Morse exact fare test - Internet Archive

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MORSE EXACT FARE TEST

PHASE I REPORT

December, 1987

Advanced Fare Collection Task Force

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F . Arndt

M. J. Daley

R. Desvignes

C. M. Gaca

T. A. Hocin

M. S. Pollack

J. C. Simonetti

D. Sipich

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Executive Summary

With the approval of the Chicago Transit Board, but withoutspecial funding, the CTA's Advanced Fare Collection Task Forceconducted a test of rapid transit exact fare at Morse,North-South Station, beginning August 3, 1986 and ending March20, 1987. Major support of the Morse Test was provided by Task.Force member divisions Engineering and Maintenance; Operations;Finance; and Planning, Marketing, and Development, under theiroperating budgets.

The purpose of the test was to obtain information and experiencefrom which to develop an exact fare system for the stations ofthe Southwest Transit Project and prepare specifications for theequipment needed to operate it.

Conclusions

1. CTA rapid transit riders will accept exact fare andadjust to it, provided the most convenient currency units(including dollar bills) can be used for payment.

2. Fare collection equipment currently available is notsuitable for application as a rapid transit agent exactfare receiver.

3. Automatic bill-verifying machines currently availableoff-the-shelf are not configured properly for CTA transituse.

4. The automatic turnstiles now used by the CTA are notreliable enough to be trusted by most riders who coulduse them.

5. Development and testing of new fare collection equipmentand procedures without dedicated funding should beavoided, if possible.

Recommendations

1. Establish a policy of exact fare on the CTA rapid transitas a step in the transition to fully automated farecollection.

2. Fund a project to identify or develop and test exact farereceiving equipment suitable for use by CTA rapid transitagents

.

3. Fund a program to convert all CTA rapid transit stationsto exact fare.

4. Establish and pursue a policy goal of processing as manyrapid transit fare classes as practical, until allstation entries are controlled automatically, understation attendent supervision.

Introduction

In May 1985, formation of the Advanced Fare Collection Task Forcewas authorized by the Executive Director. Its purpose was toestablish an interdepartmental committee to provide direction andadvancement for the design of fare control facilities andequipment throughout the CTA system. The goals of the Task Forcewere identified as follows:

1. To review the CTA's existing rapid transit fare controlequipment and the advancement possibilities available, forapplication to the Southwest Transit Project and stationrehabilitation projects.

2. To facilitate communication between the departments of theAuthority which are involved in the planning, design, andoperation of fare collection equipment.

3. To provide a standing committee able to evaluate the effectsof proposals, such as a change in fare structure, on thefare collection system, and to provide design solutions tooperating problems.

At the first Task Force meeting on May 30, 1985, members wereasked to prepare a list of the aspects of the existing farecollection system that their departments wished to be improved,to be submitted for discussion at the^ next meeting.

The improvements requested by the Task Force included thefollowing:

1. Exact fare - agents not handling fares.

2. More reliable fare class registers, agent-controlledturnstiles, and automatic turnstiles.

3. Increased use of automatic fare collection and fare vendingequipment.

4. Electronic security monitoring for passengers and equipment,including CCTV.

5. A maintenance program for fare collection and fare vendingequipment, generating systematic equipment maintenance andlife cycle data.

6. Improved communications, to accommodate transmission ofrevenue and traffic data and voice and video signals.

The Morse Exact Fare Test was undertaken by the Advanced FareCollection Task Force as a first step toward a new rapid transit

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station operating concept. It was prompted by a multiplicity ofproblems experienced by the Operations and Finance Departmentsresponsible for collecting, accounting for, and handling rapidtransit fare revenues under the present system. A description ofthe present fare collection system and a discussion of itsproblem areas is included as Appendix 'B'.

The urgency for the Morse Test arose from the planning and designof an all-new rapid transit line, under the Southwest TransitProject, the equipment for which must include provisions foraccepting fares and controlling passenger access. Given thechoice between attempting to evolve the system so as to eliminateor minimize the problems of the present system, or to have thoseoperating problems perpetuated and extended, the Task Force choseto pursue improvement.

Because a consultant study to identify fare systems suitable forthe CTA among the many fare structure and technology options nowavailable is still in progress, the details of the next operating,system that will be chosen are far from certain. Nevertheless,the Task Force believes that some general aspects can be presumedand acted upon.

In the goal concept for fare collection developed by the TaskForce, each station fare-collection area would be supervised byan attendant. The duties of such an attendant would include thefollowing:

1. Overseeing the operation of automatic fare collection andfare vending equipment.

2. Providing travel information and other assistance topassengers.

3. Identifying and reporting maintenance defects of all kinds.

4. Maintaining security surveillance.

5. Performing light housekeeping tasks.

6. Issuing emergency transfers (or future equivalent).

Entering passengers would admit themselves throughelectronically-controlled turnstiles or other faregate devicesable to process all fare media in use, such as coins, tokens,transfers, passes, farecards, and reduced fare identificationcards. Attendants would not make change or handle money for thepayment of individual fares, but might vend prepaid fare media.

