eli5: why do long distance train systems (like Amtrak) and a lot of regional rails (like the Long Island Rail Road) use on-board ticket collectors to verify tickets, instead of turnstile systems at individual stations (like metros and subways use)?

Question

It just seems like a terribly inefficient system to verify someone’s right to access the train once they are already on the train…..

In: Other

Answer 1

So your question is little backwards. The thing is “why use turnstiles at all, they are easy to get around or fool.” That’s because there is such a high volume of people who use a metro or subway every day that the system would get clogged up if a human had to check every pass. Compare a subway to an amtrak car. The amtrak car is not carrying 3,000 different people in 1 hour.

It’s a completely different scale of operations. Amtrak will carry double digit millions every YEAR. A large metro/subway in a somewhat major city will carry a million in a WEEK. And I’m not even going to count the ones that carry a million in a DAY.

And another effect of the scale difference is just, well, the scale. We can’t expect ticket checkers to get every single person in a subway/metro when the car stops every 5 or 10 minutes unless we have teams of them covering every car.