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French city of Montpellier makes public transport free for all residents
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 22 Dec 2023
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Brilliant idea.
Not sure how financially viable it is (would love to see the sums though) but fingers crossed, if it works in cities, it can be expanded to the country too.
I can only speak from a UK perspective but I can only hope the fuckwits don't use it to abuse it. It's a genuinely progressive move and probably the best way of bridging the gap between combustion vehicles and EV's, or even bypassing them entirely.
It probably never have been financially viable, and that's alright, it's a public service
I'd argue it absolutely is financially viable to society, and moreso than the status quo. It's just less financially profitable for certain commercial interests than the status quo.
The trouble is with government, when you spend money somewhere you generally save it somewhere else, or earn it back elsehwere, and it becomes difficult to associate the spending with the cost savings or profits, such that the spending gets cut. In this case, allowing residents to use public transport for free encourages more people and more business to move to the area, which increases income through taxation. However, after a point someone will look at it and say "Why are we spending so much?" and try to cut it, without acknowledging the subsequent decline after the incentive is removed.
Spend more on trains, spend less on road maintenance, have less traffic then spend less on cops patrolling it.
You hit the nail on the head. The savings would be too distributed between different parts of the government to arrive at a specific number.
I think you're conflating 'financially viable' with 'profitable.'
Something that isn't 'financially viable' doesn't have the funding to stay in business.
Investing in public transportation has a 4:1 ROI in economic impact.
It is, and again I'm speaking from a UK-centric viewpoint, where the public services are privatised to the point where financial viability does have an impact on it, which is unfortunate as it waters the service down for everybody.
The article doesn't make it clear if the transport operation is state owned or privately operated, hopefully it's the former because I agree with the notion that it should be seen as a service with a net benefit rather than a cost on the accounting books.
The article says that 90% of 39 million euros in public transport revenue came from locals, so the cost should be around 35 million, perhaps with some savings on staff or infrastructure since fewer people have to buy tickets (as well as possibly less road maintenance if fewer people use cars as a result). And the city is financing it through a new tax on companies with more than 11 employees.
It's not a world ending amount of money, so I don't see why it shouldn't be viable. Germany's 49€-ticket, while currently having some financing trouble, is similar too in that it is extremely cheap, and is nationwide, and it happened in a nation with an extremely strong car lobby.
It's not free, but it should be possible anywhere with enough political will.
A small correction. The article says:
So 90% of the tickets were bought by locals, not that 90% of the total revenue of that public transport service came from the tickets that locals bought. In fact this number is wildly overestimated. A lot of PT services operate based on taxes (same as this policy) and in many cases the revenue from tickets can be as low as 10%.
Honestly considering that only 10% of the tickets are coming from non residents I am surprised that it’s not free for everyone. For sure the loss of revenue there will be very small compared to the increased efficiency in operations, either from less maintenance/employees required but also to make onboarding faster/easier.
I was also not aware of these numbers until recently, when I heard thr Freakonomics episode on free public transportation.
i get the equvalent of a 49€-Ticket for 25€ at my company. that's a great deal. unfortunately public transport is extremely unreliable in my part of the city, so i can't really use it to get to work. plus i save an hour of my time every day i drive to work.
Yeah, I get it for effectively 32€ through my employer due to the payment being pre-tax and a slight discount on top. Sucks that public transport is so poor for you, I only use it when it's really cold but going by bus takes maybe 5 minutes longer than cycling for me, and I'd guess maybe 10 minutes longer than if I had a car and used that.
For me the ticket is worth it just for the occasional regional train, though. Visiting family for christmas over 2 days already pays for it for an entire month, since the train ticket itself would be 20€ one way.
i still have it because i need it for school. which is is the middle of the city, and we regularly have multiple people who are late. often more than 20 minutes. it seems to be shit everywhere i my area.
Quite a few companies here cover the cost of the 49€ ticket so lots of people effectively get it for free.
It's not the first city/town in europe that's done this. Many medium-sized towns in my country have free public transportation. It works very well and means less cars.
People don't abuse it, because how would you even abuse something like that?
Because unfortunately, they do.
In Scotland, multiple local authorities signed up to a scheme to allow young persons to use cards to get free travel. Fantastic idea and one that would be awesome to see spread to all age bands, but the problem was that antisocial behaviour increased in and around transport hubs, largely because of the increased mobility of people.
It'll be interesting to see if any lessons learned are integrated into other city planning where these schemes are rolled out.
I think this isn't really free transport's fault, this is a problem with youths being antisocial, it has different causes. The free bus just helps to make it more concentrated in certain places, but the solution isnt to make the bus paid but to help the youth find better things to do.
Also to quote the first article
I remember reading about a free bus scheme in London. If you were found being antisocial you lost your free bus pass. So there was an incentive to keep the buses clean.
That's not absuing it, that's it being successfully used.
We want young people to use public transport, oh no, the young people are using public transport, the horror.