HOW FARE POLICY INNOVATIONS AND SKILLED MARKETING YIELDED UNPRECEDENTED GAINS FOR MTA NEW YORK CITY TRANSIT

New York City Transit is one of the oldest and is the largest subway and bus system in the United States and the fifth largest in the world. It operates 24-hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days per year. During the 1990's the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA), NYC Transit's parent company, faced a formidable challenge. The bus and subway systems employed a token-based fare collection system that was outmoded, inflexible and subject to fare abuse. Complicating factors included the city's vast subway infrastructure (488 stations) dating from 1904, a fleet of over 4,000 buses, more than five million demanding daily subway and bus customers, and a generally negative public perception of transit service. It was the system its customers loved to hate. Paradoxically, customers considered the fare medium, the token, an icon, and a symbol of the city itself. This paper discusses how automated fare collection in the city improved public transit in New York City.