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With traditional armoured cars. Also, those machines are being phased out this year in favour of OMNY machines: https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2022/

by muglug 4y ago

With traditional armoured cars. Also, those machines are being phased out this year in favour of OMNY machines: https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2022/09/06/omny-machines-coming-to-the-mta-in-2023--sources-say https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2022/09/06/omny-ma... As more of the network moves cashless, there's also less money to collect. As a regular commuter, I haven’t used cash on the MTA for a couple of years.

raldi 4y ago
Why didn't they use traditional armored cars when they were still using tokens? I don't understand why 2006 was a milestone in that regard.
- crazygringo 4y ago
  I'm guessing something to do with weight/volume. When tokens were used, every subway fare resulted in a piece of metal that had to be picked up. At 4.7 g each and about 4 million rides a day, that's nearly 19 metric tons of metal daily for processing, which takes up a lot of space as well. After tokens were phased out in 2003, then by 2006 you're only dealing with paper cash and coins in MetroCard and booths, mostly just picking up paper bills and spitting out coin change for larger transactions, from the small minority of people paying in cash instead of a credit card. So I'd expect the volume to have become comparatively tiny, and much less frequent than daily. (Plus since you're dealing with standardized cash rather than bespoke tokens, it might use local banks distributed across the city, rather than a centralized hub.)
- Spooky23 4y ago
  You still need to count sort, pull damaged and counterfeit tokens and do cash operations. So the station management would count their tills, empty machines and prep the bags. They have a time deadline, and when the money train arrives they just roll the whole ensemble into the train. When the tokens went away the volume probably turned into a few sacks. The volume is huge and the manpower for the armored cars would be nuts. You’re probably talking a detail of 200 police alone for a couple of dozen armored cars. Cash operations work similar to this without the train. Usually there’s a regional depository bank with a contract with the Fed who centralizes money processing for many banks. I had family who worked in one in the 90s, it was pretty nuts. They would palletize the cash and ship out on tractor trailers. As the business has shrunk, the armored car companies have taken over and they are pretty bad at what they do as they aren’t as regulated.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    All this really helps to highlight why municipalities are really trying to get away from cash for transit, parking, etc. It's not cheap or easy to handle at scale and, at some point, the answer to people who want to keep using cash is a shrug.
    - Spooky23 4y ago
      Ehh… once you have a process it isn’t that expensive. The driver is similar to retail - you can charge more. Parking and tolls are great examples. EZPass and the various parking solutions are expensive, but they make it easier to boil the frog. That makes it easier to do one shot deals like sell revenue bonds. The failure of the government to implement digital cash and establish a system where Visa/Mastercard/etc effectively tax all commerce is ridiculous.
- Animats 4y ago
  Hauling all those coins and tokens up the stairs to street level by hand would have been a huge pain. Many MetroCards are sold in stores, so the MTA doesn't have to handle the cash at all. For one year Ticketmaster sold Metrocards for the MTA. Ticketmaster didn't like the business because the MTA didn't allow them to overcharge the customers. Ticketmaster just got a 2%-3% commission, the MTA's bulk discount. They had to charge for shipping at their cost, and could not attach ads.

by muglug 4y ago

raldi 4y ago

Why didn't they use traditional armored cars when they were still using tokens? I don't understand why 2006 was a milestone in that regard.

crazygringo 4y ago
I'm guessing something to do with weight/volume. When tokens were used, every subway fare resulted in a piece of metal that had to be picked up. At 4.7 g each and about 4 million rides a day, that's nearly 19 metric tons of metal daily for processing, which takes up a lot of space as well. After tokens were phased out in 2003, then by 2006 you're only dealing with paper cash and coins in MetroCard and booths, mostly just picking up paper bills and spitting out coin change for larger transactions, from the small minority of people paying in cash instead of a credit card. So I'd expect the volume to have become comparatively tiny, and much less frequent than daily. (Plus since you're dealing with standardized cash rather than bespoke tokens, it might use local banks distributed across the city, rather than a centralized hub.)
Spooky23 4y ago
You still need to count sort, pull damaged and counterfeit tokens and do cash operations. So the station management would count their tills, empty machines and prep the bags. They have a time deadline, and when the money train arrives they just roll the whole ensemble into the train. When the tokens went away the volume probably turned into a few sacks. The volume is huge and the manpower for the armored cars would be nuts. You’re probably talking a detail of 200 police alone for a couple of dozen armored cars. Cash operations work similar to this without the train. Usually there’s a regional depository bank with a contract with the Fed who centralizes money processing for many banks. I had family who worked in one in the 90s, it was pretty nuts. They would palletize the cash and ship out on tractor trailers. As the business has shrunk, the armored car companies have taken over and they are pretty bad at what they do as they aren’t as regulated.
- ghaff 4y ago
  All this really helps to highlight why municipalities are really trying to get away from cash for transit, parking, etc. It's not cheap or easy to handle at scale and, at some point, the answer to people who want to keep using cash is a shrug.
  - Spooky23 4y ago
    Ehh… once you have a process it isn’t that expensive. The driver is similar to retail - you can charge more. Parking and tolls are great examples. EZPass and the various parking solutions are expensive, but they make it easier to boil the frog. That makes it easier to do one shot deals like sell revenue bonds. The failure of the government to implement digital cash and establish a system where Visa/Mastercard/etc effectively tax all commerce is ridiculous.
Animats 4y ago
Hauling all those coins and tokens up the stairs to street level by hand would have been a huge pain. Many MetroCards are sold in stores, so the MTA doesn't have to handle the cash at all. For one year Ticketmaster sold Metrocards for the MTA. Ticketmaster didn't like the business because the MTA didn't allow them to overcharge the customers. Ticketmaster just got a 2%-3% commission, the MTA's bulk discount. They had to charge for shipping at their cost, and could not attach ads.