New York City is ramping up efforts to curb bus fare evasion, with agents now using handheld devices to verify payments. During a Metropolitan Transportation Authority Board meeting last week, NYC Transit President Demetrius Crichlow said that with the adoption of the tap-and-go OMNY system, the transit system’s EAGLE fare enforcers will use “onboard validation devices” that check whether customers paid using an OMNY card or cellphone. The technology has been used on Select Bus Service (SBS) routes, where 52.7 percent of riders do not pay, and the MTA now plans to expand its use to all bus routes, including local lines, where fare evasion is 48.6 percent, according to the New York Times.
Fare evasion has long been a problem across the city’s public transit system, with buses experiencing the highest rates. While Crichlow said the agency is “turning the tide” on subway fare evasion through new fare gates and enforcement agents aimed at preventing turnstile jumping, he acknowledged there is “still much work to be done” on buses.
The city’s bus system has the worst fare evasion problem of any major city in the world, costing the transit agency more than $300 million per year, as 6sqft previously reported.
In 2024, 330 subway fares and 710 bus fares were evaded every minute, according to the Citizens Budget Commission. That year, evasion cost the MTA roughly $1 billion, including $568 million in unpaid bus fares, $350 million in unpaid subway fares, at least $46 million in unpaid commuter rail tickets, and at least $51 million in unpaid tolls.
“Paying customers have long said that they find it incredibly frustrating when they see other people who do not pay the fare,” Crichlow said. “I can’t agree with them more.”
The EAGLE (Evasion And Graffiti Lawlessness Eradication) team, a group of civilian MTA employees—some of whom are former law enforcement personnel—was created in 2008 alongside the launch of SBS bus service to enforce fare payments. However, the agents had no way to validate MetroCards or confirm whether the correct amount of coins was inserted, and their role had been limited to observing riders at doors and fare boxes.
Now, with the MetroCard officially phased out, the enforcement team members can verify OMNY payment using handheld devices, which Crichlow said do not store any personal banking or identification information. With the rollout of these devices, NYC will join European cities like London and Paris in using similar technology, a change Crichlow described as a “cultural shift.”
Janno Lieber, chairman and CEO of the MTA, supports the new technology, telling the Times that it is the norm in public transit systems in Europe.
“This is modern fare-payment technology, the way it works all over the Western world,” Lieber said. “My brother lives in Europe, and routinely when he gets on, somebody comes up to him and says, ‘Show me how you paid, and let’s validate that you paid.’”
To increase awareness of the EAGLE team and the technology, the MTA will soon post signage throughout the transit system explaining their work.
In 2024, the MTA intensified efforts to curb bus fare evasion, deploying unarmed fare inspectors on local buses who could ask riders who do not pay to leave and, at stops staffed by NYPD officers, potentially face a summons or arrest.
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