Teams of fare inspectors in plain clothes began patrolling the transit system and issuing tickets on Wednesday as part of the TTC’s efforts to reduce the estimated $140 million lost to fare evasion each year.
All plain clothes inspectors are carrying ID and are equipped with body-worn cameras to record customer interactions, the transit commission said in a release.
It added that inspectors will use discretion, whether in uniform or plain clothes, to ensure tickets are predominantly issued in cases of "willful evasion".
Tickets for not paying for a bus, streetcar or subway ride range from $235 to $425 depending on the nature of the offence. That money goes to the courts, not directly to the transit service.
The transit service said the approach was previously tested in 2018 and re-introduced three weeks ago with plain-clothes inspectors "educating" those found to be riding illegally.
The move to now begin writing tickets is part of a pilot project that will be reevaluated in January, according to TTC media relations.
I'd like to know more about how they estimate financial losses due to fare evasion
Better use of resources would be to ticket all the drivers blocking streetcars with various stupid behaviours
Give streetcars priority, there is no good excuse for making a streetcar full of people wait so a handful of people in cars can turn left. How long is the typical delay of an emergency vehicle passing through an intersection? A couple seconds? That same delay would be how long a streetcar takes to clear an intersection with priority. Streetcars shouldn't be forced to wait to save a handful of drivers 5 seconds on their commute while causing delays and unreliability throughout the streetcar system.
They didn't like that on St. Clair so it doesn't seem the majority of people care.