Passengers routinely ride Maryland Transit Administration buses free because fare boxes fail to work, costing the beleaguered transit agency untold losses.
As many as one in five of the electronic fare boxes installed by the MTA malfunction, so drivers wave through unpaying passengers, agency officials say.
“Fare boxes are complex electronic equipment and will periodically break,” said Jawauna Greene, an MTA spokeswoman. “MTA works to return fare boxes to working order as quickly as possible.”
The MTA installed the electronic fare boxes, which accept cash and swipe cards, three years ago, Greene said, and 14 technicians work on-call to repair the boxes.
The agency could not say how much fare box malfunctions cost the state.
MTA buses carry an average of about 300,000 passengers daily in the Baltimore region, but the agency said it could not provide a breakdown on how much it takes in from bus fares. Passengers say the fare boxes fail regularly.
On a No. 8 bus on York Road en route to Towson on Saturday, the driver glanced at the fare box and told a boarding passenger, “It?s not working.”
“I ride for free a third of the time,” said Will Povlett, 43, a city resident who uses MTA buses to commute to and from his truck driving job in Hampden.
“I sometimes take three buses to get to work, and the boxes don?t work on any of them.”
Sylvia Anjea, 40, a city resident who rides the bus regularly, sat next to Povlett.
“On the No. 22, the boxes are down all the time,” she said. “On this bus, it?s a couple times a week.
“It?s not a bad thing, though,” she added, smiling.
Greene said MTA “secret riders” who board buses to measure the reliability of fare boxes have found 5 percent to 20 percent of all the boxes citywide aren?t working at any given time.
Jammed bill receivers cause most breakdowns, but the city?s bumpy streets can cause the entire fare box to fail, Greene said.
MTA?s woes extend beyond failing fare boxes.
The agency recently revealed that nearly half of all video security cameras installed on city buses did not work. The cameras came under scrutiny after a bus brawl involving nine middle school students seriously injured Sarah Kreager, 26.
The camera on the No. 27 bus in which the brawl occurred was broken, frustrating MTA investigators.
