SNCF Ticket Checking or How to Travel for Free

*executive summary
"the SNCF likes to let me ride for free.
How come?
Just a trick, but an honest one.
I was late both times, so I didn't have time to buy a ticket.
But you can buy a ticket from the controlleur for an extra charge if you notify them right away.
So I did, and they knew where I was sitting, but never came to check tickets or make me pay"
Reflections on why this happened.
*

For those of you who don't know, the SNCF is the French railway company. It's widely used for travel in France and to neighboring countries.

I recently took the train on the SNCF from Geneva to Lyon and back (small getaway trip after my last exam). The transportation ended up costing me nothing.

There's a particular system with the SNCF, whereby, if you arrive too late to the station to buy your ticket, you can still hop on the train without one, so long as you immediately seek out the "controlleur" (employee who checks tickets) and tell them what happened. Then they make you pay for the ticket, and, depending on their mood, your persuasion, and/or the circumstances (for example, the ticket booth might of been closed or the vending machines broken), you will also have to pay a 10 euro fine (4 euros on trips less than 100 km).

So both times, I made and effort to get there on time to buy a ticket. On the trip from Geneva, I could have made more of an effort to get there sooner; I tried to buy a ticket at the machine but it was confusing and the traditional line was too long. On the way back from Lyon, I arrived at the station early and waited in line for twenty minutes. I ended up having to leave the queue 3 minutes before departure because the line was too long/slow; they were understaffed or something.

Both times, I promptly found the controlleur and told them what happened and that I wanted to buy a ticket.
Both times they told me to sit down and that they would come find me.
Both times they didn't.
I don't think they checked the tickets of any other passenger either. Both trains were slightly more than half full, so it seemed like it would be easy and worthwhile to check tickets, i.e., some behavioral priming on passengers who did indeed follow the rules, and some punishment/future deterrence for those who didn't.

And because I was reading "When to Rob a Bank" by the authors of "Freakonomics" I got to thinking about the reasons why they didn't check our tickets/make me pay specifically. After all, I was willing to do so, as I had sought them out at the beginning of the ride. Each time the fare was 29 euros. Easy money, no? Hell, they probably could have just pocketed the money for themselves. Either way, the marginal effort of doing a little extra work (or the work they are supposed to do) apparently was greater than the marginal return of 29 euros. I guess the current marginal cost of catching a few free-riders outweighs the marginal return, but still I find that surprising.
Perhaps, they don't really care about the money that the SNCF makes. To me, this makes them poor employees, or speaks poorly about the ticket system in place. Perhaps incentive alignment is in order, no? Perhaps, controlleurs could get a small percentage of the money they check. Or maybe the controlleurs felt bad taking money from me after I showed a facade of honesty.

So, the result is: I traveled for free.

I certainly would not buy stock in SNCF if it was available.

Also, I think there's a note to be said about covoiturage.fr (blablacar, carsharing). Covoiturage is a competing transportation carsharing service, where you get into a  pre-screened stranger's car and pre-pay them by credit card (through blablacar.fr ). This is generally 1/3 rd of the price of train tickets (but not as cheap as free train rides) and faster when trafic obliges. Problem though: it's perhaps less reliable, less convenient, and often times it's hard to find a seat for the right time and location. Covoiturage is owned by SNCF though. And you'd think that, because there are close to zero free-riders on covoiturage, the SNCF would learn from that. Or is this just a nice form of price-discrimination to which I've found a loophole?

Still, if the SNCF reduced the price of their full-fare tickets, and had systematic checks on every ride, I think they could make more money. Why do they let this freeriding happen so easily? Perhaps their monopoly position reduces their incentive to compete and collect money from customers. Or is SNCF (or the controlleurs, at their own discretion) imformally providing a social service, a public good?

Worse yet, look at me now. I've turned to directing my thoughts and efforts towards cheating the system. It will be interesting to see how often I can get away with this. Perhaps paying the 10 euro fine is a worthwhile risk. In the future though, I will continue to covet covoiturage spots first (need to make sure I have money on my debit card), and then deal with the SNCF loopholes.

Photo Essay: The Demise of Cotton’s Influence on Egyptian Culture

All photos and text by Ahmed Safyeldin (twitter: @ElKharouf)

                  This is the second installment in a series of photo essays about the harvest of traditionally important crops in Egypt, their current state, and the farmers that tend their fields. These articles are an attempt to forge a new bond with my ancestral village of Ahnasya Elkhadra in Beni Suef that my grandfather abandoned fifty years ago to settle in Cairo. The articles also give me the excuse to travel to my village and examine the situation on the ground.

