectably lengthen one. By coding the time of day this way, the customer cannot recode a transfer to appear to have been issued later than it really was.

Also, there is the concept of the ride-free zone that presents a security challenge to the transit provider. The need is to allow anybody anybody who boards and exits within the ride-free zone to do so without providing a fare; all others must. To avoid collecting fares at the boundary of the ride-free zone, the provider established the following policy: on any trip that originates within the zone, riders provide their fare as they exit. On any trip that originates outside the zone, as they enter. There is a slight downside to accepting fares as riders exit: they may prove unable to pay or display a document after riding. But the transit provider makes this tradeoff to simplify the handling of the ride-free zone. Not sure how trips are handled that originate and terminate outside the zone but pass through it.