Report says fare evasion cost Saskatoon transit less than 1 per cent of total revenue over past 2 years

Thousands of people skipped bus fares in Saskatoon over the past two yearleading to more than $90,000 in lost fares, a city transportation committee heard on Tuesday, but municipalleaders say they are more concerned about how attempts to call out evasioncouldput riders and operators in unsafe situations.

Ward 1 Coun. Darren Hill put forward a motion in Augustasking for a look atunpaid fares on fixed-routebuses.Saskatoon Transit provided data to council's transportation committee on Tuesday.

The datasuggests that evaders composed about 0.3 per cent of ridership in 2021 and 0.5 per cent in 2022, less than the estimated four per cent recorded in Regina, according to the report.

That led to $24,500 in lost revenue in 2021 about 0.3 per cent of total budgeted revenue and another $67,800 in 2022 about 0.6 per cent of budgeted revenue the report said. It also estimated that fare boxes on buses not working may have lost as much as$165,000 in 2022, more than twice as much as evasion,but that Saskatoon Transit didn't track that data.

My concern is the possibility of incidents that could affect the safety of the operators or the transit riders.- David Kirton, Saskatoon city councillor

The data tracked fare evasion in 2021 and from Jan. 1 to Nov. 30 in 2022, and only includes data collected by drivers who noted fare evasion.

Councillors and Mayor Charlie Clark chimed in to say the revenue lost through fare evasion is not as important as the safety of drivers and other passengers, which could be threatened if a driver confronts an evader.

"My concern is not at all revenue, my concern is the possibility of incidents that could affect the safety of the operators or the transit riders," said David Kirton, the councillor for Ward 3.

According to the report, transit revenues are at 78 per cent of pre-COVID revenues, primarily due to decreased ridership.

Kirton was also concerned that bus tickets are no longer easily accessible at the Confederation Mall terminal, which is included in his ward,since the Safeway in the area closed.

"We have a little bit of work ahead of us in terms of making sure that tickets are available for transit riders," Kirton said.

"We have to meet them halfway if we want them not to evade the fare."

In both 2021 and 2022, the Confederation Mall terminal had the most recorded fare evasions, accounting for six per cent of all instances in 2021 and seven per cent in 2022. There were 1,447 instances of evasion at the terminalin 2022, 304 more than the second place location, the downtown south terminal.

The Saskatoon Transit team said it didn't have information on whether the lack of a ticket terminal in the area contributes to fare evasion.

Bus driver, rider safety to be considered in upcoming report

Terry Schmidt, general manager of transportation and construction, responded to Kirton's inquiry about bus operator and rider safety by stating that a report on the number of negative interactions between riders and operators is coming in the next couple months.

"Some of those incidences have been related to disputes on fare collection," Schmidt said.

Operators are not supposed to enforce fare payment beyond contacting a supervisor and, according to the report to the committee, Saskatoon Transit has not considered adding a fare enforcer position to their fleet.

Assault barriers for operators are being installed in the Saskatoon fleet and were originally scheduled to be completed by the end of January. That deadline has been pushed into April.