Metro has failed to accurately track how many people are riding its buses and how much money they paid, according to an inspector general audit. The agency understated by 1.1 million how many riders took Metrobus between July 2009 through April 2010 in its monthly financial reports, the audit found. Metro also undercounted bus revenue by $972,685. The information the agency did track was “not complete, accurate and consistent,” the audit found. And sometimes, it said, Metro failed to collect any fares at all.
| How bus riders pay |
| » |
| SmarTrip: 65 percent |
| » Bus passes: 20 percent |
| » Cash: 15 percent |
Collecting precise ridership data is critical for Metro as it determines its budget and how much the agency receives in subsidies from its various jurisdictions. The actual cash collected is also vital. For the past two budget cycles, the agency has struggled to close massive shortfalls, ultimately borrowing from its reserves, tapping into more taxpayer subsidies and charging riders higher fares.
Inspector General Helen Lew’s office found multiple problems causing the incorrect information ranging from broken fareboxes to technical problems collecting data from the fareboxes.
Investigators rode seven buses and saw some riders who did not pay when they boarded the bus “because the driver was distracted.” They wrote that in one case the driver was smoking outside the bus while riders boarded.
The fareboxes also fail, the report said. In May, for example, 127 fareboxes were reported broken.
The audit said some drivers don’t collect any fares when one function of the farebox breaks, ignoring the chance to collect money from SmarTrip Cards or credit cards. But drivers have told The Washington Examiner it doesn’t seem fair to collect from some riders but not others when the box is partially broken.
Some operators did not get their buses checked out each day so fare information could be uploaded. The audit said they were frustrated with the long lines that could cause them to wait past their normal working hours. An average of 59 buses a day at the Bladensburg bus facility last February failed to upload the data.
Technical problems also occurred. The system is designed to transfer the information from the fareboxes to the agency computers in 15 seconds, but the audit found some fareboxes did not fully transfer the data for three months or more.
Metro’s Chief Financial Officer Carol Dillon Kissal told board members last week that the agency has formed a task force to look into the problems. The agency has also said it will replace buses with broken fareboxes within two hours to minimize the loss of fares.
But the problems continue. Metro’s online archive of daily ridership shows 426,000 Metrobus trips for every weekday, regardless of the day, since April. Metro has called that an average number used as a placeholder. Exact rail numbers, though, are provided each day in those same reports.
