back for the hundreds of thousands of people that we served each day in the subway. that really is indicative of the partnership we have with the police department every day, that we are grateful for coming to the matter of the subject of today's hearing -- that we're grateful for. coming to the matter of the subject of today's hearing, the board two weeks ago for adopted a new strategic plan for the agency for the next six years, and we established four goals. the number one goal was safety. it is the strong conviction of the agency that people need to feel safe when they are riding muni. people need to feel safe if they are driving a bus, riding a train, riding a bike, driving a car. transportation needs in order for it to be effective for everyone.

we deliberately made safety our number one goal, and our strategic plan, and it reflects the value of the agency and the importance we place on public safety within the mta as a broader construct then just crime, the safety of our employees and the public in terms of collisions between vehicles or bicycles or pedestrians, but crime on muni, which i think is more the topic of this hearing, is really front and center. we certainly want people to feel safer riding anywhere in the system. we are at a good point in time, not only because we have leadership from the board and adopting safety as our primary goal, but also because we have great leadership from the police apartment. greg sur has appointed i think one of the best of the command staff of the entire police

department to be the lead for the sfmta. you will hear from the commander shortly. we have an outstanding working relationship with the police department to the commander, and what we have done is we have fought together. really a lot of our safety enforcement portfolio -- we have brought together really a lot of our safety enforcement portfolio. as well, and his traffic enforcement, fare enforcement, parking enforcement -- it is traffic enforcement. she is also assisting with traffic issues. really everything safety enforcement related brought together under her leadership, which i think is really moving the ball forward. i think you will see in her presentation or our chief officer, some of the statistics

showing that some of these efforts are bearing fruit. we do have some problem areas that you will hear about as well, but i think we have very good, focused leadership, and we have the entire executive team of the mta aligned with the goal of safety as the number one priority of supporting them and executing their tasks. we do certainly see safety has more than just enforcement. it is an education and outreach component that is very important as well. you may have seen some of the ads we have on buses and trains, encouraging people to act in a way that is less likely to make them victims of crime. we had an ad campaign that was recognized with an award by the american public transit association at its last annual meeting because of the quality and effectiveness of the campaign, but we still have work

to do in terms of safety on muni. we will talk to you about some of the things we're doing both on the enforcement side, the education site -- partnerships with others, including the school district, but i want to thank you again for holding this hearing. i have another meeting after i take any questions you have, i will chided is it that to it, but leaving you in good hands. they will all be able to walk you through what we have to present an answer any questions you might have. supervisor avalos: colleagues, questions for the general manager? ok, we will go on to the next stage.

>> good morning, chairperson, my name is reginald mason. supervisors. i am director of safety, training, security, and enforcement for the sfmta. today, i will have the commander speak to you about the partnership between our agency and the police department and how we perform enforcement on the muni system. she joined us in may of last year, and before that time, we had issues regarding how we did fare enforcement and security on the system. we met and devised a plan of using the comstat statistics to target high-crime areas. as you will see in the presentation, shall go over some of the hot spots in the way we do our saturation that you will get a better understanding and the public will get a better understanding of how we perform enforcement.

i will turn it over to her, and then i will be up here with her for questions. >> supervisor -- supervisor avalos: is that for your powerpoint? do you want to be able to speak from the microphone? then i guess. thank you very much for holding this hearing -- >> yes. thank you very much for holding this hearing and giving me the opportunity to tell you what we're doing with our partnership with an g-8 to make our transit system one of the safest in the country. i look forward to walking you through this presentation and answering any questions you may have. currently, the sfpd and sfmta have agreed to utilize comstat data when coming up with enforcement plans city-wide on our transportation system. i read every single muni report

