FREE public transport........

[soony]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feCQPD9DSOA

 

No there is a bit of lateral and forward thinking.....

[EddieB]

Yes, and I still have a load of unused hour and day tickets that I bought years ago when I was making regular work trips to Luxembourg...

[JDW]

It makes for great headlines, but often what makes free public transport achievable is, as Tom says in the YouTube video, the fact that it is already being very heavily subsidised. The same happened with the bus network in Dunkirk, which is now free, all day, every day. It saw increased ridership, which is great, but when you look into how it is financed, the proportions were IIRC similar to Luxembourg. That is, 90% of the cost is already being paid by the taxpayer, and 10% comes from fares. So really, to make it free, the government only has to find that extra ten percent. By comparison with somewhere like Dunkirk, most bus networks in the UK operate commercially, meaning that fares cover something like 90% of the cost, and subsidy covers 10%, so to do the same the local authority would have to find that huge 90% chunk of money. 

 

(Before anyone says it, yes, I know there's a lot more to it than that, but that would make for a long and boring post!)

[SRman]

While I don't know any true facts and figures, it would seem to me that the 10% needed to fully finance the free public transport would be recouped in not having to pay for and maintain ticket issuing machines, validators, and enforcement staff. The authorities concerned may have worked out that it was cheaper in the longer term to not have fares.

P.s. It may be obvious, but I have not yet watched the video, so this may have been covered in that already.

[DavidB-AU]

That's what Hasselt (Belgium) found in the early days of free public transport. There was a saving in maintenance of ticketing systems and enforcement, and in the medium term a huge saving road maintenance as road traffic declined overall. One of the ring roads was effectively turned into a local road with half the width converted into a tree-lined bikeway. There was also an increase in revenue from municipal taxes as more businesses (particularly cafes) opened around transport hubs. But it became a victim of its own success with a 13-fold increase in patronage over 15 years. AIUI the major cost that became unsustainable was the amount of investment required to keep expanding the size of the bus fleet and employing more drivers, mechanics, etc. It's no longer completely free but 60 eurocents (50p) isn't a huge fare.

 

Cheers

David

[caradoc]

There are 'free' (to the user) public transport services in the UK; Manchester has free buses around the city centre, and of course pensioners get free bus travel too (although not UK-wide; My Scottish bus pass is not valid in England !). But as DavidB-AU points out, the money to pay for the service has to come from somewhere, and if making transport free results (as it should do) in an increase in use, investment will be required. Is it right and fair (not to mention politically acceptable) to increase taxation and/or divert money to transport systems which some, if not many, can not or will not use ? Every time I hear people call for increased/cheaper/better public transport to reduce road congestion, I think that what they actually mean is for other people to use so that they can get around by car more easily !

[JDW]

10 hours ago, SRman said:

While I don't know any true facts and figures, it would seem to me that the 10% needed to fully finance the free public transport would be recouped in not having to pay for and maintain ticket issuing machines, validators, and enforcement staff. The authorities concerned may have worked out that it was cheaper in the longer term to not have fares.

P.s. It may be obvious, but I have not yet watched the video, so this may have been covered in that already.

 

Yes, that is a cost that can be done away with, although in terms of actual cash handling on buses, that is becoming less of a thing these days as more and more people move to contactless and mobile/app tickets, though of course these still require ticketing systems on board. However, I suspect in most cases the savings will not be anywhere near as much - on a small regional city bus network, 10% would still likely be a couple of million Pounds, ticketing, cash handling, etc is unlikely to cost more than tens of thousands of Pounds per year.

 

3 hours ago, caradoc said:

There are 'free' (to the user) public transport services in the UK; Manchester has free buses around the city centre, and of course pensioners get free bus travel too (although not UK-wide; My Scottish bus pass is not valid in England !). But as DavidB-AU points out, the money to pay for the service has to come from somewhere, and if making transport free results (as it should do) in an increase in use, investment will be required. Is it right and fair (not to mention politically acceptable) to increase taxation and/or divert money to transport systems which some, if not many, can not or will not use ? Every time I hear people call for increased/cheaper/better public transport to reduce road congestion, I think that what they actually mean is for other people to use so that they can get around by car more easily !

 

That takes us then into the whole discussion around franchising, which is the way Manchester, Liverpool and others seem to want to go - which requires a lot of money from the taxpayer to fund local bus services as well as the additional administration costs associated with it. That money has to come from somewhere. For all the moaning people do about fares being too high, service being poor, etc, most places that can support a decent level of commercial service have a pretty decent one already.

 

Where routes are not commercially viable, many are being/have been dropped if the local authority isn't willing to provide support. Which means you have to ask, if they can't/won't support a "socially necessary" Sunday or evening service, which will probably cost in the tens of thousands per year, how are they going to finance running a whole bus network? The obvious answer is using profits from one route to support another, but then at the same time there are promises of lower fares, more buses, etc, all of which also need funding, as well as money needed for ongoing fleet renewals (Buses generally cost around £150k for a single decker, £200+k for a double decker...)

 

It's easy to look elsewhere and say "there's is better" based on hearsay and a few trips on holiday, but as is said in the video, the Luxembourg system has its problems too. Likewise, German trains are often delayed, etc, just like ours. We could adopt franchising or have the cities and regions run their own buses, as is common elsewhere, but it all comes at a cost to the taxpayer in general.

 

Worth bearing in mind too that the much-lauded London system is facing a £700m hole in its budget. OK, that's for rail, bus, Underground, but its still a lot of money. And despite all the hype, some of the headline low fares aren't that much different to other large conurbations when you look at things like day or weekly tickets.

 

Probably the best example of a free bus network (rather than bespoke services such as the Metroshuttle in Manchester, or free travel for OAPs) is the Harrogate Electrics network, which is free to all users on a Sunday thanks to funding from Harrogate's Business Improvement District members, and has seen a huge rise in user numbers, with corresponding increase in footfall in shops and businesses in the town on a Sunday