France is testing free public transport

Also less injuries/settlements and criminal records from hiring private security with powers of police who have no police training.

Drivers also face violence for enforcing fares (however many agencies now ask them not to because of this).

Handling cash adds a huge cost as well in addition to the electronic systems.

Lots of friction across the board

In germany there is minimal payment infra, but civil dressed cops will make you pay randomly a heavy fine if they catch you.

That seems to be an exceptionally mis-managed case - for instance London’s Oyster card cost approximately 10% of that about 10 years earlier.

Depreciated over 10 years, that system was responsible for c2% of costs and presumably had some benefits, so although it’s definitely a crazy waste of money it might not be a huge cost-driver.

I suspect there are much more costs than the system for fare collection more generally though to your wider point, such as inspectors, workers assisting people at the ticketing gates, longer bus stop turnaround time as people clock into the system etc

That is analogous to the argument favouring UBI as a replacement for usage-restricted (food stamps, scholarships, etc.) and means-tested benefits. Leaving aside the debate on whether the universality of UBI is sustainable or not, the simplicity of just giving X amount of money to each individual, no questions asked, saves a huge amount of inefficient bureaucratic overhead.

Rent seekers? Presumably the vendor gave a ticketing system in exchange for payment, so not sure how that's "rent seeking"? Are there rules that they can be the only provider?

> Melbourne for example implementation of their chip card system ran much over budget and was 1.5 billion AUD in the end [1].

...

This is a lot! How in the world they managed to spend so much? I myself worked on a turnstile project once, and with such money you can buy 5823187.5 most feature loaded, RFID+QR reading turnstiles.

I took an interview at the NYC MTA about 10 years ago to build a credit card system instead of the ridiculous ticket system. It was pretty cool. They had very simple and cheap solutions available, even some self-built prototypes, but ... politics. Everybody needs to make some money off of everything to pass each stage of approval. From then I started thinking always about the many revenue systems we employ that cost far more than they collect. Public transit is a big one because the cost of a customer not buying a ticket is not just the ticket price, but traffic time and road expansion and emissions and parking structures etc. It’s hard even for government agencies to capture those externalities across department budgets and mandates.

> ticketing systems make up a non trivial fraction of the overall cost

I once read that fare revenue just about covers the cost of fare collection. If true, why even bother?

It was ~300€ per annum for students when I was there. Great deal

In Philadelphia, people do this on the subway. They pay a token to get on (or they ask someone for a token if they can't afford it) and then once they are on no one will ask them to leave. They can just keep riding all day.

I think this points to another problem that needs to be addressed. It is a helluva thing if the best thing you can do with your day is ride the subway all day long, and some homeless people just feel safer on the subway (and I can't blame them).

>Specifically, some elder people are so bored

This sounds like a problem on its own. We should avoid having people bored with nothing to do. Letting them sit on a train all day might actually be a very cheap way to entertain them and improve their lives.

I was going to say, another reason why public transit isn't free is because of abuse. Some people are bored - I know I went on the tourist tour buses just to pass the time or get around, pretty decent deal that way. Others because they have nowhere else to go. But those factors are mere symptoms of different problems that should be addressed as well.

I'm all for free public transport, it's great, it allows social mobility, it allows people to get to work, to not be bound to their location and transportation, and it reduces congestion and pollution - assuming it's electric and has enough capacity, of course.

What’s the problem with getting back on at the last stop

I can totally imagine myself doing this when I'm old. I just love taking the train along the coastal line.

Old people get free bus travel in the UK (availability outside your local area varies but is usually fairly complete), there's the occasional story of someone travelling the length and breadth of the country for free

I don't recall any reports of a paying passenger being unable to board a bus because of it though, so if the bus is going to run anyway, simply tax wealthy pensioners a little more and use that to subdise any loss in revenue

(of course the government would never put a tax on wealthy pensioners, that's what working people are for!)

A different but similar issue is that it disincentivizes trips by foot or bicycle, at the expense of a bigger load factor for public transport.