of every crime that occurs on muni. we input the statistical data into our comstat system, and the information is disseminated to members of the mta and to every district station police capt. the reason is to engage the captains in creating enforcement plans to deal with issues that occur on transit within their police districts. this next slide, what you will see is something that is typical of what we give to them. this is the citywide comstat weekly report that went out on november 16. as you can see, it is fairly comprehensive. what we have is city-wide incidents by month of occurrence. you have city-wide incidents by day of occurrence, which shows the ebbs and flows of when most incidents are occurring. interestingly enough, the

midweek is when we have the largest peak. it also shows it by our a recurrence, which indicates mid- afternoon is a peak time for incidents that occur on muni. it then takes it by incident code, which goes through, as you will see, the various crimes and things that occur on muni, and then it moves to buy immune -- by muni line. each district captain receives a graft exactly like this that is specifically for their own district, which shows where they are having issues, what the issues are, and i am in direct communication with the district station captains in terms of the things that are happening on our transit lines. what they then do is provide me with a monthly muni enforcement

plan, both in operational or format and muni enforcement calendar, to address the issues. this is a northern station calendar that was developed back in november to deal with the different times and different issues that you see in that district. every district station captain provides not only this but a muni enforcement operations order to deal with the issues on transit in their districts. the next slide -- what you will see is the muni-related incidents from prior year to month to date incidents, and this is from the middle of november where you can see each police district. where you see any -- a minus is

where crime is at in the district. as of the middle of november, we are down 40% in muni crime. the bayview district is right around 3%. you will see that, for instance, the northern district has a 31% rate, but what i am very proud of is when i took over at mta, i worked very closely with the captain. we were at a 46% rate back in may. we brought that down over the last several months, and it continues in a downward trend, and that has a lot to do with both her officers and the mta folks that work directly for me. the next slide explains the resources assigned to the mta from the police apartment. besides myself, the staff are comprised of one captain, one

sergeant, and seven uniformed officers that are responsible for the -- the sergeant and seven officers are responsible for uniformed patrol. we have one sergeant and four k- 9 teams, comprised of an officer and their dog. they basically deal with issues relating to bomb threats and possible devices on our system. they have been highly successful. we utilize the dogs when we get reports of suspicious packages, and they are able to go in and make a determination if there is in fact a problem, and they are able to get transit moving, which is something we are very supportive of. their primary responsibility is to muni metro rail system, but we put them wherever the need is. there secondary responsibility is to assist transit fare

inspectors, which they do about three days a week. they work a staggered schedule and are on duty approximately 13 hours per day. supervisor avalos: is this group -- what portion of the work order with this cover? >> there's two pieces. the muni enforcement peace is where these folks fall under, and the traffic peace is where our motorcycle and traffic company falls under. they would fall under the peace of muni enforcement. supervisor avalos: do you know what the allocation is for this? >> of the top of my head, i did not come prepared with those figures. i apologize. the second set of resources is the muni task force. these are officers funded by a fema tsa grant.

their primary duty is they target the most problematic lines. they work in plain clothes, and they work a variety of not only decoy operations, robert operations, but they also conduct investigations regarding incidents that occur on muni. one thing i did not include in my slide because it is information that i just got, that i am incredibly proud of is that in 2011, this team of officers were assigned 130 cases. of those, they sold 127 -- they solve the 127. of those, 120 were solved via a rest -- arrest. that was collaborative between the group of officers and the mta partnership we have. our onboard camera system is working tremendously to assist

us in bringing people to justice that commit crime on muni. i am very proud of the results and things they have been doing. they start work at 11:00 in the morning and end at 9:00 at night. they are certainly available and have worked and the hours i have asked them to work. it is a great benefit not only to the police department but to the mta. next is our fare evasion program. we have 36 inspectors to check for proof of payment systemwide. this was one of the things that i changed when i came on board at mta. i spent quite a bit of time and read the 2009 controller study on our fare evasion program as well as the follow-up study, and really looked at the things they suggested and found that many of them made sense. for a while, we were utilizing

