FARE evasion on the T4 Illawarra line has dropped by 3.1 per cent over the past two years.
The decline on the T2 Airport line is 3.8 per cent.
However, about 5 per cent of trips are still made by fare cheats who travel either without a paper ticket or Opal card, or else falsely claim a concession.
In November 2012, the Bureau of Transport Statistics commissioned the first fare compliance survey since the establishment of Transport for NSW.
The results were compared with those from a second survey, in November last year, in which more than 61,000 tickets were checked across train, ferry and light rail.
Buses were excluded due to a period of grace allowed for the Opal roll-out.
Across the Sydney Trains network, the fare compliance rate in the latest survey was estimated to be 94.1 per cent, with annual revenue lost calculated at $50 million.
Compared with 2012, fare compliance improved on 10 of the 11 lines, saving $23 million.
The eastern suburbs line had the largest improvement, rising from 89 per cent to 97.5 per cent.
The airport line (95.3 per cent compliance) and Illawarra line (94.7 per cent compliance) were the next-biggest improvers.
Minister for Transport and Infrastructure Andrew Constance said the government’s strategy against fare evasion was working.
He said 65 more transport officers had recently been recruited, to bring the total number on the network to 215 by the end of October.
Since their deployment transport officers had issued more than 190,000 fines and cautions.
Mr Constance said the sale of concession tickets from ticket machines at some stations had been restricted, with customers needing to show proof of entitlement.
As a result, concession misuse had almost halved on rail, and was down by more than two-thirds on ferries.
The western line was the only suburban line not to improve; evasion had also risen on NSW TrainLink’s intercity and regional services.
‘NOT GOOD ENOUGH’
Taxpayers were being forced to fill a $15 million shortfall due to the government’s failure to recover fines issued to fare evaders, said opposition spokesman on transport Ryan Park.
Mr Park said new figures showed fines of $4.7 million were outstanding from 2012-13 and $10 million was owed from 2013-14.
‘‘The government pledged to crack down on fare evaders, but these figures show the problem is widespread,” Mr Park said. ‘‘Hard-working commuters are footing the bill and the government is doing little to recover the money.’’
Mr Park said the government was also losing ‘‘millions’’ from Opal readers breaking down ‘‘on a daily basis’’.
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