{"id":818981,"date":"2026-05-24T12:44:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T12:44:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/818981\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T12:44:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T12:44:07","slug":"fare-evasion-top-mta-official-says-agency-is-testing-european-enforcement-on-moving-buses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/818981\/","title":{"rendered":"Fare evasion: Top MTA official says agency is testing \u2018European\u2019 enforcement on moving buses"},"content":{"rendered":"

In piloting its \u201cEuropean\u201d model<\/a> of bus fare enforcement, the MTA will test handing out summonses while the vehicles are in motion, a top agency official said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

During a press Q&A following a May 20 MTA board meeting, NYC Transit President Demetrius Chrichlow updated reporters on the agency\u2019s pilot of handheld devices that check if bus riders paid with OMNY when hopping on board \u2014 issuing tickets to those found to have evaded the fare.<\/p>\n

The rollout is an effort to better enforce against rampant fare evasion on city buses as the MTA has shifted fully from the MetroCard to the OMNY tap-and-pay system. However, while MetroCard sales ceased at the end of 2025, the payment method is still accepted, as are coin payments on buses.<\/p>\n

The NYC Transit boss revealed that civilian fare agents \u2014 with the MTA\u2019s Evasion And Graffiti Lawlessness Eradication (EAGLE) Teams \u2014 will experiment with checking payments while buses are moving, in addition to their current model of doing so when the vehicles are stationary.<\/p>\n

\u201cPart of the pilot will be doing it while the bus is in motion as well as what it takes to take people off,\u201d Chrichlow said.\n<\/p>\n

The goal of the trial period is to gather data on both methods, he said.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cCan we do it successfully while the bus is in motion?\u201d Crichlow said. \u201cHow much time does it take with a person that\u2019s actually holding, taking the customer\u2019s identification, entering the information, and issuing the summons back? And how does that affect altogether the customers not yet on the bus?\u201d<\/p>\n

Chrichlow\u2019s comments come several months after MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber said the issue is being \u201cexamined\u201d by NYC Transit<\/a>, when asked if the summonses will be handed question by a reporter. The question is based on the notion that in European countries that use a similar form of fare enforcement, which Lieber has said this model is based upon, agents approach riders while the buses are in motion.<\/p>\n

Doing fare checks while buses are moving would in help mitigate against further slowing down the city\u2019s buses, which are already the slowest in the country. MTA brass has repeatedly said that speeding up city buses is a top priority for the agency and revealed on Wednesday that they plan to publish a report along with Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s Department of Transportation on how to do so.<\/p>\n

Brian Fritsch, associate director of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Council to the MTA advocacy group, said that it makes \u201ccomplete sense\u201d to conduct checks whilst buses are in motion.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that, riders are not going to appreciate being delayed to have their fare checks,\u201d Fritsch said. \u201cI think it makes complete sense to do it while the busses are moving and operating normally. And I hope that\u2019s the way, ultimately, that the vast majority of the checks are done.\u201d<\/p>\n

The NYC Transit boss\u2019 revelation comes after he last month said the MTA would finally begin deploying EAGLE teams, equipped with the handheld fare-payment checkers, onto local bus routes. Previously, the agency had only tested the technology on its Select Bus Service (SBS) lines.<\/p>\n

The devices, which include a scanning apparatus built around a smartphone, are being used by the EAGLE teams to\u00a0verify whether riders paid<\/a> by scanning OMNY cards, phones, or credit\/debit cards.\u00a0They then can issue a summons to fare beaters on the spot.<\/p>\n

However, Streetsblog reported<\/a> that the technology has malfunctioned in some cases, showing that riders had not paid even though they said they had. Riders in that situation have to go to a hearing<\/a> to prove they paid.<\/p>\n

The MTA says that fare evasion is an acute problem on its buses, as riders can duck on through the back door or scurry past the driver without tapping the OMNY readers. The agency lost $568 million in unpaid bus fares<\/a>\u00a0last year, according to a September\u00a0report from the Citizens Budget Commission watchdog group<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In piloting its \u201cEuropean\u201d model of bus fare enforcement, the MTA will test handing out summonses while the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":818982,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,288483,65400,336954,336955,336956,34311,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,31145,46352,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-818981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-brian-fritsch","tag-demetrius-crichlow","tag-eagle-teams","tag-european-fare-enforcement","tag-fare-evaders","tag-janno-lieber","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-transit","tag-pcac","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=818981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818981\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/818982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=818981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=818981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=818981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}