Citing criticism from passengers and lawmakers, the Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) on Thursday retracted a policy that would have seen passengers charged for lingering in stations.
The policy, which was to take effect next month, would have required passengers to pay NT$15 if they failed to pass the gates within 10 minutes of arrival.
The policy aimed to reduce disputes among passengers when multiple trains arrive at a station at or about the same time, the TRA said.
The policy was unconventional in that it occupied a strange space between a finable offense and a behavioral request, such as asking passengers to yield seats to the elderly, pregnant or physically disabled.
Arguably, having arriving passengers leave the controlled area of the station is to the benefit of departing passengers, who would be able to move about the platform more easily, but failure to do so hardly seems a worse violation than not yielding one’s seat, for which there is no fine.
The TRA was likely more motivated by the loss of revenue from those who do not pay properly for tickets, as one of the stipulations was that lingering passengers who held regular-fare tickets would additionally be asked to pay the express-train fare if both trains arrived at the same time.
So how can the TRA deal with non-paying passengers and keep optimal passenger flow?
One of the challenges of enforcing such a regulation would be determining who has legitimate reasons to wait on the platform. Riders with legitimate reasons to take longer than 10 minutes to leave — such as those with physical impairments, those waiting for the next train after alighting at the wrong stop and those weighed down by parcels — would likely be embarrassed and offended if they were questioned.
Accommodating departing passengers is smart from an operational standpoint, but ineffective if done at the expense of arriving passengers.
If the TRA has legitimate concerns about loitering, a better approach would be to introduce a properly written anti-loitering law that would cover all of the station’s property.
Similar laws exist in other countries, such as the UK’s Vagrancy Act of 1824, which was designed to deal with solicitation, obscenity and other offenses; and the 1992 anti-loitering law in Chicago, which aimed to reduce violent crime and drug trafficking.
While these are unlikely to be major concerns at TRA stations, a comprehensive anti-loitering law would empower station staff to handle any loitering-related concerns, while preventing confusion and not offending legitimate passengers.
However, if the TRA’s real concern is improper fare payment, the most effective solution would be to employ a system like those used on some buses, where passengers are required to swipe cards both on boarding and alighting, freeing up the driver from tracking passengers and ensuring accurate payment.
The system could go further by issuing cards to passengers upon entering a station, such as those assigned at vehicle parking facilities, which they could take to station attendants or kiosks when exiting the system to pay using their preferred payment method. This would allow passengers to retain the option of paying with cash while still ensuring that every passenger has a ticket that could be scanned when boarding and alighting from trains.
The TRA need not abandon new regulations altogether if there are real concerns, but it would do well to elucidate those concerns.
If it simply intends to keep the flow of passengers moving smoothly, this can be done through polite requests from station staff, which is what the TRA has said it will now do.
However, if non-payment is the real concern, a new fare payment system might be overdue.
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