inspectors on problematic lines, and i really believe, after discussing it with mr. mason, that we really needed to be everywhere in our system. no matter where you ride transit in our city, you should have the expectation that you could be asked for proof of payment. we made these changes shortly after i took over the fare inspectors, shortly around august or the end of august. now, what is happening is our inspectors are in a different police district every day, and their saturation operations are in a different location every time. i am very pleased with the results of this. i have gotten a lot of community feedback. people that were never asked for their proof of payment are now being asked, and i kind of say the proof is in the pudding, as you will see in the next slide i am about to show you. then the question on the duties

between sfpd who are on board as well as inspectors -- sfpd, are they doing fare inspections as well as their scope of work? that was one of the concerns, where the community felt that that was the prime work they were doing on board, and there were a lot of concerns that the presence was a little bit heavy. although a lot of people in the community what that presence as well, but your answer would be great. >> our primary focus -- our officers that are assigned to mta is simply to ride the lines, have a presence on the lines, and prevent crime on the lines. they assist inspectors with operations. they do not participate in those operations. they are simply there in case they are needed in support of the fare inspectors. the captains to conduct proof of payment operations in their

enforcement plans. i would not categorize it as something that we are doing constantly. the books assigned to 78 from the police department are really in a supportive role -- the folks assigned to mta. supervisor avalos: just a follow-up question on that -- when officers are engaged in fare inspection, would an officer go on to the vehicle and ask every person on that line for a fare, or do they choose who they go to? >> at our officers' conduct fare evasion operations, the need to ask every patron for their proof of payment. we are not doing targeted enforcement or selective enforcement. the idea in proof of payment operations is to ask of everybody whether they can provide their proof of payment.

so that is correct. they do not single out individuals in these operations. a lot of the captains had taken it upon themselves, which i really like, to work very closely with robert wolfgang, our head of our transit fare inspectors and work with them. i would rather have the people who are most comfortable with the fare inspection doing the inspection, and our officers are doing that. to answer your question, no, they ask everybody. this slide is a typical picture of our fare evasion -- one of our saturation. you can see that the officers are in a supporting role and the inspectors are the ones that bore the trains or buses and ask for proof of payment and so forth. this is an example of our fare inspection calendar.

as you can see, they are in a different district every day. the highlighted sections are where we are conducting our saturation is for this particular month. i think this was actually the month of december. you can see they are kind of everywhere. i am really trying to move them along. supervisor avalos: commander could you explain how this would work? what are we seeing exactly in the slides? are these folks who were on the bus who would come off the bus to talk to show proof of payment? >> supervisor, i would love for you to come out and have a look. it is really amazing what they do. basically, our fare inspectors are at a bus stop. they ask for everybody's proof of payment, and then they get off of the bus or train.

if somebody is not able to provide proof of payment, they are asked to get off the bus and they are issued a warning or citation. it provides minimal impact to our transit system, and a minimal inconvenience to the public. pulling people on and off the bus -- ideally, and what we are doing is asking for the proof of payment while they are on our transit lines, and we simply -- if they cannot provide it, that is when they are asked to step off, and the bus is allowed to go on its way. supervisor olague: this may pertain to the later part of your presentation, but i will ask now since we are talking so much about fare evasion. it seems that the people on the front line of this are frequently the drivers. i'm wondering -- to what extent do you work with the muni drivers, and what type of training do they receive and support?

i know -- i ride the bus daily, actually, and i feel that they've really work hard and do their best to be kind of the safeguard their on the bus system -- there on the bus system. in the event and there is not someone from the police department on that line, then what type of training -- not just in this sense, but also i know they have to deal with a lot of issues that relate to mental health. people's mental health challenges, and that sort of thing. i just wonder what is the scope of their training? >> as far as the officers -- go ahead. >> ok, the operators are trained -- dealing with customer service, the operators are trained never to dispute fare.

