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Here in Canada, Metro Vancouver implemented a tap payment system with gates for its transit system about ten years ago. They started by generating outrage abou

by no_way_1209567 2y ago

Here in Canada, Metro Vancouver implemented a tap payment system with gates for its transit system about ten years ago. They started by generating outrage about fare evaders (the previous system was an "honor" based proof of payment, at least for the train). They claimed to be losing ~3 million $CAD yearly to fare evasion. Then they made a plan to retrofit all the train stations with fare gates, and get new machines for the buses. The cost of this work was ~100 million $CAD. I thought, well that will take some time to amortize. Then I learned that the maintenance cost of all this extra crap in the stations was on the order of $3 million/year. Clearly it was never about fare evasion. You can buy a card with cash, and charge it with cash at machines in the stations, but there are strong incentives to link your account with a credit card. The truth was confirmed several years later when I read an article in a local paper quoting someone at Translink who said their policy is to share trip data with police on request, without a warrant.

xethos 2y ago
> Then I learned that the maintenance cost [...] was on the order of $3 million/year. And you assume the previous system cost $0 annually for maintenance?
- no_way_1209567 2y ago
  53 stations with a couple dozen robotic fare gates each sounds like about $3mil/yr to me. If they really did it to stop fare evasion, it was ideological, not pragmatic. They spent pounds to save pennies. Mass surveillance, on the other hand, is a motivation that makes sense, just not something you can really sell to the public when looking to spend a hundred million of taxpayer money. On the other other hand, the kind of government that attempts to stamp out petty crime, at any cost, is the same sort of government that tends to want to surveil everyone. They were teeing up introducing a "road pricing" scheme that would have also happened to record every vehicle trip on the local highways when their government was defeated.

xethos 2y ago

> Then I learned that the maintenance cost [...] was on the order of $3 million/year. And you assume the previous system cost $0 annually for maintenance?

no_way_1209567 2y ago
53 stations with a couple dozen robotic fare gates each sounds like about $3mil/yr to me. If they really did it to stop fare evasion, it was ideological, not pragmatic. They spent pounds to save pennies. Mass surveillance, on the other hand, is a motivation that makes sense, just not something you can really sell to the public when looking to spend a hundred million of taxpayer money. On the other other hand, the kind of government that attempts to stamp out petty crime, at any cost, is the same sort of government that tends to want to surveil everyone. They were teeing up introducing a "road pricing" scheme that would have also happened to record every vehicle trip on the local highways when their government was defeated.