Metro finishes installing more-secure faregates at all 98 Metrorail stations, fareboxes on 1,500 buses

All 98 stations across the Metrorail system now have more secure, retrofitted faregates to deter fare evasion. The improvements have led to an 82% drop in fare evasion in the Metrorail system.

Wednesday night, Metro General Manager Randy Clarke, Metro Transit Police Chief Michael Anzallo, and Chief Planning and Performance Officer Tom Webster thanked crews for their work at Judiciary Square, the last station to get the retrofitted gates.

More than 1,200 five-foot-tall gates and taller fences have been installed across all stations. The project began in July 2023.

“We have seen incredible results from the taller faregates,” Clarke said. “We are never going to completely stop fare evasion, but these go a long way in addressing the problem.”

Metro has also recently completed the installation of new fareboxes across all 1,500 of its buses. Customers often could not pay on buses because of farebox malfunctions. Metro Transit Police regularly patrol bus loops and individual bus routes to enforce payment.

Fare evasion is one of customers’ biggest concerns, according to Metro surveys. Customers said it made them feel unsafe and that it was unfair to those who paid fares.

“Tackling fare evasion has been one of the Board of Directors top priorities,” said Metro Board Finance and Capital Committee Chair Matt Letourneau. “Not only does fare evasion cost us badly needed revenue, it is fundamentally unfair to all our customers who pay their hard-earned money.

“By cracking down on fare evasion through new faregates and better enforcement, we’ve also been able to make our system safer by deterring those with bad intentions from riding. The Board appreciates the hard work of staff to address this issue and improve our system.”

Metro Transit Police continue to patrol stations for fare evasion and have written more than 10,000 fare evasion citations so far this year. That’s nearly three times the number of tickets written through the same period last year and 2,000 more citations than all of 2019. Revenue from the tickets goes to the local governments.

So far this year, MTPD has arrested more than 250 individuals stopped for fare evading and found to have open warrants. Police have also recovered 16 guns.

Fare evasion increased to record levels during the pandemic, leading to a loss of $40 million of fare revenue a year. Metro relies on those fares to help keep buses, trains, and MetroAccess services running.

For those who need help paying, Metro has several fare discount programs. Nearly 8,500 people have signed up for Metro Lift, a half-off fare program launched in June 2023 for low-income individuals enrolled in SNAP. Those over age 65 are eligible for half-off fares with a Senior SmarTrip card. D.C. students are eligible for the Kids Ride Free program.

So far this year, rail ridership is up 9% compared to last year. The number of paid trips where a customer tapped a physical or mobile SmarTrip card is up 30%.

Metro has made several improvements to the customer experience under our Fare System Improvements program.

It’s easier than ever to pay your fare by adding SmarTrip to a mobile wallet. More than 30% of trips are paid for by tapping your smartphone, allowing customers to skip the fare vending machines.

Earlier this year, Metro finished installing credit card readers on all exit fare machines so customers can easily add funds to their SmarTrip card if they don’t have enough on their card to exit the system.

Customers are also seeing fewer “See Station Manager” messages after tapping their SmarTrip. Metro updated the faregate software to have more descriptive error messages to help address fare card issue.