STM hires more ticket control agents
The STM has hired additional ticket control agents to catch nonpaying passengers, although the STM admits that the financial losses from these actions are difficult to estimate. I also enjoyed the statement “Ils opèrent en groupe d’une dizaine d’agents pour maximiser l’efficacité des opérations” and, of course, to intimidate.
steph 12:44 on 2026-01-16 Permalink
Do these operations even bring in enough fines to cover the operating costs for these 15 agents?
Kate 14:39 on 2026-01-16 Permalink
It’s a good question. I have a strong suspicion this administration is more concerned how things look than how they actually add up. The kind of law‑abiding angry citizen that voted for Ensemble is exactly the kind that gets steamed if they see someone jumping a turnstile.
Nicholas 12:49 on 2026-01-17 Permalink
You don’t need the ticket revenue to be higher than the employee cost to make sense, because you need to count the revenue that would be lost if more people didn’t pay if you had fewer employees. Obviously if you had zero enforcement more people wouldn’t pay (this is a thing that was common in some cities post-covid) and if you had enforcement against everyone it wouldn’t pencil out, so there is some correct balance point. It’s hard to know where it is.
But it’s probably much lower here than elsewhere, because we have bad practices. In many countries they have civilian clothes inspectors who roam solo or in groups of 2 or 3, not 9 special constables standing visibly behind the turnstiles. In Paris the inspectors must by law where a coloured arm band, so they often lean against a wall or pillar to partially hide it, but once you know what to look for it’s obvious.
And for an example of a society that frets even more about people not paying, the Tube has hired a crack investigative team that finds fare dodgers, checking Oyster card records and CCTV footage and then do stakeouts to catch them. There are multiple TV series on this, and they surely spend way more on staff time than they recoup.