if a person does not have the money to pay, just let them on. a lot of times when the dispute, offered -- operators get a salted. if it is an unruly passenger, the operators will call our central control center, which will dispatch police to the bus, to move that patron to the bus. they are told never dispute a fare. we have some operators out there that will challenge a person. we tell them not to because of the probability of an assault. supervisor olague: thank you. >> this next slide shows an example of our proof of payment statistic. in the month of november, fare, fare inspectors -- our transit fare inspectors contract the thousands of patrons asking for proof of payment. of that, the issued 2821

warnings. adult citations, they issued 3901. 27 of those were juvenile citations. the juvenile piece of it, i will get into in the coming slide. what i am pretty proud of is that you can see a 38.5% fare evasion rate. this is an example of what our folks are doing. the next slide will show -- as i said, i took over the inspection program in august, late august, and changed the deployment strategy pretty soon after that. really, what you can see is this major uptick in the issuance of citations. really, that is because we are now -- every single place in our

system, we are hitting every line, as well as you can do with 36 fare inspectors, but i am very proud of the results they have gotten. december is even a higher uptick. the ultimate goal here is to encourage compliance, which in turn then brings revenue to the agency and prevents us from issuing citations to people for fare evasion. in february, the mta did a follow-up study to the 2009 study. they published it in february and it showed our fare evasion rate at 8.45%. they look at every part of fare evasion, which included paying partial fares, differences in transfers, and things like that. the cost to the mta is about $19 million a year with the rate at that level. clearly, our goal is to bring that way down, assure

compliance, and, you know, get muni to where it needs to be. currently, the mta covers about 40% of the citation amounts issued by the transit fare inspectors. next is used -- youth fare evasion. there is no difference between adults and juveniles and how we act with them, but i will say, when we decriminalized fare evasion, the juvenile piece of it was not decriminalized, and mainly that is because of the juvenile traffic court system and what have you. that is why you see far more warnings issued to juvenile stand citations. as you can see here, of the 3900 citations we issued, only 27 were juvenile. most of that is that we want to educate our youth in the city with regard to proper payment and what it is that they need to

do. also, we utilize our muni transit assistance program. i will ask the head of the program to talk with you a bit about what his folks do. and i can answer any questions you might have. supervisor avalos: this might be for either of you, and that is when a warning is issued, is that in the system? do you get success of warnings? does that lead to citations? is that when citations issued for young people or juvenile? >> our inspectors, you start to know, if you are repeatedly asking the same system, this is not plugged in anywhere. it is a warning my folks give to the kids and just say, "you need to pay your fare" or "this is how you can do it better."

occasionally, they come across the repeater offender. that would trigger a citation. if we have told them and told them and they are clearly not getting the message, then the next step is to issue a citation. supervisor avalos: i know there is interest from many members of the board of supervisors to see if we could make passage for youth free. i know people who are teachers, and when they take young people and field trips, they often go on unique, and fare is an issue. how do you pay for 25 or 30 students to go on when they do not all have the fare with them? a lot of them did not have the ability to pay. i know there is a lot of interest in moving towards a fast the system for young people that is free. i know that that will be an issue that will perhaps make your work easier as, moving

forward, we are able to achieve that. >> we are happy to assist in whatever plan is put into place. certainly that is not a decision that i make. we are happy to assist any way that we can. >> good morning, supervisors. i am the manager of the mtap muni transit program. we worked very closely with the schools. we have even worked with some elementary schools in the half because of some of the problems with the bigger kids bullying little kids. we are currently concentrating at phil and sally burton, martin luther king, and marshall high school. we are also working with mission and some of the schools in the mission.

we are working in the west corridor, which covers washington, presidio, and some of the school's out there, which also covers wallenberg and some of the junior high schools in the area. we also work with galileo marina, covering the northeast part of the city. we also worked at the 1 08, which is the only line that provides transportation to treasure island. treasure island has a community with a number of kids and families that commutes back and forth to school, and also the job corps, which holds 600 or 700 people. currently, i think they are close to 600. and 75 students from all across the country. they are housed there. they come off the island to attend school, and