For the second time in the last 3 years, the LIRR's customer satisfaction scores have dropped sharply, this time falling seven percentage points to 73%, the second steep plunge since 2023, when satisfaction scores falling 13 points in the spring of 2023 following the LIRR's botched rollout of the new East Side Access service plan.
 |
| Less flexible tickets mean that riders must queue up for tickets each journey (Photo: The LIRR Today) |
MTA officials presented the results of the MTA's Spring 2026 Customers Count survey were presented to the MTA Board's LIRR/Metro-North Committee meeting back in July (this topic is covered starting at the 1 hour, 2 minute mark in the video)—and then MTA executives immediately launched into excuse-making and victim blaming.
Fare policy changes drive declines in satisfaction
MTA brass blamed the sharp declines in customer satisfaction across both railroads on the implementation of harsh new ticket policies earlier this year, which significantly increased costs, reduced flexibility, and added new surcharges for riders. While these measures were intended to curb what MTA characterized as "fare evasion" on the railroads, the harsh changes have led to many honest, fare-paying riders getting struck with worthless tickets, getting hit with surcharges, and everyone paying markedly more for what were already the most expensive rail fares in the nation. The changes included:
- Significantly reduced validity periods, with one-way tickets valid only on the day of purchase, instead of being valid for 60 days
- Elimination of the 10-trip ticket and accompanying 15% discount for off-peak/intermediate travel
- Making one-way tickets completely non-refundable, even in the event of a service disruption
- A new surcharge for passengers who activate mobile tickets late
The MTA tried to paint a picture that the decline would be just "a temporary dip" and that the riders who are unsatisfied were merely riders that are fare evaders, liars, and cheaters who want to evade the fare but can't any longer. MTA's Senior Director of Customer Market Research Tatyana Levina said so crassly that "those least happy are customers who are not playing by the rules".
While customer satisfaction scores did decrease more sharply among riders who reported that they were hit with an $8 mobile ticketing surcharge (falling from 80% to 58%), the MTA has not substantiated that all of those riders were legitimately hit with the surcharge—as there have been plenty of reports of riders who activated their tickets before departure but were still sent warning notices or smacked with a surcharge. MTA staff also tried to talk around the poor scores by saying that riders hit with mobile ticketing surcharges were overrepresented in the survey results.
But the MTA glossed over the fact that satisfaction also dropped markedly among riders who said they weren't hit with a surcharge, dropping four points on LIRR and five points on Metro-North, both pretty notable drops that were written off as "actually quite close" to the Fall 2025 scores by Levina. These scores are not at all "close" as the MTA is trying to lead people to believe. Other than the survey following LIRR's colossal East Side Access service screwup, these are both the largest single-period declines in satisfaction since the MTA transitioned to this online survey format.
Satisfaction scores also declined amongst commutation ticket holders, who can use their tickets for unlimited trips and aren't impacted by the surcharges (satisfaction among monthly ticket holders dropped 3 percentage points, and satisfaction was down 12 percentage points among weekly ticket holders). Even satisfaction among half-fare users, who actually got expanded hours of reduced rates and can still buy tickets onboard for straight from the conductor with no additional surcharge, saw satisfaction decline by four percentage points.
All notable downward shifts in satisfaction that are being seemingly ignored by the MTA.
Satisfaction scores among riders who use one-way peak and one-way off-peak tickets dropped more sharply, declining 12 percentage points and 9 percentage points, respectively. Again, MTA tries to deflect, saying that "we know that these customers have the highest rates of getting a surcharge" (because these are the most common ticket types that actually have to be activated, because the others are unlimited use tickets). But MTA officials glossed over the fact that the MTA made other changes that significantly impacted riders who use these tickets, including slashing validity periods from 60 days to just 1 day, and eliminating 10-trip tickets and their accompanying discounts.
MTA's Chief of Strategic Initiatives Jon Kaufman joined in on the smear campaign, saying "when you look at [one-way tickets], the same day activations used to be 89% beforehand, so some 10% of people were buying a ticket and not activating that day—maybe waiting to see if a conductor showed up, maybe not. But now it's 98%... But before, we could see that people were buying a ticket and not really using it unless a conductor prompted them."
This shows a complete lack of understanding of how rail riders buy and use tickets. Before these changes, one-way tickets were valid for 60 days. So it's entirely possible and permitted that someone bought a round-trip ticket and used the return journey on a different day. Or they bought the ticket the night before their trip so they wouldn't have to hassle with making their purchase the next morning when running for the train. Or their travel plans changed due to a train being late or canceled and they made their trip a different day. All of these were completely legitimate uses of one-way tickets, yet the MTA is trying to smear them as "fare evaders".
Kaufman's remarks do reveal that only 98% of one-way tickets are being used on the same day, meaning 2% of tickets are not—which means, under the new rules, they expire, are non-refundable, and completely worthless. 2% of riders are paying for tickets they're not able to use, which seems like a very high and unacceptable number.
Kaufman tried to distract further from the issue by saying "ridership is going up despite all of this" (which is meaningless, since ridership continues to very slowly and gradually rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic all modes and at other agencies that did not implement such fare changes) and "we're selling more one ways" (again, meaningless, since the MTA eliminated the 10-trip ticket, converting a purchase of a 10-trip ticket in one transaction to the purchase of ten one-way tickets in ten transactions). None of this is evidence that because "the revenue and the ridership is going up" that means that "fare evasion is going down".
