Riders duck tolls with much ease
- Source: Global Times
- [09:31 June 25 2010]
- Comments
A man squeezes through the ticket gate Thursday at the Nanjing Road East station along the Line 2 subway. Photo: Cai Xianmin
By Chen Xiaoru
The day after a four-day clampdown on subway fare dodgers caught more than 800 passengers along the Line 1 subway, authorities once again found themselves at the drawing board Thursday trying to find a solution to the age-old problem.
"We can't really stop passengers from jumping the tolls because we don't have the authority to do anything," Wang Bin, a press officer for the No.1 Subway Operating Company, which is in charge of the Line 1 subway, told the Global Times Thursday. "We can only force riders to pay for tickets if we catch them in the act."
Most of the riders caught earlier this week by subway staff were young people, street vendors and middle-aged woman, according to Wang. Many were let off the hook with just a slap on the wrist after paying the fare, while some 200 others were lectured for their actions, he said.
Wang said the unfortunate reality is that their hands are tied in the matter.
"It's really hard for us to do anything else," he said. "We dispatch additional staff at our stations several times a year at random to clamp down on this kind of activity, and that helps us catch more passengers, but we don't have enough employees to do this every day, so a lot of the time riders get away scot-free."
