NYCT operates subway, bus, and paratransit services in the five boroughs of NYC. It is an agency of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (“MTA”) and serves approximately 5 million customers daily. Fare evasion on public transportation in New York is at a historic high. Approximately 900K transit riders use subway and local bus service without paying each day, summing to $600M in annual lost revenue due to fare evasion in 2022. Revenue loss from unpaid ridership exacerbates the MTA “fiscal cliff” and ability to provide the frequent, high-quality service that New York depends on. The MTA is seeking vendors who can apply the theories of civic cultural change and tools of behavioral science to reduce fare evasion on New York City Transit (“NYCT”) Buses and Subways. Key phases (“Services”) of the project include: 1. Phase 1 Research - Personas: Conduct grounded research on the motivations behind fare evasion and segment public transit customers into “personas” based on distinct motivations or psycho-social factors and size customer segments. 2. Phase 2 Ideation - Interventions: Co-design and develop at least 3 distinct behavioral interventions for each persona and transportation mode, including a summary of the intervention, the target persona(s), why this intervention should work, which channels will be used to deploy the intervention, a cost estimate and return on investment (“ROI”) calculation for each intervention, and evaluation metrics for each intervention. 3. Phase 3 Roadmap - Intervention Implementation Plan: Develop a roadmap forward for piloting interventions that considers estimated ROI and prioritizes interventions. 4. Optional Phase 4 Pilots - Intervention Design, Production, Deployment, and Evaluation: Refine design, produce intervention assets, deploy, and evaluate pilot interventions.
