Riders boarding a Muni Metro train.
As Muni ridership grows, we continue to make changes so that we can provide the best possible experience for our customers. Teams across our agency work every day to make sure Muni remains a high-quality, reliable public transit option that helps everyone get around San Francisco.
That's why we’re constantly finding ways to improve our system. Programs like Muni Forward are a great example. An in-depth report shows Muni Forward projects have reduced travel times by up to 35% and resulted in up to 51% more reliable transit service.
Fare compliance is another area where we saw room for improvement and reached out to riders to understand their needs.
Many riders told us that visible fare evasion is a serious concern. In a recent focus group, a rider from San Francisco’s east side noted that: “You have to fix fare evasion first.” Our community asked us to address this issue, and we responded.
We made a series of changes to increase fare compliance. Now, our transit fare inspectors:
- Perform 86% more inspections per hour than they did in July 2024
- Report a nearly 30% decline in observed fare evasion compared to July 2024
This work helps us continue to provide reliable service, especially as we face an upcoming $320 budget deficit. Fare revenue directly supports Muni service and our fare discount programs for people with no or low income. Learn more about our focus on compliance - and how it supports everyone who takes Muni.
What have we done?
Since July last year, we have worked to make transit fare inspectors more visible on Muni.
We continue to build the team. Right now, there are more fare inspectors available than at any time in the last decade. We have worked to deploy them in the most efficient and effective ways. As a result, fare inspectors have increased the number of inspections they perform every hour by 86%.
Since July 2024, we can say that the observed fare evasion rate has declined by almost 30%. That means that when transit fare inspectors check riders for fare compliance, more of those riders have paid their fares. (It doesn’t include riders who exit the bus immediately when the inspectors board.)
When riders pay their fares, they directly support our fare discount programs. These programs are a critical lifeline to help people get where they need to go across the city. Currently, almost 7% of SFMTA revenue comes from fares. Historically, almost 15% of our revenues were from fares, so there is still room to grow.
Two fare inspectors working the 2024 APEC Conference.
How do we ensure compliance?
We approach fare compliance with the values of safety, equity and education.
Raising awareness
To ensure fare compliance, we start with education. This includes:
- Our Fares webpage, which provides a full list of payment options
- Signs with multilingual fare information near the front of our buses, trains and streetcars
- Mobile van outreach where our staff head to neighborhoods to share information about Free Muni for All Youth and other discount fare programs
Since last July, we've done even more to reach people across channels. We launched a new campaign focused on increasing fare compliance.
We placed multilingual car cards on our buses and Muni Metro. They highlight the many ways to pay fares. We shared a similar message on digital ads throughout the city near transit stops. On social media, we promoted videos featuring our fare inspector team and other videos detailing the ways to pay fare.
We took these steps to make sure riders understand our policies, know about our discount programs and are ready to show proof of payment.
Leading with education
Proof of payment is required on board all Muni vehicles and in all Muni stations. However, our fare compliance work is focused on riders that have the ability to pay; not to punish riders who cannot.
When inspectors speak with a rider who has not paid the fare, they share multilingual information about Muni’s free and reduced fare programs, such as our Lifeline, Access and Clipper START programs.
If a rider qualifies and applies for one of these programs within 30 days of receiving a transit citation, they can have the citation dismissed.
Transit fare inspectors are also trained to support riders with limited-English proficiency. Among other options, our inspectors can turn to a colleague who has the required language skills or access Language Line. This line provides interpretation assistance in over 100 languages.
Adapting to changes in Muni ridership
The nature of Muni ridership has changed since 2020. We implemented the popular Free Muni for All Youth program. More people choose to pay for individual rides instead of enrolling in our monthly fast pass. Still, many Muni riders qualify for our free and reduced fare programs. Most of these riders do not have to tap the fare box for their payment. As our ridership grows, the type of rider and how they pay their fare will continue to change.
One way we look at progress on fare compliance is to calculate a revenue per rider statistic. To calculate this number, we take the amount of total fares collected in a month divided by the monthly total of weekday boardings. This metric tells us if more people are paying their fares over time.
In this regard, revenue per rider has increased 6% so far compared to the same time last year. This means that many riders returning to Muni are not only able to pay the full fare, but they are also choosing to pay their fares.
Rider tagging the fare box with their Clipper Card.
What’s ahead for fare compliance?
As our agency navigates the tough financial times ahead, we must continue the important work supporting fare compliance. It's one of many steps we’re taking to support our customers and keep our system reliable.
As the team of fare inspectors grows, we will increase our presence on weekends and on Muni Metro.
To make payments easier, we will support the implementation of Clipper 2.0. This next generation payment system promises to eliminate many of the technical barriers that riders currently experience. With Clipper 2.0, riders will be able tap the fare box with other forms of payment, in addition to the Clipper Card.
Building trust among our ridership is critical. We hope our actions to improve fare compliance will assure the public that Muni is doing all it can to collect fares. We estimate that these efforts can increase the SFMTA’s annual fare revenue by about $5 million year over year.
Lastly, we understand there can be sensitivities regarding fare inspections. If you observe any issue during an inspection, you can report it by contacting 311 or going to our Contact Us webpage. We work hard to serve our customers. Any complaint is investigated by the Proof-of-Payment team.