The Task Force recognized that though a distance-based faresystem would be required to achieve a policy goal of relatingfares to the cost and value of CTA transit services, such asystem could not be put into place quickly, even if one had beenselected and developed. In addition to the limited funding thatwill be available each year for new fare control equipment, the

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lack of space to accommodate the equipment of a distance-basedfare system in many stations would probably require ten or moreyears to correct. Under these conditions, the evolution of therapid transit fare collection system will have to proceed byincrements

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Short-range goals suggested by the Director, Rail Personnel, forthe test installation, and the means to pursue them considered bythe Task Force, were as follows:

Goal 1 . Develop methods to ensure that all rapid transit faresdue are received and retained.

Means: Provide reliable agent's fare register and displayequipment to maximize correct fare class registrationfor each passenger entry.

Provide equipment that enables secure acceptance,storage, and removal of agent-processed revenues.

Provide equipment that automatically counts farerevenues and keeps running totals of each agent'srevenue stream.

Goal 2. Reduce the responsibility of agents to process faretransactions

.

Means: Eliminate the handling of money by agents by requiringexact fare, and providing secure money receiving andstorage equipment.

Encourage increased utilization of prepaid fare media,i.e., passes and tokens, by increasing discount purchasesavings.

Encourage increased use of automatic turnstiles forentry by improving turnstile reliability and providingtoken vending machines and turnstile-acceptable passes.

Development of the Test

In order to develop an exact fare system for the stations of theSouthwest Transit Project, and prepare specifications for theequipment needed for it, the Task Force decided that anexact-fare station installation should be tested. This wouldenable the riding public's response to the "no-change" situation-to be observed, and would provide first-hand experience inoperating a station on an exact-fare basis.

Site Selection

The following criteria were used in the selection of a teststation:

Entering traffic above system average.

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2. Continuous agent coverage.

3. Approximately even distribution of cash fares andtransfers/passes

.

4. Station at ground level.

The Task Force's initial choice was Loyola/N-S, which served6,450 entering passengers per weekday in 1985, distributed 39%full cash, 4% reduced cash, 19% transfers, and 38% passes.However, it was soon recognized that installing exact-fareequipment in the new stainless steel clad booth would be undulydestructive to the booth, as well as expensive, and that there isinsufficient available space in which a suitably locatedtemporary exact-fare agent enclosure could be erected.

Morse/N-S was then considered. In 1985, Morse weekday enteringtraffic was distributed 44% full cash, 7% reduced cash, 13%transfers, and 36% passes. It was noted that though totalentering passengers per weekday at Morse were 1,200 fewer than atLoyola, those paying cash were only 150 fewer per day. The old,wood agent booth at the Morse entrance was felt to be easilyalterable to install exact fare equipment. The station room,though awkwardly arranged, was judged roomy enough to accommodateadditional equipment, if needed.

The Task Force also felt that the morning rush-hour-onlysecondary entrance from Lunt Avenue, where the agent couldcontinue to make change, would afford a reasonably convenientalternative for rush-hour passengers unable to muster exact fareto enter at Morse Avenue.

It was therefore decided to conduct a test of the exact fareconcept at Morse.

Equipment Selection

To assure that information from the test would become availablein time to be used in developing the Southwest fare collectionsystem, it was decided to divide the test into phases so it couldbe started as soon as possible. The first phase of the test wasplanned to adopt bus fareboxes for use as the agents' exact farereceivers, .since units were available. More satisfactoryexact-fare equipment would then be introduced in succeedingphases, as it was developed or became available, with theoriginal boxes retained as backup equipment.

The Task Force agreed that exact fare at rail stations should beexperienced by riders the same as on the buses. It was initiallyproposed to use the new bill-accepting, electronic GFI busfarebox as the agent's exact fare receiver in the test,registering fares either by remoting the farebox keypad to theagent's countertop, or by interfacing the farebox with a visifareregister console. When use of the GFI farebox was pursued,however, three major obstacles were encountered, as follows:

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1. Daily revenues received at the #1 agent position at Morsefar exceeded the cash storage of the farebox. Weekdayrevenues were usually above $1,500 per day, and occasionallyexceeded $2,000. Though the coin/token section of the GFIfarebox vault can hold $800-$l,000 in mixed coins andtokens, the paper money section (which relies solely on thejouncing motion of a bus to compact bills) can hold onlyabout 500 of them without jamming. Since many rapid transitfull fares were being paid with bills, the #1 agent'sfarebox would have to be collected at least three times perweekday, and twice each per Saturday and Sunday. To reducecollections to one per day would require modification tosubstantially increase bill storage capacity, even ifrevenues were more evenly distributed between the #1 and #2agent positions.

2. The configuration of functional elements in the GFI fareboxis unsuitable for agent use, as follows:

a. Two windows at the rear of the farebox enable the busoperator to view the items of currency deposited foreach cash fare, together with a digital display of theamount counted by the farebox. The windows extend morethan 12 inches below the top of the farebox, where thecoin drop and bill-receiving slots are located.Mounting a GFI farebox high enough that an agent ' s viewof the windows would not be obstructed by the agent '

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counter (top 44-1/2" to 45" above the station floor)would place the money slots too high for short patronsto see them.

b. In case of a fare payment dispute, a bus passenger canmove to the back of the farebox and view the moneydeposited and the total display. A passenger outsidean agent booth would not be able to see the back of afarebox mounted on, or within, the booth wall.

