4.1. Classification of the Evaders
Based on their survey responses, the 234 users in the sample who were observed boarding without paying the fare (hereafter “evaders”) were partitioned by the cluster analysis into four groups, as summarized in
Table 1. Despite the differences between the groups, the evaders as a whole shared the opinion that the Transantiago buses are not safe and that the service shows little concern for the welfare of users. Complementing this was the perception that the vehicles are not well maintained nor are their interiors kept clean, creating a sense of dissatisfaction among users and their milieu with the service provided.
The evaders generally expressed the view that evasion had become accepted by society and that there were situations in which not paying the fare was justified such as running out of farecard funds. They also insisted that Transantiago fares are too high. As for the anti-evasion measures, they acknowledged that they would be afraid to evade if a ticket inspector was present.
Regarding their sociodemographic characteristics, the evaders exhibited gender differences in that there were proportionally more men than women, except in Group 3, where the opposite was true. Although the majority stated they were employed, the proportion was lower than that for the whole sample due to the greater presence of students and/or unemployed persons. Finally, regarding the age characteristic, there were proportionally more young people under 19 years of age in the evader groups than in the whole sample. These findings are similar to those reported by [
17,
20].
The responses of the evaders in the 4 groups were statistically analyzed to differentiate each group’s behavior patterns. More specifically, their respective patterns were detected by analyzing the differences in the means of their responses to the 42 survey statements at a 95% significance level. The statements that showed significant mean differences are set out in
Table 2. Also, for each statement, a boxplot was drawn (see
Appendix C) to show each group’s response behavior, thus identifying graphically the inter-group differences.
4.1.1. Group 1—Radical Evaders
Group 1 were the most radical and homogeneous in their responses, which show little dispersion. As may be observed in Boxplots C2, C3, C5, and C10 (see
Appendix C), this group denied that evasion is dishonest, illicit, disrespectful, or irresponsible and stated that their family’s values do not influence their behavior on paying fares. Unlike the other groups, radical evaders said they did not agree with the statement that “it is wrong not to pay the bus fare.” They claimed that evasion is “a valid form of protest” and do not feel guilty when they evade. For these reasons, we characterize them as “radical” evaders. Members of this group are also the only ones who do not consider that evading is unfair to other users, and it does not bother them when an evader occupies a seat (Boxplot C16).
Radical evaders take no special care to bring their farecard or make sure it has funds if they plan to take the bus. They consider that “in some cases, evading is acceptable” and that more places where farecards can be recharged will not eliminate all justification for not paying the fare. They therefore reject the idea that all users should validate their farecards upon boarding a bus (Boxplot C9) and take the view that it is also not evasion to fail to tap their farecard when boarding a bus after using the Metro (as required by the integrated Metro-bus fare system).
Finally, radical evaders are not satisfied with the bus service provided by Transantiago and state that the service frequencies are not sufficient for their needs. As for anti-evasion measures, they said that neither turnstiles nor fines would reduce evasion and are not afraid of being fined when they evade. They are the only group claiming that they would not hesitate to evade even if the fines were bigger (Boxplot C6).
With respect to sociodemographic characteristics, radical evaders did not differ from the whole sample. There were more males than females in the group, and members were regular users of the system (5–7 times a week). Although the majority were students, in the whole sample, the proportion was not significantly different.
The radical group openly recognized that they are evaders and do not consider their behavior to be anti-social. On the contrary, they see it as a valid form of protest, which to a certain extent was associated with poor service quality. Thus, their strong convictions on the issue make them immune to any mechanism in the system for discouraging evasion. Their definition of the evasion phenomenon is relatively diffuse in that, for them, it is not a simple question of paying or not paying the fare.
This type of evader resembles de classification stablished by Suquet [
24] as ideological opponents and dissatisfied users and shows that cost-benefit measures are not enough to contain evasion, given that is understood as a conduct that expresses something beyond the simple cheating in order to reduce individual expenditure.
4.1.2. Group 2—Strategic Evaders
As with radical evaders, in the strategic evader group, there were proportionally more men than women. Unlike the rest of the sample, this group had more workers. In similar fashion to evaders generally, they reject the idea that evasion is dishonest, illicit, disrespectful, or irresponsible. The majority of them said that they did not feel guilty when they evaded, affirming that evading is not unfair to other users and that it does not bother them when an evader occupies a seat (Boxplot C16). Just like Group 1, the majority stated that, in some cases, evading is acceptable, such as losing one’s farecard or as a form of protest.
Strategic evaders are like radical evaders in being dissatisfied with the service provided by Transantiago, and almost the entire group feels that service frequencies are not sufficient for their needs (Boxplot C19). The group also believe that neither turnstiles nor fines reduce evasion, are not afraid of being fined when they evade, and do not consider that it is evasion to fail to tap their farecard upon boarding a bus after taking the Metro.