In terms of reduced friction, I'm a big fan of the swiss transport system: you can hop in any bus or train without validating your ticket anywhere, and you get controlled from time to time. And the fine are big.

So you get:

- not much friction (+ the app is great)

- you use transports more -> you pay more (and not everyone)

- fraud is low because the fines are big enough to dissuade people, and increase every time you get caught

> I would like there to be a funding scheme for most public services similar to the UK student loan system. Where you pay out of your own pocket, ultimately, but only as a fraction of your income and above a certain very livable minimum, and only for the services that you personally use.

If you do that you disincentivise the rich (who tend to also be the powerful) from using those services, and encourage a two-tier system. The British public commits to the NHS or museums because rich and poor alike can use them without fear of one day being charged; furthermore the benefits are shared by everyone even if they aren't direct users (and this is especially true for public transit, which frees up space for others, and increases the labour supply in the cities, pushing down the prices of everything). Funding from general taxation that's paid by everyone is far better than charging individual users (the flip side is that benefits should not be means-tested, for the same reasons).

They had a moratorium on parking tickets in Sydney during 2020 for a similar reason. They didn't want to discourage people from visiting businesses in the city if they had to, since it was already a ghost town.

While I agree with your point, in the particlar case of Paris, France, this kind of argument might not be particularly persuasive.

There are already laws in place for the employers to pay at least half of the monthly / yearly card of their employees (of course, this is considered income and taxed as such) [0]. As these cars allow unlimited journeys over the whole network (with two exceptions, one is a local train at Orly airport and the second I can't remember), it could be argued that transit is already fairly cheap for most "cheaper workers".

Of course, this also applies to "expensive workers" (a software engineer friend of mine has his transit paid to 100%). There's also reductions for the elderly and a bunch of other categories.

In the end, aside from tourists and occasional users, I think a good chunk of the population already has some kind of subscription, so the cost of maintenance argument might make more sense.

I can't find the source, but I remember reading in a local paper that ticket sales were around 1/3 of the Paris' transit authority income. I don't remember whether the cost of the ticket systems was discussed.

This was in the context of the regional elections (which more or less control the TA) that are happening right now, with one candidate wanting to push for free transit.

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[0] https://www.urssaf.fr/portail/home/employeur/calculer-les-co...

I think one flip-side argument is that this will predominantly benefit people in cities, which have much better transport infrastructure than suburban areas.

Hopefully the money this costs is matched on a per-capita basis by region across the country to ensure that regions with less-developed public transport can also benefit.

Public transport in France is cheap and, as mentioned by another commenter, employers must subsidise 50% of their employees' season ticket. In the Paris area it is extremely developed and used.

I don't think that people who drive now would suddenly use public transport instead if that was free instead of costing 50 euros a month (random example).

My personal take is that making public transport free won't change things much in France, and may not be the best way to spend public money right now.

> It leads to less cars on the road

It also leads to fewer pedestrians and cyclists unfortunately.

I agree with your general sentiment, but not about the traffic lights. The whole reason traffic lights work is because 99.9% of the time, those hulking monstrosities we call cars, can just barrel right through on a green light, and when they can't, it's because something with a big loud siren is making noise. Bikes can't do that.

I think the way forward ultimately involves re-thinking the way we architect transport networks:

- Replacing large non-trunk roads and traffic lights with narrower roads and roundabouts

- Increasing the number, size, and separation of bike lanes

- Having bike lanes that cut through otherwise meandering road sections. This is significant, because roads are often designed to go in a very inefficient path for all sorts of reasons that don't apply to bikes.

- Having mixed bike/car roads where the speed limit is 30 kph.

Maybe I'm missing something but bikes passing at traffic lights, or just zipping in the intersections, is such a terrible, horrible idea. Being on a bike on a roundabout is terrifying already.

I agree a bikes-only traffic would be more fluid (even if only for the sheer volume of bikes you can fit in a normal road) but if you have cars, bikes, motorbikes, public transport and ambulances all together in the same space, on a complex web of roads, following a common set of rules is kind of the absolutely minimum prerequisite of a somewhat civil society.