3. Modifying a new farebox prior to the expiration of itsmanufacturer ' s warranty period would void the warranty forthat unit, and would probably exempt the unit from thecontract with outside forces for maintaining all the GFI•fareboxes. If the CTA became obliged to maintain themodified GFI units in-house, a parts inventory would have tobe established and repairmen trained. Moreover, if amodified farebox could not be restored to its originalcondition after the test was completed, UMTA (Urban MassTransit Administration) , which funded the purchase andinstallation of the GFI fareboxes, would expect to bereimbursed for the loss of service life of the box.

It was therefore decided to pursue adapting units of the simplernon-registering, non-counting Duncan farebox, that had beenreplaced by the GFI design boxes, as the agent's receivingequipment for the first phase of the exact fare test. The •

advantages of using them were as follows:

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1. Many of the Duncan units were still on hand and available.

2. CTA forces had maintained the Duncan units, and wereintimately familiar with them. Replacement parts were onhand.

3. The units are simple and reliable. Two areas ofvulnerability to forced entry were felt to be correctable.

4. The design of the Duncan farebox, which has a glassenclosure over the inspection plate, is similar to that ofan earlier bus farebox that was successfully adapted forrapid transit use in the late 1970 's, as a means ofdeterring agent holdups. The farebox could be installed sothat both riders and agents would be able to view money onthe inspection plate.

5. The cashboxes of the Duncan units are the same as those ofthe automatic turnstiles in use, and could be collected bythe personnel who collect turnstile revenues, withoutadditional equipment.

The disadvantages of using modified Duncan fareboxes for the testwere identified as follows:

1. The boxes do not accept dollar (or larger) bills, whichwould probably be the medium of choice for most fullfare-paying riders, and some riders of other fare classes,to use for payment. Cash riders would have to be trained toarrive with correct change or tokens, or to use a pass.

2. The cashbox capacity is about $800 in mixed coins andtokens. Means of minimizing the number of daily cashboxpickups required would have to be employed. Scheduling theagent work positions so as to equalize the distribution ofrevenue between them, and encouraging full cash riders topurchase tokens and to use the automatic turnstiles forentry were suggested.

3. The fareboxes do not count money deposited, but only acceptand store it securely. Though not essential for a

one-station test, the capability to precisely quantify theamount of money in a cashbox when removed would provide animportant safeguard against theft by money-handlingemployees

.

Equipment Development

The Facilities Maintenance Department began developing the PhaseI exact fare equipment in November 1985. A full-size mockup ofthe west-facing agent position in the Morse booth was built, toaid in working out how the agent's farebox should be installed.(Later, the mockup became part of the fare collection assemblyused for training agents.) Modifications to the farebox and boothwere then developed, including provisions for depositing coins

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and tokens onto the inspection plate; dropping the inspectionplate electrically when a cash fare was registered on the agent'svisifare console; and removing the cashbox vault from outside thebooth for collection.

As the agents' fareboxes for the Morse Test were being prepared,an important operating factor for stations was altered. OnFebruary 9, 1986, the CTA fare structure was changed, including a10<t increase in rapid transit fares and increased charges fortransfer tickets. Full fare for the rapid transit became $1.00without transfer and $1.25 with, and passengers with a transferissued on a bus were required to pay the 10<t bus-rail faredifferential to enter a station. The costs full and reduced faremonthly passes were increased, and bi-weekly passes wereintroduced. At the same time, new transfer regulations were putinto effect, and a corresponding new format for transfer ticketswas introduced. For the two weeks after the fare change, cashrevenues received by the Morse agents were about 27% higher onweekdays than they had been the two weeks before, which renderedthe capacity limitation of the Phase I fareboxes still morecritical.

The higher fares not only enlarged the volume of cash received atstations, but increased the convenience of dollar bills forpaying full cash fares. The Task Force recognized that specialefforts would be needed to mitigate the inability of the Phase I

exact fare equipment to accept dollar bills, and planned topromote greater use of automatic turnstiles and maximum use oftokens and passes, so as to reduce the volume of coins receivedin the Morse fareboxes and minimize its weight. Arrangementswere made to install an automatic bill changing machine, at Morsein advance of the test. It was set up to vend tokens, tostimulate token use.

No modifications to the automatic turnstiles at Morse were neededfor the Test. However, to enhance reliability of the unitsduring testing. Facilities Maintenance pledged to give them extraattention.

Employee Instruction and Training

A prototype agent's exact fare installation, assembled from thefirst modified Duncan farebox, a visifare register console, andthe mockup of the Morse booth, was provided to the OperationsDivision for developing operating procedures and training agents.A bulletin describing how Morse agents were to operate during theTest was prepared and issued by Operations. Most of the agentswho could be assigned to work at Morse received familiarizationtraining on the mockup prior to the Test. Those who did not weretrained after testing had started, some on the mockup and some atMorse.

Public Relations

The first public announcement of the Test appeared in news media

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accounts of the July 2, 1986 meeting of the Chicago TransitBoard. In mid-July, copies of a standard letter announcing theTest were sent to all known neighborhood organizations in theMorse Station area, accompanied by copies of a leaflet about it.Press releases giving information about the Test were provided tocitywide and neighborhood newspapers.

