If you want to fix fare cheats...require everyone to use a standard chip-card that the train system utilizes. Once they commit some fare issue or crime...you should absolutely lock them out for six months. If they show back up in the system with a loaner chip-card from a buddy...toss the buddy for six months as well. Within a year or two...you’d end fare cheats and motivate people to act like they should.
Your solution is quite apt. Getting a liberal gang to adopt it is akin to trying to get a slug to dance.
Completely unworkable. It would require a bureaucracy comparable to the local DMV or Board of Elections to verify who’s who and limit each person to only one fare card. Think major computer database system, along with its own software.
And then what do you do about suburbanites, vacationers, visiting businessmen....
No one would be able to purchase a card except at however many bureaucratic offices you’re creating. (And unless they have transportation, how do they get across town to show their IDs to apply for the cards?)
Or do you envision adding an extra clerk at each train station — and on each bus — to handle the paperwork so people don’t have to wait in long lines to apply for a card? Not to mention the computers at each station and on each bus.
Congratulations: you’ve just substantially increased the cost of public transportation!