muller877
Senior Member
So, I'm just going to give my 2 cents on the whole fare integration scheme:
What exactly is Metrolinx trying to accomplish with the fare by distance? In general, eliminating cross-subsidies is a good thing if it is able to influence behaviour and consequently reduce costs. For example, airlines charging for luggage. By charging for luggage, they are able to charge less for the people who don't have luggage and maintain the same profit margins. But by adding a penalty for those who bring luggage, fliers respond to the economic disincentive by bringing less luggage, which reduces fuel consumption and the amount of baggage handling required, resulting in a cost reduction. Thus airlines are able to reduce the average cost of fares (because their costs are lesser).
With fare by distance, are we really incentivizing shorter trips? People take public transit to get from A to B, so unless people are being priced out of taking public transit altogether (switching to bikes or cars) the amount of vehicle kilometers should be fairly inelastic with respect to price. The only way that this would reduce vehicle kilometers is if people respond to the increased price by moving closer to their destinations, which is unlikely given the overhead involved.
Instead of costing with respect to distance traveled, transit agencies would be much better served by charging with respect to time of day. Peak hour demand is what determines fleet size and required capacity of the system, and concomitantly the maintenance and capital costs of the system. The marginal cost of adding off-peak demand is fractions of what it costs to add to peak demand, since there is no required increase in fleet/staffing. Wouldn't it then be more effective to incentivize the shifting of demand from peak to off peak? People are unlikely to change residence to save a small amount of money monthly, but if their hours are flexible they may be willing to wake up early/work late regularly to save money.
Adding the capability to track distance traveled is complicated and requires expensive capacity-reducing fare gates to stations that were never designed for them, and introduces demand for parallel bus service when people would be better served travelling on the higher capacity modes. Charging by time of day is easy to implement, and Presto is already capable of performing this.
There will be winners and losers in fare integration (assuming net subsidies remain the same). The question is who the winners should be and who the losers should be.
Let's remove the low income/senior/student question. If a government wishes to subsidize a special group this should be from a different revenue pool and hopefully increases subsidies if this is decided.
Here is what I think we should incentivize:
- off-peak transit use on the core routes to maximize revenue. Subways and LRT where we can break-even on costs (i.e. capital intensive, non-operating cost intensive).
- medium length trips (1 km to 5 km) to run to a store or go for a doctors appointment that is currently heavily served by cars outside of the Core.
- long length trips to work/play
And dis-incentivize:
- short trips (<1 km) that should mainly be served by walking (they take away space in the Core for the people that are travelling longer distances and result in under-use of the bus at the extremities of the line)
- use of routes that are overcrowded (i.e. from Liberty Village use the bus to get to Bloor, not the King Streetcar and then the Yonge Line
The question is how do you do this? You need a base fare that is high enough to stop people from jumping on the subway at King to get to Queen. You also can't have to high of a percentage of users on a fixed payment plan. As well, distance has to be adequately priced but not so high that people would rather drive to get to work. Finally you do need peak pricing (and non-peak incentives) where capacity is maxed out.
This is how I would price fixed rail (subways, GO, RER, LRT, streetcars)...and they all would be priced the same.
- a fixed fee to board ($2)
- during the time of day where usage is less than 80% a nominal charge for usage
- during the time of day where usage is between 80-110% a normal charge
- during the time of day where usage is over 110% there is a premium charge
This usage would be monitored and the prices would change on a quarterly basis (based on predictions). And the usage is per track segment, not on the line as a whole.
Say I'm travelling from Kipling to Union at peak time. I would have to pay the normal charge from Kipling to Dundas West. From Dundas West inwards it would be peak charge. But I know if I get of at St George and go South it's back to the normal charge whereas if I transfer at Yonge its a premium charge (the computer will assume the most expensive unless I tap a Presto Reader on the platform at St George).
Alternatively I can pay the premium charge to hop on the GO Train.
The premium rate would equate to the current price of a GO ticket. The normal rate would be calculated to make sure the revenue remains neutral.
Since bus service is more elastic (it's easier to buy a bus) and has higher opex there would need to be a different system in place