During the week before the Test began, signs promoting it wereinstalled in the Morse Station. Beginning at that time, andduring the Test, copies of the leaflet, which contained an entryblank for a monthly drawing for free passes, were distributed toriders at Morse. Beginning in September 1986, CTA Public Affairsconducted drawings for the passes monthly throughout the Test.When the exact-fare equipment for Morse agents was installed onAugust 2 and 3, 1986, temporary information graphics were posted.They warned entering patrons of the exact fare requirement andidentified where the farebox payment slots were located. InOctober 1986, when rearrangements of the station equipment hadbeen completed, an entire new station graphics system wasinstalled. In addition to coordinated passenger directionsignage, a sign giving general information about the Test and thename and address of a person to whom written comments should besent was posted.

Data Collection

Since complete records of agent fare class registrations andrevenue are maintained in a Finance Department computer databank, it was decided to take agent data for the Test from it, tosave staff time. To provide daily turnstile traffic data,Finance agreed to collect revenue and record traffic data fromthe turnstiles at Morse each weekday, instead of three times perweek (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday), beginning one week beforethe Test. Later, it was decided to also take weekend turnstilereadings directly, rather than estimating Saturday and Sundaytraffic and revenue from each Monday's combined totals.

Start-Up Period

Phase I of the Exact Fare Test was begun on Sunday, August 3,1986. During the first two weeks of the test, start-up supportpersonnel were present each day, particularly during morning rushhours. They included supervisors, instructors, and change-makingconductors from the Operations Division; informationrepresentatives from Public Affairs and Operations Planning; andobservers from Operations, Finance, and Operations Planning.

After the second week, supporting personnel were present at Morseintermittently. Following the installation of a second machineto vend tokens from $1 and $5 bills, a manual change maker wasassigned only when the bill-accepting machines went out ofservice. (A dollar bill changing machine was also purchased andinstalled. ) Observation was reduced to monitoring weekday rushhours, which continued throughout Phase I.

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Problems developed immediately, both from the public and from theequipment. Many passengers did not come prepared with exactchange. Some were not aware of the new requirement, beinginfrequent transit users or having language difficulties. Manyriders tried to pay with dollar bills, despite the postedwarnings that they would not be accepted. Long lines oftenformed when rush-hour buses dropped loads of transferringpassengers. Problems were experienced with all the equipment, asfollows:

Agent's fareboxes

1. The chutes directing cash onto the farebox inspection plateswere found too narrow for some riders to reach into toretrieve a mistakenly inserted bill or overpayment. Largerchutes were installed.

2. The springs holding the inspection plates level were tooweak to support the change for a Sunday Supertransf er fare,and were strengthened.

3. Cashbox capacity was found insufficient to allow only onecash pickup per day. A second daily cash pickup wasscheduled, incurring costs for a security guard and overtimework by two Finance employees.

Token Vending and Change Machines

1. The token vending machine installed at Morse prior to thetest to promote token use was perceived by many riders as aconvenient means of avoiding the need to arrive with exactchange. Almost immediately, passenger demand for singletoken purchases from the machine created backups. The TaskForce's preference was to "tough it out" at least for thefirst three or four weeks, and perhaps to remove the machineto emphasize the need for riders to come to the station withcorrect change. However, at the direction of a CTA BoardMember, a second token vendor was installed. This increasedthe cost of token vendor maintenance and appears to havelocked in rider dependence on the machines for changing$1.00 bills.

2. Change for the $5 bill transaction did not include a dimefor the rapid transit fare differential. The token vendorswere reprogrammed to provide dimes.

3. No change was available for reduced fares. A dollar billchanger was also added, at Board Member insistence.

4. The bill-accepting machines frequently ceased working, dueto jamming by torn bills or dirty sensing elements. Two menwere needed to clear jams and service the machines in orderto assure the security of monies stored in the machines.Unscheduled trouble calls required compensation at overtimerates. Regular cleanings were eventually done in

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conjunction with inventorying of the machines, whichsubstantially improved their reliability.

Automatic Turnstiles

1. The turnstile coin mechanism, though very fast, was foundvulnerable to dirt and abuse. Numerous miscountingmalfunctions were experienced, requiring a turnstile to beclosed until the coinmech could be cleaned and readjusted.Common miscounts were in crd"diting value for a non-monetaryobject and not crediting proper value for a token.Reliability of the Morse turnstiles was improved byintensifying maintenance efforts.

2. The transfer printer malfunctioned far too frequently forthe small volume of transfer receipts issued each day.Particularly annoying were automatic shutdowns of theprinter that occurred when money had been deposited with thetransfer available indication showing. This fault requiredcareful maintenance attention to correct.

Impact of the Test Conditions

Rider Response

The most dramatic change in rider behavior in response tothe exact fare conditions of the Test was an immediateten-fold increase in automatic turnstile use, as shown inAppendix 'A', Table I. Turnstile entries increased from anaverage of 431 per week during the two weeks before the Testto an average- of 4,510 entries per week during the first twoweeks of the Test. Nevertheless, of those passengers whocould have used the automatic turnstiles for entry, fewerthan half did so, even though the Morse turnstiles weregiven extra attention during the Test, to make them asreliable as possible. Rather than continuing to increase asthe Test progressed, as had been hoped would occur, use ofthe automatic turnstiles remained essentially constant untilthe QuikPass magnetically-coded pass test was superimposedon Morse on March 1, 1987.

