Ethics Paper 3

7/28/2019 Ethics Paper 3

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Luis MontesPaper #3 Topic #1Due: May 26, 2013

As inhabitants of Earth, we have access to seemingly infinite resources that through the years of

human existence have been cultivated, manipulated, and sometimes even destroyed. Though ample,

these resources are certainly limited, and are to be shared amongst us and other organisms on the

planet. When pondering the division of resources, one should consider the distribution and

maximization of utility for all members of a given society, for it is efficient to do so. The problem is

there are often too many participants in a society to satisfy everyone's interests, as they are bound to

conflict. This dilemma was introduced by a hardly-known aspiring mathematician named William

Foster Lloyd as the tragedy of the commons in 1833. He presented an example involving herders that

shared a parcel of land on which their cows were kept to graze. In this time period, wool produced by

grazing sheep was in high demand. As a result, shepherds grazed their own sheep in the same parcels of

land since an increase in the number of sheep met the demand for wool. Herders benefited

economically, but at the same time each additional sheep produced further damage to the commons. As

each individual pursued their individual and rational interest, they ultimately harmed everyone else.

The tragedy of the commons can be applied to many subjects including economics,

environmental biology, and even modes of media consumption. In this paper, I intend to shed light on a

particular tragedy in San Francisco: free-riding the municipal transportation system. By free-

riding I am referring specifically to passengers that board buses and/or trains of the San Francisco

Municipal Transportation Agency without having paid (deliberately or not) for their respective fares.

The act is not only unethical; it is also economically and ultimately socially concerning, as I will show

through statistics given by the agency's website. Lastly, I will provide a solution I have structured

myself that, if implemented, may supplement the economic differential created by free-riding

individuals.

In a city as densely populated and nationally significant as San Francisco, people flooding buses

and trains is expected. In fact, as per the SFMTA fact sheet, the resident population in San Francisco

was estimated by the American Community Survey to be 806,696 in 2011. In addition, the average

weekday boardings for rail trains and/or buses is reported to be 694,294 in 2011-2012. When boarding

a public transportation vehicle, however, one would not have to wait long to see someone board

without paying the standard $2.00 fare.

I have heard plenty of justifications for bypassing the ticket cost, many of which are very


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reasonable on the surface. A few examples: (i) the cost does not justify such short transfer1 times, (ii)

a bus tends to carry enough people to pay for a full tank of fuel, and (iii) I am only being financially

responsible by doing so.

Taking justification (i) into consideration, it's easy to sympathize with the reasoning. According

to the SFMTA website, the standard transfer time is 90 minutes. Being a student myself, I can see why

another student finds it overwhelmingly expensive (when taking other expenses into account) to have

to pay up to $4 a day on weekdays with more than one class. If a student has 5 such days in a week,

that works out to $20 a week, and upwards of $80 a month. There are, in fact, other modes of

transportation however. For example, I started biking to school (about 4 mostly uphill miles) and back,

and it's benefited me in ways other than saving money. Obviously, this is not an option for everyone, as

some cannot reasonably bike or walk to school, be it for distance or level of fitness; so they are forced

to use public transportation. If so, one can consider pooling classes into shorter weeks of class (e.g.

take classes only on Monday, Wednesday and Friday), or one can simply manage their finances more

efficiently, specifically by making some sacrifices.

The next justification (ii) can be shown to be misguided simply by taking a look at some

SFMTA statistics. According to the most recent (created May 24, 2012) budget update on the SFMTA

website, the transit system was projected to finish the year with $193.4 million in transit fares. This

revenue is supplanted by revenue generated through grants, parking and traffic fines, advertising, etc.

