# Major shakeup coming for Metrolink



## Paulus (Oct 15, 2014)

Amid Frustrations, Metrolink Is Said to Face an 'Imminent' Change



> Southern Californias main passenger railroad is in for a significant imminent change, Orange Countys transportation board chairman said Monday, noting frustrations by the countys representatives on the railroads board.
> 
> While he was vague about the potential change, Orange County Transportation Authority Chairman Shawn Nelson suggested the possibility of a different agency being contracted to manage rail service.
> 
> ...


For the curious, Metrolink currently relies on conductors doing a manual count of boardings and exits in order to gather ridership data. The introduction of automatic people counters on the San Diego Trolley (which Metrolink is looking at doing a trial run of) led to greatly increased passenger numbers just from better counting for example. So Metrolink could very well be wildly off in either direction.


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## neroden (Oct 15, 2014)

I guess most Metrolink ridership is from weekly or monthly passes, then? Because it's easy to count how many people bought single-ride tickets.


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## Paulus (Oct 15, 2014)

neroden said:


> I guess most Metrolink ridership is from weekly or monthly passes, then? Because it's easy to count how many people bought single-ride tickets.


Assuming that the machines worked, which is a questionable assumption with Metrolink: On any given day, there's an issue with 20% of the TVM fleet. There's also been a lot of reports of ticket scalping (including physical threats forcing handover of tickets).


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## NW cannonball (Oct 16, 2014)

Paulus said:


> neroden said:
> 
> 
> > I guess most Metrolink ridership is from weekly or monthly passes, then? Because it's easy to count how many people bought single-ride tickets.
> ...


Cite please? about threatening scalpers, not about ticket machine failures.


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## Paulus (Oct 16, 2014)

Reports via Metrolink Diary on Twitter.


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## Paulus (Nov 21, 2014)

Metrolink auditor probing irregularities at railroad is put on leave

Yeah, that's not going to reflect overly well on Metrolink. I suspect we'll see more push for that shakeup.


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## Bob Dylan (Nov 21, 2014)

Paulus said:


> Metrolink auditor probing irregularities at railroad is put on leave
> 
> Yeah, that's not going to reflect overly well on Metrolink. I suspect we'll see more push for that shakeup.


$66 Million missing from a Cash Account is serious stuff! Sounds like some people need to go to jail, not be placed on leave or allowed to " resign"! Where's the DA in this???


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## gwschenk (Nov 25, 2014)

OCTA is hardly credible when it comes to transit. They only believe in freeways and lining the pockets of their chosen contractors.


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## Paulus (Nov 25, 2014)

gwschenk said:


> OCTA is hardly credible when it comes to transit. They only believe in freeways and lining the pockets of their chosen contractors.


Oh please. OCTA was funding commuter San Diegans before Metrolink came about, has been putting a lot of money into Metrolink and rail expansion, was chosen to lead the LOSSAN agency overseeing the rail corridor and Surfliners, is apparently the only agency which makes a major effort to have timed connections between bus and rail, and it wasn't their fault CenterLine didn't come about.


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## gwschenk (Nov 25, 2014)

They killed light rail in OC.


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## Paulus (Nov 25, 2014)

gwschenk said:


> They killed light rail in OC.


CenterLine was shelved because of a lack of local support and Federal funding. In the meanwhile, they tried to bump up frequencies on Metrolink within the county, but those have been getting eliminated for lack of any ridership whatsoever. It's worth noting that they're working with Santa Ana and Anaheim on their streetcar projects.


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## gwschenk (Nov 26, 2014)

That's very good news.


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## Tokkyu40 (Dec 2, 2014)

Metrolink is a royal mess. It's about time they brought in some qualified people.
According to the people at RailPAC Metrolink is run like a min-Amtrak, with each train being a separate entity with little or no attempt to coordinate connections and conductors sometimes standing at a single door looking at each ticket before boarding when they have a fare crack-down.
San Diego's rolling spot-checks seem to work well enough and don't slow down the boarding process. The Green and Orange lines are coordinated at Grossmont so people can transfer between trains when traveling between Mission Vally and Lemon Grove. Making the train work for the customer makes it work better for the railroad.
Now I'm seeing financial and accounting problems that make it impossible to know what the service is actually doing. They need a good housecleaning.
And a fumigation.


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## TinCan782 (Dec 2, 2014)

Tokkyu40 said:


> ... and conductors sometimes standing at a single door looking at each ticket before boarding when they have a fare crack-down.


Never experienced that on the Ventura Line...when they do a fare check, the conductor walks the train after it leaves a station. As far as security checks at stations, the TSA and LASD (not Metrolink) does that while stopped at stations.


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## calwatch (Dec 9, 2014)

They are moving to 100% fare enforcement on the Antelope Valley Line, which some have nicknamed the "Felony Flyer" for the population that rides up to the jails in Castaic and prisons in the Antelope Valley. Also brought up is the problem of "short pays" which often happens as conductors traditionally check the peak load point of the train, coming or leaving Union Station. http://www.metrolinktrains.com/news/news_item/news_id/959.html


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## TinCan782 (Dec 9, 2014)

While I'm fine with "100% Fare Enforcement", I'm curious as to how much fare recovery/generation will be produced as compared to the $1.7 million to do this...the R.O.I. in other words.