Over the 30 weeks of the Test up to March 1, 1987, entriesby turnstile averaged 4,481 per week (all cash/token).During the last three weeks of the Test, which wereoverlapped by the QuikPass Test, Morse turnstile entriesaveraged 5,437 per week, of which 4,082 were cash/tokenentries and 1,355 were with QuikPass. This suggests thatabout 80 weekday passengers who had previously used theturnstiles on a cash/token basis switched to the QuikPass assoon as it became available.

Tables II and III in Appendix 'A' show that use of monthlyand bi-weekly passes at Morse also changed very littleduring the first 30 weeks of the Test, except for a seasonalincrease beginning in September 1986, which occurred at bothMorse and Lunt. Notably increased pass use was recorded inMarch 1987, when the test of magnetically-coded passesbegan. In the first week of March 1987, pass usage was more

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than 1,000 entries greater than it had been for the lastweek of February 1987. Further increases occurred insucceeding weeks, though not uniformly, and can beattributed to increasing public awareness of the QuikPassoption.

Some rush-hour passengers who used the Morse entrance beforethe Test were expected to switch to Lunt, so as to bypassthe exact fare requirement. Though some are believed tohave done so at least occasionally, their numbers were sofew as to be completely masked by the daily and weeklyvariability of passenger traffic entering through Morse andLunt. About ten per weekday are estimated to have divertedto Lunt. Some diversion of passengers to Loyola and to busservice was also expected, particularly on weekends. Again,such movements were too small to be evident, if theyoccurred.

Perhaps the greatest disappointment to the Task Force wasthe reluctance of most full-fare Morse riders to purchasetokens in advance. Their propensity for arriving day afterday with dollar bills caused a continued high level ofstress on the bill-accepting change and token vendingmachines, frequent formation of lines at those machinesduring the morning rush hour and other busy times, andcontributed to the agent farebox capacity problem.

By the time virtually all Morse riders appeared to befamiliar with the exact fare arrangement under test, aconsiderable period had elapsed, nearly six months. Threeconditions seem to have prevented a stable operation frombeing established much sooner, as follows:

1. The inability of the on-line equipment, i.e., agents'fareboxes and automatic turnstiles, to accept dollarbills,' even though the Rapid Transit regular fare hadbecome $1.00. This was by far the hardest feature forpassengers to become reconciled to, and some never did.Most full-fare riders clearly felt that the 5<t per ridediscount given with tokens purchased in groups of fiveor ten was outweighed by the convenience of carryingonly dollar bills.

2. The community served by Morse includes many residentswho use transit service only occasionally, as well as a

continuing inflow of new residents, which extended theperiod needed for complete exposure of the community tothe Test.

3. A diversity of native languages other than English inthe community reduced the effectiveness of mediacoverage of the Test, and of the informational materialprovided to passengers. Based on observation of theTest and on the entries submitted for the monthlydrawings for free passes, non-English-speaking ethnic

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minorities in the community include Hispanics, Indians,

Russians, Pakistanis, and Koreans.

CTA Response

Agents

Agent reactions tended to be favorable, though not all were.

Most of those who worked at Morse during the Test were

aratified-to be relieved of responsibility for keeping fare

revenues secure and accounting for every penny. Some of the

Morse agents suggested other stations where they would like

to see an exact-fare system installed. Most freguently

nominated was Chicago/State, N-S, where it is not uncommon

for two weekday agent tricks to turn in revenues exceeding

$1 500, and occasionally three do. Several regarded working

at'Morse under exact fare as a preferable assignment.

A few agents did not favor the exact fare system. They

reported being bothered by the frequency of complaints about

malfunctioning equipment, mostly the bill-accepting units

and about the exact-fare requirement and the nonacceptance

of dollar bills. some were also disturbed by a perceived

change in rider attitude toward themselves, from

friendliness to animosity, because of the Test conditions.

Test Cost

Operating costs for the Test were high, due to the need for

a second cash pickup each weekday and for weekend cash

pickSpS, ?or which overtime rates had to be paid. Emergency

service calls for the bill-accepting machines, requiring two

men to respond, were also on overtime, as were manual change

makers provided by Operations when bill-acceptors were not

working.

Despite the diversion of passengers from agents to the

automatic turnstiles, their numbers did not become

sufficient to enable elimination of the second rush-hour

agent trick, which had been added after the last fare

change

.

Conclusions

1 Rapid transit riders will accept exact fare and adjust

to it, provided the most convenient currency units can

be used for payment.

Despite the limitations of the equipment for accepting

exact fares that was available for use in the test at

Morse, most riders soon became accustomed to arriving

with exact fare. What they objected to was not being

allowed to use $1.00 bills directly at the point of

entry because the agent fareboxes could not accept.

bills. This problem would be eased temporarily if the

$1 00 bill were supplanted by a new $1.00 coin, but

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would recur when fares inflated to the value of thenext U.S. currency bill.

