Proof-of-payment (POP) or proof-of-fare (POF) is an
honor
Honour (British English) or honor (American English; see spelling differences) is the idea of a bond between an individual and a society as a quality of a person that is both of social teaching and of personal ethos, that manifests itself as a ...
-based
fare
A fare is the fee paid by a passenger for use of a public transport system: rail, bus, taxi, etc. In the case of air transport, the term airfare is often used. Fare structure is the system set up to determine how much is to be paid by various pa ...
collection system used on many
public transportation
Public transport (also known as public transportation, public transit, mass transit, or simply transit) is a system of transport for passengers by group travel systems available for use by the general public unlike private transport, typical ...
systems. Instead of checking each passenger as they enter a
fare control
In rail transport, the paid area is a dedicated "inner" zone in a railway station or metro station, accessible via turnstiles or other barriers, to get into which, visitors or passengers require a valid ticket, checked smartcard or a pass. A sys ...
zone, passengers are required to carry a
ticket
Ticket or tickets may refer to:
Slips of paper
* Lottery ticket
* Parking ticket, a ticket confirming that the parking fee was paid (and the time of the parking start)
* Toll ticket, a slip of paper used to indicate where vehicles entered a tol ...
, pass or a transit smartcard to prove that they have paid the valid fare. Fares are enforced via random spot-checks by inspectors such as
conductors or enforcement officers, to ensure that passengers have paid their fares and are not committing
fare evasion
Fare evasion or fare dodging, fare violation, rarely called ticket evasion, is the act of travelling on public transport without paying by deliberately not buying a required ticket to travel (having had the chance to do so). It is a problem in man ...
. On many systems, a passenger can purchase a single-use ticket or multi-use pass at any time in advance, but must insert the ticket or pass into a validation machine immediately before use. Validation machines in stations or on board vehicles
time stamp
A timestamp is a sequence of characters or encoded information identifying when a certain event occurred, usually giving date and time of day, sometimes accurate to a small fraction of a second. Timestamps do not have to be based on some absolut ...
the ticket. The ticket is then valid for some period of time after the stamped time.
This method is implemented when the transit authority believes it will lose less money to the resultant fare evasion than it would cost to install and maintain a more direct collection method. It may be used in systems whose passenger volume and density are not very high most of the time—as passenger volumes increase, more-direct collection methods become more profitable. However, in some countries it is common even on systems with very high passenger volume. Proof-of-payment is usually applied on
one-person operated rail and road vehicles as well as on
automatically operated rail lines.
The honor system can be complemented with a more direct collection approach where this would be feasible—a transit authority utilizing POP will usually post fare inspectors, sometimes armed as a police force, to man entrances to stations on a discretionary basis when a high volume of passengers is expected. For example, transit users leaving a
stadium
A stadium ( : stadiums or stadia) is a place or venue for (mostly) outdoor sports, concerts, or other events and consists of a field or stage either partly or completely surrounded by a tiered structure designed to allow spectators to stand o ...
immediately following a major concert or sporting event will likely have to buy a ticket from an attendant (or show proof of payment) to gain access to the station serving the stadium. Direct fare collection methods may also be used at major hubs in systems that otherwise use POP. An example of this is the
Tower City station
Tower City station, known alternatively as Tower City–Public Square and Tower City Center is a rapid transit station in Cleveland, Ohio, part of Tower City Center. It is the central station on the RTA Red Line and a major station on the RTA ...
on
Cleveland
Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...
's
RTA Rapid Transit
RTA Rapid Transit (generally known as The Rapid) is a rapid transit, light rail, and bus rapid transit system. The system is owned and operated by the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (GCRTA).
The system serves Cleveland and surroun ...
Red Line, which uses
faregate
In rail transport, the paid area is a dedicated "inner" zone in a railway station or metro station, accessible via turnstiles or other barriers, to get into which, visitors or passengers require a valid ticket, checked smartcard or a pass. A sys ...
s.
Travel without a valid ticket is not usually considered a criminal offense, but a
penalty fare
A penalty fare, standard fare, or fixed penalty notice is a special, usually higher, fare charged because a passenger using public transport did not comply with the normal ticket purchasing rules. It should not be confused with an unpaid fares n ...
or a fine can be charged.
Advantages and disadvantages
![Caltrain proof-of-payment system logo](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/22/Caltrain_proof-of-payment_system_logo.svg)
Advantages of proof-of-payment include lower labor costs for fare collection, simpler station design, easier access for mobility-impaired passengers, easier access for those carrying packages or in case of an emergency, and a more open feel for passengers. On buses, proof-of-payment saves drivers the time needed to collect fares, and makes it possible for all doors to be used for boarding. Validated tickets can double as
transfers
Transfer may refer to:
Arts and media
* ''Transfer'' (2010 film), a German science-fiction movie directed by Damir Lukacevic and starring Zana Marjanović
* ''Transfer'' (1966 film), a short film
* ''Transfer'' (journal), in management studies
...
between lines.
Disadvantages include potentially higher rate of fare evasion, reduced security on station platforms when no barrier is used, increased potential of
racial profiling
Racial profiling or ethnic profiling is the act of suspecting, targeting or discriminating against a person on the basis of their ethnicity, religion or nationality, rather than on individual suspicion or available evidence. Racial profiling involv ...
and other unequal enforcement as "likely fare evaders" are targeted, and regularly exposing passengers to unpleasant confrontational situations when a rider without the proper proof is detained and removed from the vehicle. Visitors unfamiliar with a system's validation requirements who innocently misunderstand the rules are especially likely to get into trouble.
Worldwide uses
Proof-of-payment is popular in Germany, where it was widely introduced during the labor shortages resulting from the
Economic Miracle
Economic miracle is an informal economic term for a period of dramatic economic development that is entirely unexpected or unexpectedly strong. Economic miracles have occurred in the recent histories of a number of countries, often those undergoing ...
of the 1960s. It has also been adopted in Eastern Europe and Canada and has made some inroads in newer systems in the United States. The first use of the term "POP" or "Proof of Payment" on a rail line in North America is believed to have been in
Edmonton
Edmonton ( ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. Edmonton is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region. The city ancho ...
in 1980. Since then, many new
light rail,
streetcar
A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport are ...
, and
bus rapid transit
Bus rapid transit (BRT), also called a busway or transitway, is a bus-based public transport system designed to have much more capacity, reliability and other quality features than a conventional bus system. Typically, a BRT system includes ...
systems have adopted the procedure, mainly to speed up boarding by avoiding the hassles of crowding at doors to pay fares at a
farebox
A fare is the fee paid by a passenger for use of a public transport system: rail, bus, taxi, etc. In the case of air transport, the term airfare is often used. Fare structure is the system set up to determine how much is to be paid by various pa ...
beside the driver as is common practice on traditional
bus
A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a road vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van. It is most commonly used in public transport, but is also in use for cha ...
es. San Francisco's
MUNI
Muni may refer to:
Municipal
* A common US abbreviation for municipal, municipal services, and the like
*Municipal bond
*Municipal Bridge, the former name of the George Rogers Clark Memorial Bridge in Louisville, Kentucky
*"Muni", slang for a mu ...
system became the first North American system-wide adopter of the proof-of-payment system on July 1, 2012 across its buses,
light rail and heritage streetcars, with the exception of
cable cars, allowing boarding on all the available doors.
Notes
External links
TCRP Report 80: A Toolkit for Self-Service, Barrier-Free Fare Collection(
PDF
Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...
)
{{DEFAULTSORT:ProOf-Of-Payment
Public transport fare collection