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MTA Nabs Federal Money to Study the New Psychology of Fare Beating
Facing a behavioral shift seen since the pandemic, the transit agency is pulling out all the stops to figure out how to get people to pay their own way. This article originally appeared in The City. By Jose Martinez NEW YORK - Facing what it calls a “historic high” in fare evasion, the MTA wants to use behavioral research to get inside the minds of the estimated 900,000 bus and subway riders who dodge fares daily. With new grant funding, the agency is aiming to contract analysts for a study — at a projected cost of $500,000 to $1 million — that is designed to “apply the theories of civic cultural change and tools of behavioral science” to fare evasion, according to a request for proposals on its website. “If we are going to hire a behavioral consultant, it will be to help change the behavior of a criminal justice system that has determined that fare evasion should have no consequences,” John McCarthy, the MTA’s chief of policy and ex...