2. Fare collection equipment currently available is notsuitable for application as a rapid transit agent exactfare receiver.

The CTA's bill-accepting bus fareboxes, typical offarebox technology currently available, are notconfigured for an agent's use, do not verify billsautomatically, and have far too little cash capacity toaccommodate daily agent revenues at most CTA stations.The need to empty the Morse agent fareboxes twice perweekday was responsible for the largest share of extraoperating costs incurred in the test. Appropriatetechnologies have yet to be combined into a unit thatmeets the requirements of an agent's exact farereceiver, which is needed for Phase II testing.

The CTA will soon have on hand part of the technologyneeded for an adequate agent's exact fare receiver.Six units of an electronic programmable agent'sregister, recently developed by a local fare collectionequipment supplier, are included in the new State ofIllinois Center Station, which is nearing completion.They utilize the same microprocessor as is used in theCTA's current bus fareboxes, which provides the samecapability to transmit traffic and revenue datadirectly into the Finance Department's data bank.

These units can be programmed to register fares intwice as many fare classes as the larger type ofpresent electromechanical Visifare registers, and areequipped with alphanumeric information displays forboth agent and passenger. The new register's data portwill also enable a unit to be integrated with a

suitable device for automatically verifying and storingcoins and currency bills, when one becomes available,to comprise an agent's receiver with all the featuresneeded for rapid transit exact fare.

3. Automatic bill-verifying machines currently availableoff-the-shelf are not properly configured for CTAtransit use.

The token vending machines and the $1.00 bill changertested at Morse demonstrated the availability ofadequately discriminating bill verification, but werefound subject to disablement by jamming of the billtransport mechanism with folded and torn bills. Thoughmost such jams were easily clearable, the design of themachines is not compatible with ready access by agentsor agent supervisors for timely restoration to servicewhen one is jammed. Frequent service calls for thebill-accepting machines produced the second largest

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portion of extra operating costs incurred during theTest.

The Fare Collection Development Group of the CTATreasury Department has recently developedspecifications for bill-accepting change/token vendingmachines suitable for transit use. It is hoped thatone or more manufacturers will be willing to produceunits that meet them.

4. The automatic turnstiles now used by the CTA are notreliable enough to be trusted by most of the riders whocould use them for entry to stations.

Though full-fare passengers at Morse were stronglyencouraged to use the turnstiles for entry, only about25% of full cash revenue was collected by theturnstiles. Riders are believed to avoid using thepresent turnstiles because all coins inserted areretained by the machines, whether counted correctly ornot, and miscounts are felt to occur too freguently.

The deficiencies of the present turnstiles have beenaddressed in the design of a new type of automaticturnstile, 15 units of which have been provided in thenew State of Illinois Center Station. They incorporatea coin acceptor believed to be fast and accurate, anescrow with coin return capability, an alphanumericdisplay for use instructions and machine status,automatic data transfer capability, and greatlyimproved money security. Because the station has notbeen completed, these turnstiles have yet to be turnedover to the CTA and placed in service, so theirperformance is still to be ascertained.

5. Development and testing of new fare collectionequipment and procedures without dedicated fundingshould be avoided, if possible.

Though approval to conduct the Morse Test was obtainedfrom the Board, no funding was provided because theTest was to be supported by the operating budgets ofparticipating departments. This arrangement may haveminimized the possibility that the Board would notagree to the Test, but it also meant that correction ofproblems with the test installation could not assumeany special priority over routine maintenance work.Dedicated funding could have relieved the FinanceDepartment of the burden of overtime costs for extracash pickups from the Morse agent fareboxes and madepersonnel available to concentrate on solving problemsand developing equipment for the second phase of theText.

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Recoitunendations

1. Establish a policy of exact fare on the CTA rapidtransit as a step in the transition to fully automatedfare collection.

Exact fare for the rapid transit has the potential tohold revenue losses from robbery and employee theft toa very low minimum, while affording savings in thepersonnel needed to handle, transfer, and account forfares, and to resolve disputes over accountingdiscrepancies. It would increase the attractiveness toriders of using prepaid fare media (such as passes,tokens, and tickets), which can be processedautomatically for faster, more convenient passengerentry and at low unit cost to the CTA. With automaticdata transfer from stations to a central computer,station revenue and traffic data could be completedmore accurately and made available for review and usemuch more quickly and cheaply than is possible underthe present system.

2. Fund a project to identfy or develop and test exactfare receiving equipment suitable for use by CTA rapidtransit fare agents.

Provided that the new generation agent registers andautomatic turnstiles being introduced at the State ofIllinois Center Station can be made to perform inservice as expected, and that the CTA's pass readersystem will be made permanent and expanded, the onlynew equipment needed to complete a basic exact faresystem for rapid transit stations is a suitable agent'smoney receiver.

Such a unit must combine the following capabilties:

a. Automatically verify U.S. currency bills up to$20.00, in addition to U.S. coins and CTA tokens, andtotalize their value.

b. Provide sufficient secure revenue storage capacityto contain all cash and token fares received at anyparticular agent position in a 24-hour period.

c. Operate with high reliability.

