RTD Strives to Stitch a Cure to Fare Thefts

RTD directors on Monday said it is time to sew shut the pockets of all the workers who handle the cash collected in bus fare boxes.

“Opportunity makes the thief,” said Southern California Rapid Transit District board President Gordana Swanson in endorsing a plan to distribute new, pocket-less uniforms for workers who come in contact with bus fares.

Most workers who handle the money already wear such uniforms; a small number do not. Until new uniforms are bought, Swanson suggested that pockets be sewn shut on the coverall uniforms now in use by a small number of workers known as “vaulters.”

Pocket-less uniforms were one of several recommendations RTD General Manager Alan Pegg made in reaction to an audit that warned of “casual pilferage and organized theft” of fare-box revenue because of lax security. Officials have offered a wide range of estimates of annual revenue losses, from the thousands of dollars to $10 million.

The board authorized Pegg to seek an outside security consultant to devise systems to guard against future thefts. Pegg contended that many security improvements have been made, among them the installation of new electronic fare boxes on the RTD’s 2,400 buses which automatically count deposits.

The no-pockets suggestion would not, RTD officials said, stop most of the fare losses cited in an audit by Peat Marwick Main & Co., which reported the possible losses.

Under the current system, bus drivers make sure the correct fares are deposited into the fare box, and then with simple move of a lever, drop the money into a vault at the bottom of the box.

At the end of the bus run, those vaults are unlocked by the RTD “vaulters,” using special keys. The vaults are then put on racks on a cart and delivered to armored trucks, which carry them to the counting facility.

The “vaulters” have little opportunity to handle money, officials said, unless they come across loose change or bills that got stuck in the fare box before reaching the vault.

But the auditors said most of the losses took place in the counting buildings. The vaulters have no access to money there.

In the counting rooms, the audit charged that RTD lacked adequate security. Money was seen lying loose on the floor, and counting house workers were allowed to go to their automobiles without checking by security guards. And a no-pockets policy for their uniforms apparently has not helped with the losses.

“In the counting rooms, workers have had uniforms without pockets for years,” said Steve Sibilsky, an RTD spokesman. “The personnel who are going to be getting uniforms are the maintenance people who handle the vaults.”