PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — SEPTA is cracking down on fare evasion by Philly school students.
The transit agency said it has lost money because district, charter and private school students are skipping fares on their way to and from school. A new agreement with the School District of Philadelphia will see offending students penalized for not paying their fares, with the possibility of criminal citations for repeat offenders.
The district provides special student fare cards but SEPTA only gets paid when a student taps it at the fare gate. SEPTA Chief Financial Officer Erik Johanson said those taps have plummeted since the student cards were introduced in 2021.
“Since then, it's gone down from 36,000 to a forecast of 23,000 this year and again, there's no evidence that the actual student transportation population has reduced at all,” Johanson told KYW Newsradio. “We believe that the noncompliance with the fare card tapping is costing us about $11 million a year.”
Deputy SEPTA Transit Police Chief James Zuggi said officers want to avoid issuing citations to students caught fare-jumping or piggybacking at the gate as they head to school.
“If they could be handled within the individual school, and the student and the parents and the police don't have to get involved, then we don't have to enforce anything. That's better for everybody," Zuggi said.
“A lot of times these students have the pass in their pocket or are eligible for a pass and for some reason they just don't swipe it. We don't see the benefit of issuing criminal citations to students trying to get to schools.”
Under the agreement with the school district, students caught not paying their fares will be issued written notices called “student contact reports” for the first three incidents, while the school will work with the student to change behavior. SEPTA police may issue criminal citations after that.
The district plans to increase its messaging to let students know about the importance of tapping their SEPTA cards.
