BART pilot program gives cash for off-peak commutes

OAKLAND — Faced with trains packed beyond capacity during peak commute hours, BART will soon start offering small cash rewards to riders who shift their commute away from the weekday rush hour.

The nine- to 12-month, $1.4 million pilot program, called BART Perks, uses a model launched in Singapore that allows riders to collect “points” that can be redeemed for small cash rewards or used to play a “spin-the-wheel” game for the chance at larger prizes, said BART spokeswoman Alicia Trost. Participants must use a Clipper card so that the agency can track what time they are riding BART, and cash rewards must be redeemed via PayPal, Trost said.

The idea, said BART Director Gail Murray, who first broached the idea with staff, is to find short-term solutions to relieve crowding on overly packed trains.

“We needed to try something because (overcrowding) is such a problem,” she said. “And we have to use every tool to do it because we need to get the new train control system and the new train cars, but that won’t happen instantly.”

BART is in the midst of testing the first of its “Fleet of the Future,” a $2.6 billion effort to replace its 669 aging train cars with 775 new ones. The new cars will allow the agency to run longer trains, but it also needs to upgrade its 1970s-era train control system so the trains can run more closely together in order to significantly increase capacity, Trost said.

Those new, longer and more frequent trains will need additional traction power, another large infrastructure investment, she said. BART is hoping taxpayers will support its $3.5 billion bond measure, set to go before voters in November, which would help reduce projected capital funding shortfalls.

Until then, Trost said the agency is looking at other ways to manage overcrowding, including adding sliding doors to the edges of platforms at Embarcadero station so people can stand on the yellow ribbed line, taking out bulky furniture, and improving its escalators and elevators to move people out of the station more quickly.

BART staff will also be working with employers to encourage companies to let their employees have more flexible start and end times for the pilot program, Trost said.

“It’s really just an idea that we want to test,” Trost said. “We want to educate the public that if you just shift a little bit during the busiest time, that might help.”

Although there’s no official start date for the program, Trost said it is expected to roll out in the late summer or early fall.