New policy targets fare scofflaws on Caltrain

Caltrain began testing a new fare-evasion policy Friday, in the hope that it will save conductors time and encourage more people to pay up.

Under the new policy, conductors will hand out administrative citations with a $75 penalty to riders who can’t show they’ve paid their fares. The process would take about two minutes and only require the conductor to scan an ID — faster than the old method that required conductors filling out paperwork by hand, while standing on a moving train.

“It will be a lot faster, and then people can pay the fine online,” said Dan Lieberman, a spokesman for SamTrans, the agency that oversees Caltrain.

Citations issued before July 25 would serve only as warnings. After that, the agency will start imposing fines.

For years Caltrain issued criminal citations to fare evaders, requiring those people to show up in court in the county where they were caught. That got complicated, Lieberman said, since

Caltrain’s route weaves through three counties: San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara.

SamTrans officials also blame the old system for a string of assaults on conductors. Caltrain sees two such incidents per month. Many of them start because of a prolonged confrontation, when a fare evader is told to wait while a conductor fills out a form.

And the fees attached to these criminal citations seemed unfairly high, Lieberman said. They started at $250 — most of which went to the court — plus whatever administrative fees the court tacked on. By contrast, all the revenue from the new $75 penalties would go straight to SamTrans.

But the point isn’t to boost revenue, Lieberman said. It’s to clamp down on what appears to be a pervasive problem. SamTrans officials suspect they’ve long undercounted the number of cheats who come through the system, because catching them was so onerous.