New York City is using AI to measure how much people hate paying for subway tickets

[Alfonso Maruccia]

A hot potato: AI algorithms can do much more than generate garbled, unreliable text snippets and eerily repulsive synthetic images. In fact, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is already employing the tech to understand how much fare evasion is impacting the New York City subway service.

According to the May 2023 report published by the MTA on ticket evasion, people unwilling to pay their fair share to use New York's subway system are costing the city nearly $700 million in lost revenues. This fare evasion is essentially threatening the future of the public transit system, the MTA said, which in turn would "tear at the social fabric" of the most densely populated urban conglomerate in the US.

Numbers don't lie, and they come from an AI system created by the Spanish company AWAAIT. The software was originally developed for the Barcelona subway network, but it is seemingly working well enough for New York as well. MTA began testing AWAAIT's tech in 2020, and it is now employing it in seven different subway stations to track fare evasion on a continuous basis.

The AI-assisted software compares the number of unpaid entries with the number of paid entries that were previously recorded by the system. The technology can operate 24 hours per day, every day of the week, MTA said, so it can also provide detailed data about the time of the day when the largest spike in fare evaders is recorded.

The largest number of non-paying passengers is seemingly detected between 3 and 4 PM, MTA said, with smaller spikes happening during the morning rush hours. More than 50% of fair evasions consist of people simply going through the emergency gate, the transportation authority stated, while 20% of evaders prefer to jump or "climb" over the turnstile. Furthermore, 16% of passengers are skinny enough to slip through the gaps, and 12% duck under the turnstile.

Despite being a "threatening" phenomenon for the future of New York's most popular transportation system, the MTA remarked how fare evaders are not individually tracked by their AI-assisted system. The technology is used to quantify the amount of fare evasion and it does not provide any information for NYPD investigations, the authority said.

Nevertheless, MTA is planning to expand the use of AI algorithms to monitor fare evasion in 30 more subway stations by the end of the year. Data provided by the aforementioned algorithms will be employed to inform future policy-making decisions against artful ticket dodgers. The Barcelona subway system is already using AWAAIT's AI to assist law enforcement authorities in catching fair evasion, but New York is seemingly uninterested in this additional capability.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/99511-new-york-city-using-ai-measure-how-much.html

 

[ScottSoapbox]

“16% of passengers are skinny enough to slip through the gaps”

Obesity problem solved: free subway rides. lol.

 

[ScottSoapbox]

You don't need to add creepy surveillance to identify and hunt down evaders.

Simply pay cops to stand next to turnstile during the peak times the current (much less invasive) system identified. This will either easily pay for itself or demonstrate that the evaders actually can't afford the subway (if the evaders don't ride instead of paying). It's likely the former and $700M could hire many cops and still have profits left over.

 

[yRaz]

You don't need to add creepy surveillance to identify and hunt down evaders.

Simply pay cops to stand next to turnstile during the peak times the current (much less invasive) system identified. This will either easily pay for itself or demonstrate that the evaders actually can't afford the subway (if the evaders don't ride instead of paying). It's likely the former and $700M could hire many cops and still have profits left over.

Most people don't want to pay because new York doesn't want to pay tonfix their failing subway system. It could probably cost more to have a cop stand next to the turn style than actually fix the transit line

 

[Julnor]

“16% of passengers are skinny enough to slip through the gaps”

Obesity problem solved: free subway rides. lol.

Obesity is a red state problem. Large liberal cities have always been fit. Especially NYC and LA, where the fashion and acting industries are.

 

[Vanderkaum037]

Can we call these people what they are and stop making excuses for them? Turnstile jumpers are thieves. Hardworking, good people of New York City are paying their fares like good honest people and these thieves are making a mockery of them and rule of law in general.

 

[ZackL04]

“16% of passengers are skinny enough to slip through the gaps”

Obesity problem solved: free subway rides. lol.

That and a 12 pack of coke is now $9!!

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Can we call these people what they are and stop making excuses for them? Turnstile jumpers are thieves. Hardworking, good people of New York City are paying their fares like good honest people and these thieves are making a mockery of them and rule of law in general.

Being a thief is A-OK in cities now. You may have missed the latest programming update. So long as you do not commit violent crime, cities have essentially gutted their law enforcement services, and their DAs wont prosecute if they are arrested anyway.

