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Rachael's avatar

Good idea. It's clever and financially efficient.

I'm slightly concerned it falls into the category of "paying people to do the right thing", which e.g. the Freakonomics daycare study shows us can backfire and reduce intrinsic motivation/conscience. OTOH maybe the random lottery nature of it would guard against that (unpredictable rewards, Skinner, etc).

There's also a danger that fare dodging would return to higher levels than before, if the scheme ended (and it probably would end, as people would forget that it saved more than it cost, and they'd just see it as frivolous spending that "ought" not to be needed)

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Dodiscimus's avatar

The National Lottery etc. haven't gone for a model with a £50k maximum prize, although it would boost the chance of winning life-changing money multiple times. I'm wondering if lack of rationality means you get more benefit from a big headline number.

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Edrith's avatar

Very good point!

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alexander gradus's avatar

Kind of love the 'ticket per tap on' idea because it will end up giving back money to normal commuters. Also the potential for it to be very funny when a tourist who uses the tube three times on their holiday wins a few million

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