                 The cotton shrub is native to tropical and subtropical regions of the Americas, Africa, and Asia. The Cotton plant was independently domesticated in India and Central America 7,000 years ago, and woven into textiles for clothing and fishing nets. Egypt’s cotton production began in earnest in the 1860s as a result of the American Civil War disrupting Europe’s supply of raw cotton. The Europeans invested heavily in Egypt, which resulted in a booming economy, and encouraged Khedive Ismail (the Ottoman ruler of Egypt) to borrow heavily from British creditors. After the American Civil War, the Europeans abandoned Egypt’s cotton for the cheaper American variety. This resulted in a financial crisis that forced Egypt to declare bankruptcy in 1873, and the direct intervention of foreign powers in Egypt’s internal affairs, thereafter.

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                  I began a one-day trip to my father’s cotton fields in Ahnasya Elkhadra with the typical train ride to Upper Egypt from the Giza railroad station.  The train station’s Neo-Pharaonic architecture evokes the images of the ancient Egyptian temples of Luxor and Aswan, and reminds the passengers of their financial and ancestral ties to Upper Egypt.  Jostling at the carriage door gave way to a foyer with old red buttons on an open electrical board, and a luggage compartment used as a bedroom by the porters. This led to a dimly lit passengers’ section flooded by a yellowish sickly sleep-inducing color. I inherited my preference for the train as the mode of transportation to and from Beni Suef from my father who prefers its reliability. The uneventful train ride brings back memories and anxieties of the trips my father and I took to Beni Suef and the occasional adventures that entailed. The first pyramid I went inside was on one of our rare return trips by car, my father stopped at the Meydoum Pyramid (the symbol of the governorate of Beni Suef) and paid off the policeman to take us inside.  The ride also evokes the anxieties I have towards my relatives in Ahnasya Elkhadra who I could never relate to due to our differences in backgrounds and cultures. For example, my relatives always ask me to find a job for an acquaintance of theirs in my uncle’s company which embarrasses me into promising that I will, but never deliver.

                  I reached Beni Suef at 7:30 am and Hajj Ali Bakri, my father’s cousin, was waiting for me on the platform to take me to Ahnasya Elkhadra. Half an hour later, I was in the middle of my father’s cotton field outside our village taking photographs of the workers harvesting the crop since dawn prayers.  The Egyptian farmer traditionally harvests cotton in the early morning to take advantage of the dew it which makes the bales heavier and so commands a higher price at the scale. My father has a sharecropping agreement with two farmers to grow crops on this plot of land in return for half the revenue.  I commented to Hajj Ali on the height and size of the cotton bushes this year. He replied that unusually intense heat waves late in the season result in growth spurts that produce spoilt cotton pods.  Therefore, only the lower half of the plant was harvestable. Hajj Ali also complained about the new payment system which allows speculators to control prices and keep them secret until after the harvest. Under the old system which was installed by the Egyptian government after the 1952 Revolution, the ministry of agriculture fixed the prices according to the international commodities market months in advance and was the sole buyer of cotton in Egypt. Then in the 1990s Egypt started borrowing from the World Bank under the stipulation to partially deregulate the agricultural sector causing the government to abandon its role as the sole dealer of Egyptian cotton.

                  One of the groups harvesting cotton was a band of about fifteen teenage girls wearing the niqab. After working, on their way back home, they removed their niqabs. I was surprised at their nonchalant attitude towards the niqab, especially because it is worn by religiously conservative women. I asked an old farmer about the girls’ behavior and he replied with a laugh: the girls wear a niqab during work to protect their fair skin from the sun and attract suitors because they are at the proper age to get married. By late morning the farmers rolled the huge cotton bales out from the field, and on to donkey carts to store them in Hajj Ali’s warehouse, adjacent to his home.

                   Egypt’s relationship with cotton has been fundamentally altered. There are several reasons for this outcome. First, the Egyptian farmer can no longer grow cotton every year because of its detrimental effect on the soil; before the High Dam was built this was possible because the flood replenished the soil with the nutrients consumed by the preceding year’s crop. Second, the quality of Egyptian cotton decreased because after the 1952 Revolution, the government fixed the price, regardless of the quality; therefore there was little incentive to grow quality cotton. Third, the domestic demand for cotton has decreased because of the privatization of Egypt’s textile industry and strong competition from cheaper textiles from China. Cotton’s fall in commercial value was accompanied by an erosion of the cultural trappings that surrounded it. I asked around on my trip if anybody remembered the songs farmers used to sing during the cotton harvest; I was met with puzzled looks. In addition, farmers used to wait until the harvest to have weddings and make financial transactions because of the cash that cotton brought in around this time of year. All of these factors played a role in the demise of cotton’s cultural and commercial value to Egyptians.

                  In conclusion, my trip to Ahnasya Elkhadra introduced me to the challenges facing Egyptian cotton. Poor government policies compounded with the mounting financial challenges of the Egyptian farmer led to this situation. Unless both parties start working together to combine their efforts to raise the quality and cultivation standards of this cash crop, Egypt will lose one of its main resources of agricultural income.