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## Paulus (Dec 9, 2014)

FrensicPic said:


> While I'm fine with "100% Fare Enforcement", I'm curious as to how much fare recovery/generation will be produced as compared to the $1.7 million to do this...the R.O.I. in other words.


Going by page 64, it appears it will protected against a whopping two fare evaders per train.


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## chakk (Dec 9, 2014)

FrensicPic said:


> Tokkyu40 said:
> 
> 
> > ... and conductors sometimes standing at a single door looking at each ticket before boarding when they have a fare crack-down.
> ...


Did a for-fun circle trip Orange-Riverside-LAUS-Orange this week. No check of my purchased tickets on the first leg. Conductor came through the train checking tickets once on the second leg. Someone checked tickets at the top of the stairs and the ramp to the platform at LAUS for the third leg.


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## TinCan782 (Dec 9, 2014)

I commute on the Ventura Line. In the AM the Conductor checks tickets once every 2 on the or less. In the evening only seen one or two fare checks in the past 12 months.


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## TinCan782 (Dec 9, 2014)

Make that every 2 months or less in the AM


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## seat38a (Dec 10, 2014)

calwatch said:


> They are moving to 100% fare enforcement on the Antelope Valley Line, which some have nicknamed the "Felony Flyer" for the population that rides up to the jails in Castaic and prisons in the Antelope Valley. Also brought up is the problem of "short pays" which often happens as conductors traditionally check the peak load point of the train, coming or leaving Union Station. http://www.metrolinktrains.com/news/news_item/news_id/959.html


When I took the Antelope Valley line the day before TG, it was PACKED. On top of that, the LAC Sheriff's came through the train dong fare check not the conductor. Then again, the people on board were not exactly the type a single conductor would want to get into a tussle with because of non payment. Even when the conductor came through the train demanding people to get their feet and bag off of the seat, he had a deputy right behind him following him.


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## TinCan782 (Dec 10, 2014)

FrensicPic said:


> While I'm fine with "100% Fare Enforcement", I'm curious as to how much fare recovery/generation will be produced as compared to the $1.7 million to do this...the R.O.I. in other words.


So, apparently I"ve got too much time on my hands.

$1.7 million for 100% fare enforcement on the Antelope Valley LIne. The cost of a round trip Lancaster to LA ticket is $30. Metrolink needs to "recover" 56,666 fares to break even! On ONE line!

Metrolink's website shows for FY14 Q4 an average of 382 "boardings" for Lancaster. The FY 13-14 Q1 report shows, for the AV Line an average weekday ridership of 5950, average Saturday ridership of 3265 and average Sunday ridership of 2285.

Spend a dollar to save a penny?


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## Paulus (Dec 13, 2014)

Metrolink CEO resigns


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## beautifulplanet (Dec 15, 2014)

Press release: Metrolink to Get New Ticket Vending Machines


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## seat38a (Dec 15, 2014)

beautifulplanet said:


> Press release: Metrolink to Get New Ticket Vending Machines


They seriously need to invest in ONLINE / APP ticket purchase system.


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## rickycourtney (Dec 16, 2014)

Wow! That would finally bring Metrolink fully into the TAP card system... that's a really good thing!

The downside is that I doubt there is a way to integrate Amtrak ticket sales into these machines, like the old TVMs. But I suppose with the switch to eTicketing, that functionality isn't nearly as useful or necessary.


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## Paulus (Dec 16, 2014)

seat38a said:


> beautifulplanet said:
> 
> 
> > Press release: Metrolink to Get New Ticket Vending Machines
> ...


They're doing that as well.


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## seat38a (Dec 16, 2014)

Paulus said:


> seat38a said:
> 
> 
> > beautifulplanet said:
> ...


They could have eliminated much of the lost revenue from broken machine problem if there was a plan B (Online / APP ) for riders. Also, why not add a ticket machine on the train? If vandalism is a big problem, why don't they add payment options on the trains themselves?

Im glad they are on there way to adding online / app purchase feature but lets face it, they are WAYYYYY late to the game. I know a few people who have gotten a summons to appear for riding the train when the machine is broken. The cop writing the ticket could care less. They are told that if they can prove that the machine is down the judge will throw it out, but taking a day off to go to court and putting down a bail amount is no walk in the park. Its about as much of a hassle as getting a speeding ticket.

Also, not sure if anyone can answer this question. "Why is there a lone Metrolink Ticket Machine at San Diego Santa Fe Depot?" Metrolink goes down only as far south as Oceanside so why have a ticket machine down there that probably gets used maybe .000001% out of the year? I'm sure it could be better used at locations where Metrolink actually runs.


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## Paulus (Dec 16, 2014)

For transfers and whatnot with Coaster at Oceanside.


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## calwatch (Dec 17, 2014)

This is the proposed Metrolink ticket app system: https://www.scribd.com/doc/239301085/ExpressLanes-Electronic-Ticketing-App-2014

They wanted to use Expresslanes (toll road) money for this but the Metro board shot them down, stating that they didn't need to bail out Metrolink's problems, and especially complained that they wanted to use 110 toll money for train lines that go nowhere near the 110.


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## Paulus (Jan 9, 2015)

Metrolink board member quits as Metrolink board attempts to keep OCTA from rotating chairmanship, recommends OCTA reevaluate staying in Metrolink


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