Ugh, turnstiles. Proof-of-payment systems have so much lower friction. You buy a ticket before getting on; there are no barriers between the street and the train; sometimes there's a ticket inspector team on the train who verifies you have a ticket. If you don't have a ticket you're arrested on the spot.

It will never work in a punishment-oriented society because you're very likely to get away with riding for free if you don't do it regularly, and these societies feel that catching the bad guys is more important than working well for the good guys.

It's compatible with a card payment system but then proving criminal intent to free-ride is harder because the system gets complicated for the user. It's great with a paper concession ticket.

The biggest benefit of fare gates is keeping out troublemakers. For whatever reason there is a large overlap between those who don't pay their fare and those who sexually harass other passengers, leave large messes, or vandalize.

The other method of suppressing quality of life crimes and fare evasion is lots of transit cops. It's probably cheaper to install the gates than hire lots of transit cops and arresting people over fare evasion makes the city/transit agency look like bad guys.

https://www.bart.gov/news/articles/2026/news20260518

Arresting people on the spot is punishment too, more arbitrary and less effective. It just seems worse?

Also, the experience of riding Bart seems to have improved quite a bit since they installed better turnstiles, and that likely will affect ridership numbers.

BART wasn’t punishment based but before they installed turnstiles, many people simply refused to pay. It doesn’t make sense to run a transit system this way.