Guys muh red/blue sides!

STFU

You don't need to add creepy surveillance to identify and hunt down evaders.

Simply pay cops to stand next to turnstile during the peak times the current (much less invasive) system identified. This will either easily pay for itself or demonstrate that the evaders actually can't afford the subway (if the evaders don't ride instead of paying). It's likely the former and $700M could hire many cops and still have profits left over.

That would not only be a major waste of everybody's time, since there will be no prosecution, but you also will need to take resources from the already strained "de funded" enforcement to do this. And of course it will take 0.5 seconds for someone to turn it into a new media shatstorm to make everything even worse for the rest of us.

Better idea, how about NYC fix its violent crime problem before worrying about ticket jumpers?

 

[toooooot]

First thing that comes to mind when I hear about NY subway is not the tickets but crazy people.
I bet that even if NY turns into a war zone, people in charge will keep coming up with great tech and decor ideas to make it better.

 

[Bobbydpue]

I wouldn't want to pay for a train system that's always broken, either. People got tired of it and the BS from the city.

 

[Freddie159]

I wouldn't want to pay for a train system that's always broken, either. People got tired of it and the BS from the city.

So why are they still riding it for free?

 

[ScottSoapbox]

That would not only be a major waste of everybody's time, since there will be no prosecution, but you also will need to take resources from the already strained "de funded" enforcement to do this.

You aren't following. It wouldn't take any resources away as the police would be paid by the subway out of the ticket money from people no longer riding free. (I.e., the $700 million in lost revenue).

And of course it will take 0.5 seconds for someone to turn it into a new media shatstorm to make everything even worse for the rest of us.

What???

 

[ScottSoapbox]

Obesity is a red state problem. Large liberal cities have always been fit. Especially NYC and LA, where the fashion and acting industries are.

LOL. What? You think those cities are fit because 0.01% of the population are aspiring actors and models?

By that logic all red states are fit because they are rural and therefore hard working farm hands. SMH.

 

[ScottSoapbox]

Most people don't want to pay because new York doesn't want to pay tonfix their failing subway system. It could probably cost more to have a cop stand next to the turn style than actually fix the transit line

You aren't following. It wouldn't cost more as the police would be paid by the subway out of the ticket money from people no longer riding free. (I.e., the $700 million in lost revenue).

 

[yRaz]

You aren't following. It wouldn't cost more as the police would be paid by the subway out of the ticket money from people no longer riding free. (I.e., the $700 million in lost revenue).

You aren't following, the new York subway system has been in a state of disrepair for nearly 20 years. Trains frequently breakdown and get stuck. People are fed up paying for a service when they aren't receiving that service. New York had a chance, many times, to fix their subway network, they did not. They diverted those funds to other places and misspent them. This isn't a case of "people are just jumping the turncell" it's a case of "we've been paying exorbitant fairs for decades and it wasn't spent to fix the rail system"

 

[ScottSoapbox]

You aren't following, the new York subway system has been in a state of disrepair for nearly 20 years. Trains frequently breakdown and get stuck. People are fed up paying for a service when they aren't receiving that service. New York had a chance, many times, to fix their subway network, they did not. They diverted those funds to other places and misspent them. This isn't a case of "people are just jumping the turncell" it's a case of "we've been paying exorbitant fairs for decades and it wasn't spent to fix the rail system"

But they are receiving a service or they wouldn't be jumping the turnstile. It obviously isn't broken enough to not use it.

Just because a cabbie ripped you off, doesn't make it alright to stop paying for any cabs you use.

 

[yRaz]

But they are receiving a service or they wouldn't be jumping the turnstile. It obviously isn't broken enough to not use it.

Just because a cabbie ripped you off, doesn't make it alright to stop paying for any cabs you use.

Do you use new York city transit? For as many times as I've been there I cannot say I've ever had a positive experience with it. I'm not saying I support what they're doing, just that I understand. I'd also like NYC to answer what happened to the billions of dollars they've made off of it over the years and failed to maintain it. I'm not against holding the jumpers accountable but we also need to hold NYC accountable, too. If I lose a contract because I get stuck on a train, who pays for that?