LIRR IOU invoices fall 43% after MTA boots free-riding passengers without IDs

The number of IOU invoices issued to Long Island Rail Road passengers who didn’t pay for their trips fell by more than 40% after the LIRR toughened its fare-evasion policies in June, but the railroad is still only recovering a fraction owed by those passengers, new figures show.

Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials said the steep drop shows the effectiveness of their crackdown on fare evasion, even if riders and advocates say lingering holes in the railroad’s fare payment system remain easy to exploit.

There will always be some people trying to ride free — "the guy who is going in the bathroom for two or three stops," said Gerard Bringmann, chairman of the LIRR Commuter Council, a rider advocacy group. "You’re never going to get 100%." But the new policy is "a big improvement, and I'm thrilled."

After several reports in Newsday showing fare beaters increasingly taking advantage of the LIRR’s invoice system — which allowed conductors to send nonpaying riders home with a bill, even without proving who they were — the MTA in June changed its policy. Now, it only allows invoices to be issued to passengers who provide identification. Riders who don’t pay and don’t provide ID are removed from trains by police, according to the policy.

Under the previous policy, some riders racked up more than 100 invoices for unpaid fares in a span of just six months, according to MTA data obtained by Newsday last year. Nearly 160,000 invoices were issued in 2023, up 60% over the previous year.

New data obtained through a public records request shows that fare evasion on the LIRR continued to grow through the first half of last year, when conductors issued an average of 15,106 invoices per month, up 14% from the 13,308 monthly average in 2023.

But those figures fell sharply in July, the first full month after the MTA adopted its new policy. From July through December, LIRR conductors handed out an average of 8,588 invoices per month, 43% fewer than in the first half of the year. 

The drop in invoices continued falling through last month, when the LIRR handed out 5,223 IOUs, 65% fewer than its monthly average in the first half of last year.

The total number of invoices issued in 2024 was 10% less than all of 2023, though still 44% higher than in 2022. 

MTA chairman and CEO Janno Lieber told Newsday Tuesday the latest figures show that the transit agency has in recent months "really pushed back on fare evasion," which causes the MTA to lose about $700 million annually, mostly on buses and subways. The MTA has estimated the LIRR loses about $24 million in unpaid fares annually, including fares that aren't collected by conductors or are collected incorrectly.

Part of the MTA's strategy to rein in fare evasion on the LIRR is to "cut back on giving these IOUs, which was a crazy system," Lieber said.

"Those are now limited to only people who show ID, so we know who they are. And that gives us a chance to collect them," he said.

95% uncollected; hostilities rise

But data obtained by Newsday shows that the MTA’s low rate of collection on outstanding LIRR fares has remained largely unchanged in recent years. Of the $1.98 million in unpaid tickets the LIRR billed for in the first 11 months of 2024, it recovered only around $96,000, or just under 5%. That’s unchanged from the collection rate in 2023, and slightly less than the 5.6% in delinquent fares it recovered in 2022.

According to the railroad’s policy, as outlined in a 2019 audit by the state comptroller’s office, customers have 14 days to return payment before accruing penalties. After 60 days, riders with six or more offenses can have their cases sent to a collection agency. The invoice warns riders that nonpayment could result in "a negative credit report."

While lauding the drop in the invoices issued, Bringmann, who also serves as an MTA Board member, said more of an effort should be made to recoup unpaid fares, especially if the railroad is now requiring IDs to issue an invoice.

"If someone still takes advantage and we know who they are, we know what their address is, report them to a credit agency. Let it affect their credit rating," Bringmann said.

One downside of the MTA's increased vigilance over fare beating, Bringmann noted, has been a rise in hostilities on trains. In July — the first month after the MTA instituted the new policy — there were 25 reports of harassment targeting LIRR employees, more than twice as many as any month the previous two years. Harassment incidents remained higher than usual through October, according to MTA Police statistics.

Fare beaters "were so used to getting away with it for so long, and now they’re being questioned on it. And some of these guys are getting physical," Bringmann said. 

Anthony Simon, who heads the union representing LIRR conductors, said he pushed for the railroad to adopt an ID requirement for invoices, and back up the altered policy with increased police patrols on trains to address inevitable confrontations with fare beaters.

"If we continue down the road of showing you’re not going to get away with it, yes, it’s going to cause some problems. Yes, it’s going to escalate some things on the train. But have the support of the police," said Simon, who believes that MTA Police presence on trains "has never been as good as it is now."

MTA Police began deploying more officers on LIRR trains in 2023 in response to safety concerns by riders and employees. According to acting MTA Police Chief Thomas Taffe, officers last year conducted 50,000 train patrols across the MTA’s two railroads, the LIRR and Metro-North.

Summonses up too

The LIRR’s heightened focus on ticket collection is also reflected in the number of criminal summonses issued by police for fare evasion on the railroad. Police issued fewer than 200 summonses per month in 2022 and 2023. In 2024, MTA Police averaged about 400 fare evasion summonses on the LIRR per month, peaking in September, when they issued nearly 1,000, according to stats published online by the MTA.

Speaking at an MTA Board meeting in January, Taffe said the change in the railroad’s policy on issuing invoices to riders without tickets led to a "significant increase" in calls to police by train crew members.

Summonses trailed off late in the year, with police issuing about 300 in December. At the Jan. 27 MTA Board meeting, board member Sammy Chu, of Plainview, asked Taffe what was behind the drop.

"As people got the idea that they have to pay their fare now, they pay their fare, less calls come to us," Taffe responded. "We still have a very low tolerance when it comes to our policy on fare evasion. If we have to show up, the person is probably getting a summons, if not getting arrested."

In an interview Tuesday, Chu said he believes fare evasion remains "a very big priority," not only for the MTA, but for the public.

"Besides congestion pricing, it’s the most asked about topic. It’s the topic that infuriates people the most," Chu said. "As an agency, I don’t think anybody’s more upset about it than us."

The MTA has taken other measures to tighten fare collection on the LIRR, including deploying more police officers on trains, launching a public awareness campaign on the consequences of fare evasion, and regularly checking tickets at Penn Station before riders board trains. LIRR president Rob Free told Newsday on Wednesday that the combined efforts resulted in the railroad collecting more than 97% of all fares in February, the highest rate in years.

The issuance of invoices to customers who don't pay their fares has also fallen further in 2025, Free added. "It's really a success story, and we hope to continue that," Free said. 

Before boarding her train at the Mastic-Shirley station, LIRR commuter Kardi Vance said the railroad's approach to dealing with passengers without tickets should include some compassion.

"I don’t feel like you should just kick somebody off the train if that’s their only way of transportation," Vance, 22, said. "They could be stranded in the middle of the night."

Selden resident and semi-regular LIRR rider Lawrence Loewy said while the MTA’s tougher posture on fare evasion has made a difference, it doesn’t address systemic problems in the railroad’s fare collection procedures. Speaking just before boarding a train in Ronkonkoma Tuesday afternoon, Loewy said he rarely sees fellow passengers refuse to pay their fares. But he does regularly see riders waiting to activate an electronic ticket until a conductor comes around, or "making sure they get on the most crowded car" of a packed train with the hope that their ticket will never be checked.

"There are a lot of people who are not really dishonest people, but they are, ‘I can beat the system people,’ " Loewy, 67, said. "They ... are more than happy to pay for a ticket, but the system allows them not to get a ticket."

By Alfonso A. Castillo

alfonso.castillo@newsday.com@alfonsoreports

Alfonso Castillo has been reporting for Newsday since 1999 and covering the transportation beat since 2008. He grew up in the Bronx and Queens and now lives in Valley Stream with his wife and two sons.