MVV Transit Ticket Controllers
The team of plain clothes-donning agents moves in, and takes up its position. The suspect is in the corner, the gentleman with the pierced face, shaved head, tattoos and a scuffed leather jacket. He is almost 2 meters tall. I’ve seen this kind of thing before, riding shotgun with cops in New York and St. Petersburg, but Munich’s Kopfgeldjaeger (bounty hunters) are different. They’re despised and mocked: I even met one who’d appeared on “Sabrina,” a TV talk show, for having one of the “worst jobs in Munich.” But, after an afternoon of sniffing out crime with MVV Transit Ticket Controllers aboard the city’s subways and trams for a day, I found them to be a pack of pussycats. “It’s a game,” says Wolfy, amiable team leader of an eight-person crew that prowls the city’s public transport system in search of scofflaws. “They see us coming, and we see them see us coming.” In fact, the affability of this group was something of a letdown. I’d somehow expected these folks to be a right hard bunch. Maybe they’re friendly because they’re hardly necessary: of almost 300 million riders last year on the Munich underground, only a paltry 3% to 5% ride “black,” or without a validated ticket. Those who intentionally skirt the system risk a fine of DM 60 — money the MVV, the city’s mass transit authority, says you’d be better off spending on beer. Unlike other European metropolises, such as Amsterdam, where riders defy the law en masse, Bavaria’s capital boasts a population of payers. So relaxed was the team I rode with that any criticism I had of their methods, tactics and procedure was welcomed. The Basics Your chances of getting caught, and the patrol schedule, change like the wind. But one static figure is the 22 teams of 8 agents on staff at the MVV. They’re not cops — indeed their powers of arrest are identical to yours as a citizen. But they do have the right to inspect your ticket, and to issue the appropriate fines. They can hold you until police arrive if you’re recalcitrant or they don’t believe you’ll pay. The Day I met the team at the Hauptbahnhof, under which their headquarters is located behind one of those mammoth steel doors you pass daily and never notice. As we boarded the U4 subway car, Wolfi and I chatted about statistics. “Most people are polite,” he said. “It’s not really a dangerous job. And people know who we are. You see eight people standing clustered on the platform talking, and carrying no bags, you figure they’re us — and you’re right.” Another effective method of weeding out free riders: teams create a human chain at the top of the stairs to the subway to nab passengers alighting from the U-Bahn. One thing these folks have done is heard it all. There is little you can say to them that’s not been tried before, probably within the last hour. For the record, the most commonly used excuse is, “The machine was out of order,” followed closely by “I lost my ticket,” both of which go over about as effectively as the old yarn involving homework and your dog. These are, however, reasonable folks. “We understand this is a difficult system for foreigners to grasp,” says Gaby, a 20-year veteran and huggably amiable when she’s not asking to see your ticket. “If people don’t comprehend it, and we believe they tried to, we’ll give them a break.” But mess with them and you’re in trouble. “If we don’t believe you,” says Wolfi, “we’ll fine you, and if we think you won’t remit, we’ll call the cops. A mistake is a mistake, but ‘paying’ is international.” And don’t try the old “I-don’t-speak-German” dodge — all teams include an English speaker, and many a French speaker, and all are armed with Wolfi’s custom-made chart that gives you the bad news in languages from Czech to Spanish, Italian to Serbo-Croat. We board another train, and the doors close. All scatter instantly, whipping out their ID cards like Kojak on a raid, their presence going over like, well, Kojak on a raid. The pierced punk mentioned earlier bristled, and I thought we were in for some action. “You got me,” he says, smiling. Willi, the rookie of the group with just a year on the job (and the subject of the “Sabrina” episode) tickets the perp, who politely hands over all documents requested and signs on the dotted line. When it was over, the freshly-fined rider says something that convinces me the rest of my day is going to be rather dull. He says, “Thank you.” Desperate for controversy, I tried one last question: “Do people ever try to flee?” “Sometimes,” said Wolfi. Ah ha! “So, do you chase them?” I asked, breathlessly. “No.” <<<