The report at the time of creation predicted the funds to total $786 million. Unfortunately, the reported

expenditures (going to employee salaries, materials, maintenance, etc.) were projected to be about

$820.4 million. This deficit is one that will carry over to the following year and will force the SFMTA

to make increases in pricing, traffic fines, etc. to eliminate it and meet future expenditures. This

problem can easily be supplanted if those who are bypassing paying fares now start doing so. The

deficit in the projections for 2012 is about $34.4 million. Recall that 694,294 people board the

transportation system on average daily. Dividing the revenue we would expect from all of them paying

(~$506.84 million) by the projected revenue in the report, we find that about 3 in every 5 passengers do

not pay for their trip. This ratio is staggering. If it became only 2 in every 5 passengers do not pay for

their trip, we would expect the SFMTA to generate about $96.7 million more in transit fares revenue.

This increase in revenue would not only surmount the projected deficit, but it would probably lead to

1 When buying a ticket, an expiration time is given such that a purchaser can board another SFMTA vehicle prior to itstermination at no extra charge.


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improvement of the entire system; as it could be distributed to technological advancement in transits

and/or trains, maintenance costs, and perhaps even the reduction of current traffic fines. In short, your

$2 to get on a train or bus extends further than the cost of its fuel tank.

At this point in the argument, it's easy to see why justification (iii) is in fact irresponsible. It's

true that when bypassing a ticket fare, one can allocate the summed savings to personal and important

expenditures like (again, taking a student as an example) study material costs, food, rent, etc.; but, by

considering the ramifications, it's easy to see why this perspective is selfish. Consider the utility

components model introduced by our textbook for the decision. By bypassing the payment of a fare, a

passenger receives all of the $2 savings, resulting in positive utility of +1. At the same time, the bus or

train being boarded burns fuel, which was expected to be paid for by the revenue expected to be

generated that day. Consequently, the SFMTA is forced to make up for the deficit through increases in

ticket prices, traffic fines, etc. which ultimately results in distributing fractions of -1 utility to everyone

that uses public transportation or drives in the city. By my previous estimates, there are roughly

416,577 people producing this negative utility and keeping the positive utility to themselves daily.

In the end, everyone is going to pursue what they individually value. Even after being informed

of the consequences, some are still going to bypass paying just because it is rarely difficult to do so,

and because their individual actions have minimal impact on SFMTA funding. Currently, the method of

enforcing ticket payment is employing municipal security guards to board some bus and/or trains and

demand passengers to show proof of payment, or doing the same at particular bus stops or train

stations. The method works at several densely populated places, at which I have frequently seen guards

writing citations (a $100 violation fee, according to the SFMTA website) to perpetrators. The problem

with the method, however, is that it's not difficult to predict which train stations or bus routes will have

municipal security guards. After being in the city for a year, I have learned it's very likely guards will

be seeking proof of payment at stations on Market street, but I have never seen a guard on the N or 29

routes. As a result, many people frequently do not pay when boarding these routes. The SFMTA may

not be surveying these routes simply because it would require hiring more security guards, which in

effect would contribute to a greater deficit as security guard wages is included in its expenditures. I

believe a solution to this dilemma is to intelligently randomize the placement of municipal security

guards in the city. That is, the SFMTA can structure a frequency of boarding table, and for individual

bus and train routes and stations assign probabilities that will dictate how likely it would be for a set of


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security guards to survey them. By doing this, frequent perpetrators would be less apt at predicting

where they will risk receiving a citation. The individual risk for financial loss would then increase, and

suddenly it is rational to pay a measly $2 fare as opposed to a $100 citation for not showing proof of

payment.


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Works Cited

"FY 2013 and FY 2014 Budget Update." Sfmta.com. San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency,

24 May 2012. Web. 25 May 2013.

.

"San Francisco Transportation Fact Sheet." Sfmta.com. San Francisco Municipal Transportation

Agency, Nov. 2012. Web. 25 May 2013.

.

"Tragedy of the Commons."Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 21 May 2013. Web. 25 May 2013.

.

Winston, Morton Emanuel., and Ralph Edelbach. "The Tragedy of the Commons."Society, Ethics, and

Technology. 4th ed. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2012. 355-56. Print.
http://www.sfmta.com/cms/rfact/documents/FactSheet12-19-12.pdfhttp://www.sfmta.com/cms/rfact/documents/FactSheet12-19-12.pdf

Ethics Paper 3

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