Our TAP-to-Exit pilot program will expand to the Downtown Santa Monica Station on the E Line on Tuesday, September 3.
The TAP to Exit program requires passengers to show their ticket when exiting the station. The goal is to improve compliance with fare regulations and ensure that our system is used by our customers for legitimate travel purposes.
Three things drivers should know:
- When you tap your card at the start of your journey and the fare has been charged, tap to confirm payment of the fare and open the ticket barriers.
- If you have done this not Tap your card if you started Your journey will be deducted from your fare if you out of at the turnstiles.
- Passengers without a valid fare will be given a grace period of 7 days before being issued a ticket.
We will have enough staff on site in Downtown Santa Monica to help riders purchase the correct fare and answer any questions. There will also be staff from our LIFE Program (Low Income Fare Is Easy) to make it easier for passengers to enroll in our discount program, which offers eligible passengers unlimited free rides for the first 90 days and 20 free rides per month thereafter.
In May, we launched TAP-to-Exit at the B Line’s North Hollywood Station. Since then, we’ve seen a significant increase in ridership, as well as a decrease in crime and other issues reported by riders through Metro’s Transit Watch app.
We have conducted a customer survey at NoHo Station since the pilot began and found that 91% felt the station was cleaner and 86% thought it was safer.
The expansion of TAP-to-Exit is part of several public safety initiatives approved by the Metro Board at its July meeting. After TAP-to-Exit is implemented at the Downtown Santa Monica Station, we will expand the pilot to our other terminal stations. Dates for this expansion have yet to be determined. Please stay tuned to The Source and our social media for updates.
In addition to TAP-to-Exit, the Board approved three other initiatives in July that we believe will further improve public safety and make using our system more convenient:
•We are expanding our Elevator Open Door pilot program from 21 to 57 elevators.
Keeping the doors open when the elevators are not in use can prevent illegal or unwanted activities in the elevators.
During this pilot project, we found that passengers with strollers and bicycles can use the elevators more easily – they no longer have to run to close doors. Equally important, we also found that our cleaners are called out less often to clean up large messes.
•We will expand our smart toilet pilot program to up to 64 stations over the next four years.
In addition to our traditional restrooms at Union Station and several other locations, we have our Pilot toilet project last autumn through a partnership with Throne, a start-up that manufactures and operates toilet units accessed via a code sent to mobile phones. Throne toilets – complete with running water and lights – have been used over 75,000 times to date in 10 stations. The feedback we have received has been very positive.
The lack of toilets on our system (and other transit systems) has long been a complaint of riders, and traditional public restrooms often see inappropriate activity that creates new problems in an attempt to solve one problem. We are excited to be able to test a quick-to-build, scalable solution that has so far provided our riders with clean, comfortable, and safe restrooms.
- We will be conducting pilot projects with weapons detection systems at two railway stations this year.
Although we believe that overall very few drivers carry illegal weapons, we do not want any Weapons in our system that could endanger your safety. We believe the presence of these detection units will act as a deterrent and deter individuals from bringing weapons into our system.