However, they are distinguishable from the radical evader group in that they feel it is wrong not to pay the fare, that their family’s values do influence their behavior on paying fares, and that all users should tap their farecards upon boarding.
The main characteristics of this group is that they do take care to bring their farecard and make sure it has funds if they plan to take the bus. As regards methods of reducing evasion, they believe that providing more places where farecards can be recharged would reduce the justification for evading (Boxplot C14) and that users would hesitate to evade if fines were bigger.
To sum up, strategic evaders were less radical than those in Group 1 in that they exhibit values that reduce their tendency to evade and lead them to be critical of evasion. They also displayed a certain hesitancy about not paying in the presence of certain anti-evasion measures. However, although they have the means to pay the fare since they are more “organized” in the sense that they take care to bring their farecards and have funds on them if they plan to take the bus, they do evade in a strategic manner, believing it is wrong to do so but doing it nevertheless. In other words, though they have the means to pay, they will not do so if they can get away with it. Thus, depending on the circumstances they pay on some occasions and not on others. This group may be particularly sensitive to more frequent fare inspections and stronger anti-evasion measures.
4.1.3. Group 3—Ambivalent Evaders
Members of the ambivalent evader group consider fare evasion to be acceptable in some cases, such as losing one’s farecard, and take the view that more places to recharge farecards will not eliminate the justification for evading. Unlike Groups 1 and 2, though they did evade, they still recognized that it is wrong not to pay the fare and that failing to pay it is dishonest, disrespectful, and irresponsible. At the same time, however, they believe that evasion is not illicit and is a valid form of protest. This set of attitudes is what explains their classification as “ambivalent evaders.”
Another example of this ambivalence is evident in their recognition that they feel guilty when they evade, yet they do not believe they are being unfair to other users, nor does it bother them when an evader occupies a seat. Though they are not afraid of being fined when they evade, they take no special care to bring their fare card or make sure it has funds if they plan to take the bus.
Finally, unlike the other groups in this category, ambivalent evaders said they were satisfied with the service of the bus they were riding and consider that service frequencies are sufficient for their needs (Boxplot C19).
This group also feels that turnstiles and fines do not reduce evasion but did say that this could change if fines were bigger. Although they consider that users should tap their farecard when boarding the bus, they do not think that failing to do so after using the Metro constitutes evasion.
The gender makeup of the ambivalent evaders group differed from the whole sample in that it consisted mostly of women. Their age distribution was younger than the other groups.
In short, this group does not appear to be strongly critical of the transport system, and their values sometimes seem to be at odds with their occasional acts of evasion and lack of care in ensuring their fare card had funds, suggesting they are ambivalent or contradictory.
4.1.4. Group 4—Accidental Evaders
Accidental evaders were the only ones in the evader category who disagreed with the statement that “in some cases, evading is acceptable.” Their evasion occurred when they accidentally ran out of farecard funds. Since they take care to bring their farecard and have funds on it if they plan to take the bus, they believe that if there were more places to recharge farecards, there would be no justification for evading. This attitude is due to their general view that evasion is dishonest, illicit, disrespectful, and irresponsible, and as with Groups 2 and 3, they consider that it is wrong not to pay the fare. They feel guilty when they evade, given that they think evasion is not only wrong but also unfair to other users.
Like the strategic evaders, they stated that their family’s values influence their behavior on paying bus fare. They also consider that all users should tap their cards upon boarding and that not doing so after having taken the Metro also constitutes evasion.
Although agreeing with radical and strategic evaders that service frequencies are not sufficient for their needs, they said they were satisfied with the service of the bus they were riding. As regards the anti-evasion measures, occasional evaders are the only ones who consider that turnstiles and fines help reduce evasion and that they would hesitate to evade if the fines were bigger.
In terms of sociodemographic characteristics, this group differed from the whole sample in that they were mainly workers over the age of 35 who take short trips (less than 20 min).
To summarize, members of this group only evade in special cases, displaying beliefs, behaviors, and values that distinguish them from evaders in general. Thus, they are classified as accidental evaders. Since they are always willing to pay the fare, what is required to ensure they do is not strong anti-evasion measures but rather more places to charge farecards or, if they did not bring their farecard, other modes of payment.
4.2. Classification of the Non-Evaders
The 223 survey respondents in the sample who were observed to have paid the fare (hereafter “non-evaders”) were partitioned by the cluster analysis into three groups as shown in
Table 3. The data indicate that the three have certain characteristics in common, such as considering that not tapping one’s farecard upon boarding a bus after using the Metro is evasion, and stating that they always take care to bring their farecard and maintain funds on it when planning to take a bus. Thus, they believe that if there were more places for recharging farecards, there would be no justification for not paying the fare. Although they think fines do not reduce evasion, they also say that they personally would hesitate to evade if the fines were bigger.