You forgot the main mode of transportation in there: pedestrians. It would be quite absolutly horrible to have bikes doing whatever they want.

Don't forget that in France, gas is taxed maybe 80% (to pay for roads, the more you drive the more you use roads, as a good first approximation)

I think it would help. My hometown made free public transport and since then my mom does all the trips she can with a bus (she doesn't like driving a car too much, has to do it every day for almost 2hrs due to work).

In Germany they recently did some experiments – while it has to be said that the comparison was only with a fare reduction and not a full-scale abolishment of fares, they found that service increases were more likely to attract additional users than fare reductions.

So unless service levels are already maxed out and really cannot be increased further without disproportionally large investment, I'd personally rather prefer that that money was spent on funding more frequent services instead.

German cities public transport ticket systems are so complicated and burocratic that even locals often don’t understand it. You have dozens of zones, extra-bike and dog tickets, time restricted and number of station restricted tickets, tickets for groups and/or families, weekend tickets for groups of families and what not. Ticket machines in Germany have more buttons than you find in an aircraft cockpit. If the public transportation would be free, all this nonsense would not be necessary anymore. That alone is a good reason to introduce free public transport in Germany.

Counter-example: Netherlands has had crammed trains again, despite there being a pandemic. Trains here operate more like trams / subways though, they're very frequent and the railways are occupied to capacity.

What would be an example use of the word free that you would find appropriate?

Well, free does mean that you don't get to pay to use. Where the money comes from is a different question, albeit the most important one.

Perhaps it would make sense to tackle overly dependence on cars by slapping a tax which is directly used to fund public transport. So the more cars you have registered, the more money goes into public transport so that it can compete better, without getting left behind.

These types of comments are so overdone. Free just means free of charge. It means you, the customer or user do not have to pay for the service. It never meant that nobody pays for it, that's an internet boogeyman/meme that is circulating. Yes, taxed citizens are paying for it, but they are not paying for the service.

Everything that is free still has to be provided by someone, it has always been that way since the existence of the universe.

Dirt is free and you can turn it into bricks to build a house but you are relying on the existence of the earth and therefore the existence of the universe.

If these comments were followed to their logical conclusion the word free shouldn't exist because nothing can be free. Thanks, now we have to come up with another word for "user doesn't get charged".

Free as in libre, then

Or Luxembourg, neighbouring country of France, with completely free public transport (bus + tram + train)

For other US examples, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_public_transport#United_S... .

(That page, and the original BBC article, also describe a number of no-fare areas in Europe, but I assume by "Look no further" you are speaking from a US perspective.)

Like what?

The only weird incentive I can think of is that I'd hop on a tramway for one station if i see it coming instead of walking 5 minutes like i probably should.

The commons inevitably becomes the dumping ground for all of society's unsolved problems.

I hope France has solved most of their problems; this can't work in the US until we fix a great deal of social injustice and lack of safety nets.

I don't know why you're being downvoted. Anyone who followed the various public debates in France or is slightly familiar with the country knows that will be paid via a high tax.

People will pay, just indirectly.

Pricing is a great signal for economic optimisation but if there is really nothing to be optimised as these services essentially run as monopolies then maybe this approach on balance comes out better for all.

But we have also seen countries with free higher education and that has not be ruined, has it?

You pay more (in the US) per person for medicare and medicaid than Canada does per person for the entirety of our socialized health care system. $11,500(USD) per person vs $7000(CAD) per person.

Remember that there is non-monetary cost to transport systems.

People perhaps commit an hour of their time or more to planning and taking a journey. For most people, that cost is far more than the $3.50 ticket price.

I prefer cooperative ownership. It’s a nice mix of public sector and private sector benefits, keeping the competition without extracting as much of the profit as possible for investors.