3. Fund a program to convert all CTA rapid transitstations to exact fare.

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Page 16

In addition to covering the costs of purchasing and

installing exact fare station equipment, dedicated

funding is needed to assure adequate staff support for

the conversion program. Essential staff tasks will

include the following:

o Develop recommended priorities for conversion.

o Prepare an implementation plan and obtain Board

approval to proceed.

o Prepare installation designs and staging plans,

o Order equipment and materials,

o Schedule installation.

o Prepare public notification and instructionmaterials.

o Develop employee materials.

Establish and pursue a policy goal of processingautomatically as many rapid transit fare classes as

practical, until all station entries are controlled

automatically, under station attendent supervision.

Each incremental advance toward full automation of

station access control benefits both the riding public

and the CTA. Automating the processing of a fare class

provides better service to passengers of that class by

enabling them to enter the sustem quickly at any time,

and to passengers whose fare class cannot yet be

processed automatically, by removing others from the

agent lines. With increased automation of fare

processing, the CTA can offer a higher level of service

and obtain more secure revenue handling, more timely

and more accurate traffic and revenue data, and reduced

requirements for manpower to accept fares, handle and

account for revenues, and process data.

Though there is presently available no automatic fare

collection system that can fully accommodate the

requirements of the CTA's fare structure, there are

available technologies that can be used to reliably

process several fare classes. For example, the CTA

could adapt presently available magnetic and coin-

accepting technologies to accept reduced cash fares as

well as full cash, and to validate reduced as well as

full fare monthly passes and employee passes, on buses

and in rapid transit stations. By exploiting new fare

collection technologies as they become available, the

CTA would be able to reap the short term benefits

of low-grade automation while preparing the system and

the riding public for more sophisticated fare control

systems, such as those using stored value tickets.

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Appendix 'B' Agent Fare Collection System

I . General Description

A. Agent's Duties

A typical agent's trick begins with reporting in,and signing for and receiving a bank of change.Each bank is sized according to the requirementsof the station it is to serve, and is to berestored to its standard composition out ofreceipts (if possible) by the end of the agent'strick. Each cash fare accepted is to be accountedfor by registering the payment transaction on anon-resettable counting device or backup manualtally sheet, according to specified procedures. Bythe end of the trick, the agent must count and addall money, tokens, and vouchers received;reconcile the total with the amount correspondingto all money fares registered; sort, stock andband the bills, and seal them in a currencyenvelope; and bag the coins.

B. Security Provisions

The CTA's current system for having agents makechange, accept fare payments, and admit passengersto rapid transit service has evolved only slightlysince it was established by predecessor companiesabout 100 years ago. It is based on followingoverlapping sets of procedures for accepting andhandling fare revenues. The procedures aredesigned to minimize opportunities for divertingfare monies, once they have been received.

To reduce the Authority's exposure to possiblerevenue loss due to robbery, agents are instructedto keep excess revenues out of public view as muchas possible. They are required to make a partialturn-in when receipts accumulate to $50.00, exceptwhen doing so would interfere with attending topassengers, as during rush hours. For the finalturn-in for the trick, the agent's report, tallysheets (if any), and sorted and counted farerevenues are placed together in a fabric revenuebag which is locked with a serialized plasticseal. Sealed revenue bags are turned in at theagent's operating terminal or deposited in thestation drop safe for secure storage until theyare picked up by foot collectors. Foot collectorsare pairs of armed guards who collect lockedrevenue bags from station drop safes andtransport them to operating terminals in closedsteel cars (portable drop safes). Fifty footcollectors using 13 carts collect filled revenuebags and distribute empty revenue bags dailybetween rail terminals and stations. Filled

Appendix 'B'

Page 2

revenue bags are transported sealed from theterminals to CTA Central Counting, where they areunlocked and their turn-in totals verified.

So as to be able to trace rapid transit revenuesbetween the agents and Central Counting, each timeagent revenue bags are transferred to the controlof another person, a receipt is given, which liststhe seal number and the cash amount reported bythe agent for each bag. This procedure isinitiated when foot collectors open an agent boothdrop safe, with an agent present, and transfer allrevenue bags to their cart (portable drop safe).It is repeated when foot collectors transfer thecontents of their carts to a terminal clerk forsecure storage in the terminal safe, again whenthe stored bags are picked up an armored truckteam for transport to Central Counting and againwhen the bags are finally turned over to CentralCounting. Each time, care is taken to be surethat the number of bags and the total amount ofcash reported are consistent with the numbersreceipted in the previous transfer. More than1,300 revenue bags must be collected, examined,tracked, and distributed daily.

C. Inherent Weaknesses

Over time, incremental refinements have beenadded, such as agent-controlled turnstiles coupledwith registering devices that accommodate non-cashas well as cash fares, so as to tighten entrycontrol and virtually eliminate non-registrationof fares. Nevertheless, the improvements in agentequipment made to date and the establishment ofcumbersome accounting and security procedures havenot corrected the following basic problemconditions that render the system vulnerable toabuse:

1. Though correct registration of fares is thekey audit control for transit revenues, farescan be registered incorrectly, either bymistake (which all agents occasionally do),or intentionally (which some agents arebelieved to do systematically) . With agentshandling money, inadvertently registering atransfer or a pass as a cash fare creates ashortage, which an agent may be required tomake good, however unjustly. On the otherhand, registering a cash fare as a lowervalue fare or as a non-cash entry creates acash surplus. Despite a proceduralrequirement to report and turn in any surplus

Appendix '

B

'

Page 3

money, an agent electing to not do so may notbe detected.