While any well-functioning, competently-run organization might take such stiff survey results to heart and look for ways to improve things, MTA officials seem prepared to dig in their feet and bury their heads in the sand, with Levina saying "over time, as people get used to the policies...we expect that the expect of the fare policy changes on satisfaction to lessen."
Only one MTA Board member broke from the pack to check the MTA's misleading statements, with MTA Board Member Melva Miller chiming in to say "I found a lot of language in this presentation a little troubling...", adding that when she speaks with riders, "the number one complaint...is the new ticket system". She added that "I just want to make it clear that the intention isn't always that folks are trying to evade their fare... I think that improvements have to happen across the board."
MTA minimizing impacts of fare policy changes
MTA executives have gone to great lengths over the last year to whitewash the effects of these new fare policy changes, attempting to paint a picture that these harsh measures are necessary to curb an overwhelming tide of fare evasion on the railroads.
But real MTA data paints a much different story. Of the roughly 80.4 million trips taken on the LIRR last year, 79.1 million of those trips were taken with tickets that were purchased from a ticket machine, ticket window, through Mail & Ride, mobile ticketing, etc. That means that 98.5% of LIRR riders already had their ticket purchased. Of the 1.2 million passengers who boarded a train without a ticket last year, 95% of those riders ended up paying their fare by buying a ticket from the conductor (1.1 million out of 1.2 million). The LIRR issued 61,927 "commitment to pay" invoices to riders last year, representing just 0.08% of all LIRR journeys. About 11% of those invoices were paid by the end of the year, leaving 54,960 unpaid (0.07% of all LIRR trips). The MTA issued only 2,236 criminal summonses for fare evasion on the LIRR last year. Add the last two together, the total number of passengers which MTA data says actually rode but did not pay their fare totals 57,196 passengers out of 80.4 million total journeys, or an evasion rate of 0.0071%.
This means, according to MTA data, 98.5% of LIRR passengers already travel with their tickets purchased, and 99.929% of riders ended up paying the requested fare for their journey.
The MTA has not presented any other quantifiable, verifiable data that documents the alleged prevalence of fare evasion on the LIRR or Metro-North. The rest is just a bunch of conjecture and hot air conjured up to garner support for these anti-customer fare policy changes.
MTA officials have made claims that a large number of riders who purchased mobile tickets are waiting until the conductor is in front of them to purchase and activate their tickets, slowing down fare collection significantly. But when I requested the raw data of mobile ticket purchase, activation, and scan times to verify these claims, the MTA said that the records did not exist.
The MTA bemoans the impact that this rampant, unconquerable tide of "fare evasion" and late mobile ticketing activations has had on the ability for conductors to efficiently collect fares. But the real issue always has been and still remains conductors not doing their jobs and collecting tickets.
Despite whatever perceived challenges mobile ticketing presents, the ticketing collection process has gotten easier for conductors compared to pre-pandemic. The LIRR is carrying 20% fewer riders (and peak ridership is down even more), but the conductor headcount has remained basically the same (LIRR employed 6 fewer conductors in 2024 vs. 2019). Trains are shorter than they were before East Side Access so there is less ground for the crews to cover. LIRR has also expanded gate collection both for special events and ordinary weekdays at NY-Penn Station, and has dropped the second ticket check after Jamaica on westbound trains to redeploy collectors elsewhere on the system.
With the introduction of mobile ticketing and OBTIMs, conductors no longer need to punch duplex tickets for onboard transactions, handle cash and make change for every transaction, nor write out ADL's for $3 step-up fares because someone only had a credit card on them.
Onboard fare collection has, in reality, gotten easier for conductors. But before the MTA sneakily stopped publishing fare collection failure rates in mid-2022, the figures were quite bad. In 2019, LIRR conductors failed to collect 5.3% of fares. Even in 2022, when ridership was much lower than it is today and service was reduced freeing up more collectors, LIRR conductors were missing 5.2% of fares. LIRR's fare collection failure rate also did not spike dramatically after mobile ticketing was introduced in mid-2016—suggesting that mobile ticketing is not in fact a major driver of whether conductors can or cannot collect all fares.
And even with all of these harsh changes, conductors still aren't collecting all fares. MTA reports that the fare collection rate is still only 98.1%, a measly 1.3 percentage point increase over 2025. I've been on multiple trains since the new ticket policies took effect where there has been no ticket collection at all, or only one check immediately after the origin station, missing the tickets of everyone who boarded enroute.
Take it out on fare-paying passengers, torpedoing satisfaction
Instead of addressing the real root cause of these issues (conductors not doing their jobs and collecting tickets), MTA and railroad officials decided it was easier to punish fare-paying riders with higher fares and less flexible tickets, leading to a steep drop in satisfaction as a result.
This is the second time in recent years that customer satisfaction has dropped sharply under the leadership of the current crop of MTA executives. On both occasions, riders very clearly voiced their objections and concerns with the proposals. And on both occasions, MTA and LIRR officials categorically ignored the input from riders and implemented their original proposals with only minor modifications. And on both occasions, customer satisfaction dropped sharply as a result.
It's clear that the MTA is profoundly out of touch with the needs and expectations of LIRR and Metro-North riders.
Fares and fare policy are among the most significant and versatile levers available to transit agencies to stimulate demand and grow ridership. Instead of keeping pressure on costs and using fare policy changes to make riding mass transit easier and more affordable to riders—actually helping fuel ridership growth as a result—the MTA has been more interested in extracting every nickel and dime they can from their existing, most captive riders. It begs the question, is the MTA really interested in increasing transit use and growing ridership—or are they really interested in running the least service possible while maximizing taxpayer subsidies and revenue per passenger?
No comments:
Post a Comment