For things like waterworks, internet, power and trains I never really understood the privatisation. I mean, I sort of understand I on paper. Public procurement is supposed to keep things great and cheap because there is some competition as different companies can bid to win the temporary monopoly every X years. The result is almost always both poorer quality and often also higher expenses in the Danish public sector however. A good example is how we privatised elderly care, which made a ton of small businesses flourish, but because it’s a required care it also caused a looooot of extra cost when these small companies went bankrupt, which happened to be extremely often. You could have 5 companies going bankrupt on a Friday, but that doesn’t mean the elderly citizens they take care of no longer needed medicine, so the public sector would need to find immediate replacements until a new regular company could be contracted. Getting people “right now” is extremely expensive.

Anyway, public transportation in Europe is already extremely public, even if there are private companies involved, it’s still the government paying them to operate and not the other way around. So ticket price is really just a matter of deciding what you want it to be.

Making it feee will cost the government very little in terms of tickets. It’s biggest loss might actually be from lower fuel taxes because people drive less.

I think one of the main arguments for free public transit is that it has large positive externalities, that is, it benefits those who do not use the system.

Whenever people switch from using cars to using public transit, you get

- a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions

- increase in local air quality

- reduced noise

- less congestion, smoother traffic for those who still travel by car (and this indirectly also reduces emissions)

- fewer accidents

So it might be a worthwhile goal to strongly encourage people to use public transit, even if you don't use it yourself.

People who did not witness how dangerous such schemes are, will probably not understand until they live through it. It's a popular scheme (heck, even wealthy software dev in HN like it) and very easy to pass, democratically speaking.

Price voting is the difference between communist and capitalist societies. If you offer free public transportation, you kill any potential initiative to create alternate transportation and even can hurt individual transport; making the state a de-facto monopoly over transporting people.

The natural evolution of such bureaucratic systems, is that they'll target something else next time (free healthcare, free books, free whatever...) as it expands their sphere of power and influence further. Soon, you have a huge bureaucracy that controls large parts of your economy which is impossible to change since the leaders of such bureaucracy are now running the country. They are also demanding higher pay, more benefits, and less working time.

Your economy stagnates, the service gets worse as there is no competition, tax revenue is down and a large deficit/debt starts growing; and it's only a matter of time before the whole system collapses. Sounds familiar?

What you're advocating, without realizing it, is a two-tier society where rich people get all the good things, and poor people have to make do with the leftovers.

In my opinion, that's a terrible way to run a society.

I believe it's better for everyone if those who can pay make sure that *everyone* has decent or good things, instead of a few having excellent things and the many having mediocre or bad things.

In France for work for a week, I paid for an unlimited tourist public transport pass and had a wonderful time after work traveling into Paris from an suburb, then around in the city.

The one time I fear for my life in Paris was in the back of a cab driven be a particularly aggressive driver.

I've spent a good deal of time on Parisian public transport and have no idea what you are talking about. This includes many trips to less desirable neighbourhoods. The worst I saw was constant pickpockets. Do you care to elaborate?

If you mean Parisian subway, i can understand, some parts are really not pretty

That said, many large hubs have been rebuilt, only some small chunks of the network are still nasty.

Here in Greece, taxis are quite expensive. Think 5-10 times more expensive. They're faster and more convenient, sure, but not for everyday use.

My company instituted a ban on taxis and ubers to make employees use public transport while abroad because it's good for the environment.

Then our execs visited Paris - it only took one metro ride from the airport to get rid of the whole rule and have folks use taxis again. I always wondered what happened on that metro ride.

Your anecdote is weird.

I've been paying my Navigo pass and equivalent for ~20 years and rode thousands of times in the metro, bus, tram, Noctilien, Citadin and RER, and I have never encountered such situation. I've lived intramuros (mostly on line 13) and in the suburbs (RER B) which are both renowned as being the worst in Ile de France, I've commuted both as a student and as a worker in almost all directions (Saint Denis, Massy, 13ieme, 18ieme, 20ieme...).

You are downvoted but I can confirm the only time I was almost assaulted as a tourist was in the Paris metro. Then I came outside and it looked like a Mad Max scenario with somebody casually selling corn baked in a barrel fire.