2. Though incorrect fare registration cannot beidentified except by watching agents work, itis usual for an agent to work alone much ofthe time. Since agents are not monitoredcontinuously, opportunities formis-registering fares undetected presentthemselves from time to time. Suchopportunities enable an "honest" agent tooffset an earlier inadvertentmis-registration or a "dishonest" agent tocreate a surplus.

3. Security of agent revenues depends ontracking each revenue bag from pickup toCentral Counting and reconciling its contentswith the Agent's Report. These processes aresubject to errors, due to multiple transfersof the bags, the high volume of bagsprocessed each day at Central Counting, anddelays in the processing of Agent Reports.The reports are also vulnerable tomanipulation during processing, to disguisediversion as error or agent theft.

D. Potential for Revenue Loss

The conditions given in 'C above make possibleabuses that deprive the Authority of revenue, asfollows:

1. Passengers are admitted improperly withoutpaying a fare, or paying less than the properfare. Passenger collusion is usuallyinvolved.

2. Fare payments are diverted to benefit anagent. No one but the agent may be awarethat anything improper is occurring.

3. Agent revenues are pilfered from revenue bagsenroute to Central Counting or at CentralCounting.

II . Revenue Logistics

Apart from the difficulties of forestalling theft of faresby agents, other problems relating to the handling of moneyhave been developing. Over the past thirty years, CTA fullfares have risen from 25<t to 90<t bus/$1.00 rail andtransfers from free on request to 25<t, so that passengershave needed more and more coins to pay fares. As a result.

>,( t

Appendix 'B'

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not only has the value of currency handled and counted byagents been increasing, but the weight and bulk of farerevenues to be stored and transported securely each day beengrowing correspondingly. Due to limitations on the size andweight of portable drop safes that can be handled by FootCollectors, the increasing weight of agents' receipts hasmeant that money pickups from fewer and fewer stations canbe made before the safes must be taken to a terminal officeand emptied.

As the rapid transit fare has approached and reached $1.00,the dominant transport factor for agent revenues has shiftedfrom heavy weight of coins to increasing bulk of currencybills. The feasible length of Foot Collector circuits isnow more dependent on the volume of the portable drop safes,rather than the weight of money the Collectors can berequired to handle. To compensate for shortened revenuepickup circuits, increases in Foot Collector man hours havebeen required.

III . Increasing Agent's Work Load

During the same span of time, passenger revenues accepted bymachine have dwindled, as awkward fare amounts rendered theuse of automatic turnstiles less and less convenient formost passengers. The earlier, all-mechanical turnstiles,which performed admirably for token and one or two-coinfares, could accept only certain combinations of coins.Though able to accept full-fare tokens and all common U.S.coins, the fewer modern electronically-controlled automaticturnstiles now in use have not performed reliably enough topersuade most cash riders to use them regularly. Thus, theproportion of cash passengers entering rapid transitstations who are processed by agents has been growing andthe proportion of those processed by machine has beendiminishing, as fares have increased.

In recent years, agent's work has also grown in complexity,with the establishment of new fare classes and theintroduction of several kinds of monthly and bimonthlypasses. At the time the CTA was created, and for severalyears following, only full and reduced cash fares wereregistered, whether paid for in currency or token. After acharge for transfers was instituted in 1961, transfer saleswere accounted for through the serial numbers of thetransfer receipts. Today, agents register up to ten fareclasses on weekdays and Saturdays, and up to twelve onSundays and holidays. Nevertheless, so as not to exceed thenumber of counters in the current agents' registeringdevices, a few non-cash fare classes must be lumpedtogether, despite the usefulness of maintaining separatecounts. One rider category, young children permitted toride free, is not registered or counted at all, causingpassenger traffic totals (upon which Federal operating

Appendix 'B'

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assistance is based) to be understated. Registering thisfare class to eliminate a source of subsidy loss, withoutalso eliminating one or more existing fare classes, wouldfurther complicate agents' work.

IV. Accounting

Agent reports are processed initially at the CTA CentralCounting Facility, where each revenue bag is unlocked andthe money is recounted to verify that the amount is thesame as reported by the agent. Discrepancies are resolvedaccording to CTA policies and procedures. About one workingday is required for processing by Central Counting.

After being released by Central Counting, agent reports aretransferred to the Revenue Accounting Section, where theyare immediately sorted by reporting date (as much aspossible), line, station, and window code. Obvious errors,such as the wrong reporting date, are corrected as they arerecognized, and the sorted reports are assembled intobatches for data entry. One and one-half to three weeksusually elapse before the agent report data can be manuallyentered into the accounting computer.

The computer checks for continuity of register totalsbetween successive agents using the same register unit, andcalculates traffic in all fare classes registered orotherwise tallied and reported, but does not sort agentreports into correct order. A summary report of all agentactivity is prepared for each date, and stored in thecomputer for reference and analysis.

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