This may be so, but a typical transit agency will have supplementary methods of verifying boardings than simply ticket sales/swipes. When Adelaide's notorious fare-evasion rate was last reported on in 2015, 14.2% of tram riders boarded without validating a ticket. Otherwise, the vast majority of cases were for paying the wrong fare (most notably paying a concession fare without proof of entitlement), which means their rides were recorded, albeit at the wrong fare. So while there may conceivably be some statistical variation (if it was not backed up by an alternative counting method), it would be small.

A few years ago there was an item in the Adelaide press where they'd got a bloke to walk through the CBD alongside the tram and he beat it to the other end. Really they should try to stop making it easy for car drivers.

Tony P
---InTramsDownUnder@..., <graham@...> wrote :

Having used the Glenelg trams since 1944 I've been following the recent comments with interest.

There are 2 problems with citing user numbers and they both relate to the high percentage of failure to validate or purchase tickets. There seems to be no checking of tickets now and the number of non-paying travellers is reaching plague proportions. While it is impossible to count non-payers in peak times I have been conducting my private off-peak survey since the conductors were removed and I can tell you that in off-peak times the number often approaches 50%. The peak times the trams are impossibly crowded for a count but I know many travellers do not validate tickets and indeed many cannot even access the machines the crowds are so thick. The irony of doing away with conductors is that I suspect the loss in revenue is probably greater than the cost to employ conductors!

Someone said there has been a fall off in patronage - I suspect there has been a fall-off in ticket validation! The trams are as crowded as ever. The station carparks are still all overflowing. The Goodwood Road carpark has recently been extended.

Turning to the travel time I have always thought the trams on streets should be given traffic light priority. The two major holdup points within the CBD are South Terrace intersection and the stretch along North Terrace with a multitude of traffic lights. In fact progress is so slow up North terrace towards King Wm St that If I see a tram approaching the Railway Stn stop as I walk alongside Govt House I have enough time to walk to King Wm St, cross Nth Tce at the lights and still board the same tram at Rundle Mall (a distance of 150m) without the need to run!

Graham