MBTA system flaws result in commuter overcharges

Partly it’s a way for the cash-strapped T to collect more of the money it needs to operate the system for honest riders. And partly it’s taking a page from the “broken windows’’ school of police work, stopping small crimes to prevent larger ones. Also, about 1 in every 10 riders ticketed for fare evasion or smoking turns out to have an outstanding warrant for something more serious, Davey said.

But it also got me thinking about the opposite of fare evasion: people who get overcharged by the T. That’s what happened Dec. 1 to consumer advocate Edgar Dworsky, the former assistant attorney general who now runs consumerworld.org. Dworsky knows consumer law inside and out and pays close attention to things such as pricing and the fleeting numbers that appear on the T’s farebox displays when a CharlieCard is swiped.

The T provides discounted transfers within a two-hour window — bus to bus, subway to bus, etc. — as long as the second trip isn’t merely the reverse of the first on the same route. That day, Dworsky made a bus-to-subway transfer, getting charged the appropriate $1.25 for the initial bus ride. He knew he had two hours, and he dawdled in between before sprinting to the station to beat what he called “the witching hour.’’ But when he tapped his card, the system deducted the full $1.70 for a subway ride instead of a 45-cent transfer.

When Dworsky got out at Wellington, just across the Mystic from his Somerville home, he went looking for a customer service agent. The T’s more experienced agents can punch up a customer’s fare history on the computerized fare vending machines. Dworsky couldn’t find anyone at Wellington, so he went home and called the MBTA customer service hotline. The operator told him she could not access CharlieCard usage data over the phone and that he would need to find a supervisor at a station or visit the customer service office at Downtown Crossing. So the next day Dworsky walked to the busier Sullivan Station, where a T employee called up his CharlieCard usage history. It showed he tapped once at 3:25 p.m. and again at 5:24 p.m. on the day in question, just inside the two hours.

But that employee was not authorized to give refunds, and Dworsky did not intend to spend $3.40 for a round trip to Downtown Crossing to recoup the $1.25 the T owed him.

“Pennywise and pound foolish,’’ said Dworsky, contacting the Globe instead. “It’s funny to quibble over a minute, if you will, but I think a lot of people are potentially affected, if they’ve changed the rules or are not giving people the full two hours.’’

Joe Kelley, the MBTA’s deputy general manager for systemwide modernization (in other words, head of what the T calls “Team Charlie’’), said the two-hour policy still holds, even though it is no longer highlighted on the T’s website. Kelley examined the matter Friday and saw that Dworsky was 17 seconds shy of the 120-minute mark but did not have an immediate explanation as to why Dworsky was charged two full fares — or how many people may have been overcharged.

“We’re doing some research now. We’re thinking once it hit 119:31 it rounds up,’’ Kelley said. “We’ll get a better answer.’’

Kelley also said customer service agents on the phone should be able to provide refunds.

But Dworsky, incredulous about the error, said, “Those folks did not even have the ability to look it up. Why would they even round up? Give me a break.’’

Meanwhile, reader Dave Brown of Brighton wrote to say he received an erroneous $15 ticket for fare evasion on the B branch of the Green Line, even though he has a LinkPass that renews every month through work.

The T is especially prone to evaders on the Green Line’s aboveground stops, where many people step through the back when operators open the front and rear doors of a crowded trolley. Riders are supposed to proceed to the front and tap the farebox, but that doesn’t always happen on cramped trolleys. To counter that, the T has been stationing extra inspectors at the rear door as well as some plainclothes police.

This year, the T has issued more than 2,700 fare-evasion tickets — an increase of nearly one-third over last year and double 2008. Brown got one after a plainclothes officer asked him to tap his pass on an inspector’s hand-held reader. It came up “expired.’’ Brown — who did not exactly take it sitting down — said he asked to prove that the scanner was broken and that his pass was valid by tapping it on the trolley’s actual farebox, but the officer didn’t appreciate his tone. Brown did it anyway and got a valid reading, but the officer declined to tear up his ticket.

Brown had to sort out the matter over the phone later, and the T and Transit Police eventually discovered the problem. At the start of each month, passes read as invalid on hand-held scanners until they have been tapped at least once at a station gate or farebox on a bus or trolley.

“How many other T riders have fallen into this same trap?’’ Brown wrote.

MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo said he did not think the problem was widespread, but that officers have been instructed to not write tickets immediately if passes scan as invalid at the start of a month.

The change will not be felt by the 979,610 account holders — representing more than 1.5 million vehicles and transponders — in the FastLane program, and motorists will not need to trade in their transponders, said Adam Hurtubise, spokesman for the state Department of Transportation. And those transponders will still be eligible for discounts on the state’s toll roads that out-of-state E-ZPass users do not receive.

But the change will mean the end of the $500,000-a-year sponsorship now held by Citizens Bank, an arrangement that dates to 1998 and the birth of FastLane. When the contract expires at the end of September, the state will let it lapse and will take down the Citizens Bank signs.

The sponsorship signs violate the Federal Highway Administration’s Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, which deems advertising at toll plazas a potentially dangerous distraction.

The old Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, a quasi-public agency, flouted the rule. But the new Massachusetts Department of Transportation — created last year in a merger of various independent agencies — has a more direct pipeline to federal funds for the turnpike and does not want to take any chances in upsetting the feds.

“MassDOT is committed to complying with federal requirements in every respect,’’ Hurtubise said.

State officials are quick to note that the merger may have cost them the $500,000 sponsorship, but it generated $124 million in first-year savings by their count, according to the “Transportation Reform — Year 1’’ report the department released last month. When lawmakers and the governor enacted the merger last year, they estimated it would yield up to $6.5 billion in savings over 20 years.