As regards Transantiago’s image, non-evaders expressed dissatisfaction with the system and a perceived lack of safety aboard the buses. They stated that the system shows little concern for users’ welfare and were of the opinion that the buses are not well maintained nor are their interiors kept clean.
The non-evader group may be characterized by the fact that, although they feel evasion has become generally accepted, they believe the fares to be high, and they are not satisfied with the service, they nevertheless paid the fare when they boarded the bus. All of them declared that their family’s values influence their attitudes to paying.
As regards sociodemographic characteristics, there were proportionally more women in this group than in the whole sample. Workers and users over the age of 35 were also present in this group in greater proportion.
The statements for which there were statistically significant differences between the three groups in their response means are summarized in
Table 4. The behavior patterns of the groups reflected in these results together with the boxplots in
Appendix D are identified and described below.
4.2.1. Group 1—Proud Non-Evaders
The proud non-evader group stated for the most part that they “strongly agree” with such statements as “not paying the fare is wrong” and that evading is dishonest, illicit, disrespectful, and irresponsible (
Appendix D, Boxplots D1 and D8). They also indicated their strong agreement with the idea that evasion is unfair to other users and they would feel guilty if they evaded. Furthermore, it bothers them when an evader occupies a seat, and they do not consider it acceptable for users to evade even if they have lost their farecard or it has run out of funds.
As is shown in Boxplot D3, proud non-evaders were satisfied with the service on the bus they were riding and with bus frequencies. Regarding anti-evasion measures, they believe that turnstiles do not reduce evasion and also say they would be afraid not to pay in the presence of a ticket inspector but also due to the fines levied for evasion.
In sociodemographic terms, this group did not differ very much from the whole sample, except in terms of age, the majority of them being over 35.
Summing up, the values and perceptions of this group regarding public transport are such that they reject evasion under any circumstance, and their opinions in this respect are quite radical. Particularly striking is their view that all anti-evasion measures are effective, except turnstiles.
The interesting aspect of studying this group is that they show how social norms can be much stronger than cost-benefit incentives. Proud non-evaders are willing to pay the bus fare even though they are not satisfied with public transport service, evasion is socially accepted, inspections can be outsmarted, and fine payment can be avoided. In a context were cheating is available and costless, the fulfillment of traditional social expectations can be a powerful tool to promote a conduct. Nevertheless, we cannot expect these social norms to be effective or legitimate to all users. They only motivate a small portion of the population studied.
4.2.2. Group 2—Empathetic Non-Evaders
This was the largest non-evader group. In sociodemographic terms, its members were little different from the whole sample, and their attitudes are generally very similar to the proud non-evader group, differing in that empathetic non-evaders do consider it to be “acceptable to evade in some cases,” such as running out of farecard funds. However, they do not believe it is acceptable if a user loses their farecard or as a form of protest, even though they admit to being dissatisfied with the service provided by Transantiago and feel that bus frequencies are not sufficient for their needs.
The group also agreed that evading is dishonest, illicit, disrespectful, and irresponsible (Boxplots D5 and D7) and stated that they would feel guilty if they evaded, that evasion is unfair to other users and that it bothers them when evaders occupy a seat.
Regarding anti-evasion measures, this group believes that turnstiles do help reduce evasion and that they would be afraid to evade in the presence of an inspector and also because of the fines levied for evasion (see Boxplot D4).
To summarize, the empathetic non-evaders reject excuses for evading under a range of circumstances but do believe it is acceptable to evade in some cases, such as running out of farecard funds.
4.2.3. Group 3—Circumstantial Non-Evader
The attitudes of this group, the smallest among the non-evaders, are the opposite of the proud non-evader group. These users stated that evasion is neither dishonest, illicit, disrespectful, nor irresponsible. Like empathetic non-evaders, they consider that it is generally acceptable to evade, particularly as an act of protest or upon losing one’s farecard or running out of funds. Evasion does not make them feel guilty, is not seen by them to be unfair to other users, and it does not bother them if evaders occupy a seat.
Users in this group are not satisfied with Transantiago’s service or with bus frequencies. As regards anti-evasion measures, they think that turnstiles do not deter evasion and are afraid neither of evading in the presence of inspectors nor of the fines levied. Although they all paid their fare, their behavior seems to be influenced by the specific circumstances of their trip, such as the presence of an inspector either on the bus when they boarded or at the bus stop where they began their trip.
Their sociodemographic characteristics were generally different from those of non-evaders. Proportionally, more of them were men and workers, they were typically between 19 and 35 years of age, and they were regular users of public transport.
Finally, the responses of this group to the 42 survey statements indicated that their opinions are quite similar to the ambivalent evader group, differing only in the fact that the circumstantial non-evaders paid the fare for the trip on the bus where they were surveyed.