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What Really Happens When a City Makes Its Transit System Free?
Oct 26, 2012
By Henry Grabar
Read More: http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jo...when-city-makes-its-transit-system-free/3708/
When Jean-Francois Mayet became mayor of Châteauroux in 2001, the town’s transit system was descending into irrelevance. Each of Châteauroux’s 49,000 inhabitants took the bus, on average, 21 times per year, well below the 38 per annum average for small French cities. Mayet, a member of France’s socialist party, did what few mayors confronted with a struggling mass transit system would do: he made the whole thing free.
- But Châteauroux didn’t just test the viability of eliminating fares as a social experiment; it used free rides to save its mass transit system. In 2002, ridership had already increased 81 percent. There were growing pains: the number of slashed or tagged seats grew from a dozen in 2001 to 118 in 2002. Drivers complained that passengers treated the bus like a personal car, expecting to be dropped off at their doorsteps. But overall, the project has been considered a success. In 2008, the conservative newspaper Le Figaro reported that Mayet was the most popular mayor in France among towns with between 30 and 50,000 inhabitants. He’s still in the job, as well as being a regional representative to the French Senate.
- But as it turns out, the change nearly paid for itself. Forty-seven percent of bus-goers were already riding for free, and tickets covered only 14 percent of the city’s transit expenses. By slightly increasing the transit tax on big local businesses while eliminating the costs of printing, ticket-punching technology and the human infrastructure of ticket sales, the city turned a profit on the transit system in ’03, ’04, ’05, and ’07. Since ’08, returns have not been as positive, though the report attributes that to a shift in control from the city to the region. Not everyone is jumping on board. Bruno Cordier, author of a 2007 report Totally Free Mass Transit cautions that fare-cutting won’t work at all for many cities.
- He points out that Châteauroux also expanded their network by 42 kilometers at the same time, which could have played as much of a role as free rides. Plus, he says, the system won’t work at all in big cities, where 30-40 percent of transit revenue comes from ticket sales, as opposed to a mere 14 percent in Châteauroux. And while it might revitalize a struggling small-town transit network, big cities don’t need to incentivize mass transit the same way, where a larger proportion of residents have no other options. To help lower-income residents, Cordier favors a "social tariff" system, developed in Dunkerque in the 1990s, in which discounts on transport passes basically correspond to a passenger’s tax bracket. In Grenoble, for example, the poorest residents can get 95 percent off a transport pass, while the rich pay full price. This allows cities to keep investing in improving the system.
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Oct 26, 2012
By Henry Grabar
Read More: http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jo...when-city-makes-its-transit-system-free/3708/
When Jean-Francois Mayet became mayor of Châteauroux in 2001, the town’s transit system was descending into irrelevance. Each of Châteauroux’s 49,000 inhabitants took the bus, on average, 21 times per year, well below the 38 per annum average for small French cities. Mayet, a member of France’s socialist party, did what few mayors confronted with a struggling mass transit system would do: he made the whole thing free.
- But Châteauroux didn’t just test the viability of eliminating fares as a social experiment; it used free rides to save its mass transit system. In 2002, ridership had already increased 81 percent. There were growing pains: the number of slashed or tagged seats grew from a dozen in 2001 to 118 in 2002. Drivers complained that passengers treated the bus like a personal car, expecting to be dropped off at their doorsteps. But overall, the project has been considered a success. In 2008, the conservative newspaper Le Figaro reported that Mayet was the most popular mayor in France among towns with between 30 and 50,000 inhabitants. He’s still in the job, as well as being a regional representative to the French Senate.
- But as it turns out, the change nearly paid for itself. Forty-seven percent of bus-goers were already riding for free, and tickets covered only 14 percent of the city’s transit expenses. By slightly increasing the transit tax on big local businesses while eliminating the costs of printing, ticket-punching technology and the human infrastructure of ticket sales, the city turned a profit on the transit system in ’03, ’04, ’05, and ’07. Since ’08, returns have not been as positive, though the report attributes that to a shift in control from the city to the region. Not everyone is jumping on board. Bruno Cordier, author of a 2007 report Totally Free Mass Transit cautions that fare-cutting won’t work at all for many cities.
- He points out that Châteauroux also expanded their network by 42 kilometers at the same time, which could have played as much of a role as free rides. Plus, he says, the system won’t work at all in big cities, where 30-40 percent of transit revenue comes from ticket sales, as opposed to a mere 14 percent in Châteauroux. And while it might revitalize a struggling small-town transit network, big cities don’t need to incentivize mass transit the same way, where a larger proportion of residents have no other options. To help lower-income residents, Cordier favors a "social tariff" system, developed in Dunkerque in the 1990s, in which discounts on transport passes basically correspond to a passenger’s tax bracket. In Grenoble, for example, the poorest residents can get 95 percent off a transport pass, while the rich pay full price. This allows cities to keep investing in improving the system.
.....