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Why (not) abolish fares? Exploring the global geography of fare-free public transport

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Although the policy of abolishing fares in public transport—here referred to as “fare-free public transport” (FFPT)—exists in nearly 100 localities worldwide, it has not been thoroughly researched. To start filling this gap, I enhance the conceptual clarity about fare abolition. I start by providing a definition of FFPT, discussing its different forms, and introducing a distinction between “partial” FFPT and—the main focus of the paper—“full” FFPT. Next, I distinguish three perspectives on full FFPT—first, approaches that assess fare abolition primarily against its economic impact; second, analyses that look at its contribution to “sustainable” development; third, more critical arguments highlighting its politically transformative and socially just potential. Against the background of this debate I offer the most comprehensive inventory of full FFPT programmes to date, and begin to chart and examine their global geography. As a result, FFPT emerges as a policy that takes diverse forms and exists in diverse locations. Supported and contested by diverse rationales, it cannot be analysed as transport instrument alone.
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Vol.:(0123456789)
Transportation (2020) 47:2807–2835
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11116-019-09986-6
1 3
Why (not) abolish fares? Exploring theglobal geography
offare‑free public transport
WojciechKębłowski1,2
Published online: 11 March 2019
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2019
Abstract
Although the policy of abolishing fares in public transport—here referred to as “fare-free
public transport” (FFPT)—exists in nearly 100 localities worldwide, it has not been thor-
oughly researched. To start filling this gap, I enhance the conceptual clarity about fare abo-
lition. I start by providing a definition of FFPT, discussing its different forms, and introduc-
ing a distinction between “partial” FFPT and—the main focus of the paper—“full” FFPT.
Next, I distinguish three perspectives on full FFPT—first, approaches that assess fare abo-
lition primarily against its economic impact; second, analyses that look at its contribution
to “sustainable” development; third, more critical arguments highlighting its politically
transformative and socially just potential. Against the background of this debate I offer the
most comprehensive inventory of full FFPT programmes to date, and begin to chart and
examine their global geography. As a result, FFPT emerges as a policy that takes diverse
forms and exists in diverse locations. Supported and contested by diverse rationales, it can-
not be analysed as transport instrument alone.
Keywords Fare-free public transport· Public transport· Urbantransport· Transport
policy· Transport geography· Fares
Introduction
Although the policy of abolishing fares in public transport (PT)—here referred to as “fare-free
public transport” (FFPT)—exists in full form in nearly 100 cities worldwide, it remains highly
controversial. On the one hand, it is criticised by transport engineers and economists. They
argue that from the perspective of utility, efficiency and economic growth (Cervero 1990;
Storchmann 2003), zeroing fares may harm PT networks financially and generate “useless
mobility” (Baum 1973; Duhamel 2004). They further claim that FFPT negates the essentially
liberal principle according to which a commodity such as collective transport must always
come at a “right” price (CERTU 2010). Moreover, scholars and practitioners who perceive
* Wojciech Kębłowski
wojciech.keblowski@vub.be
1 COSMOPOLIS Centre forUrban Research, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium
2 Institut de Gestion de l’Environnement et d’Aménagement du Territoire (IGEAT), Université Libre
de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.
... With the prospect of considerably reducing CO 2 emissions, a Swiss tourism destination launched an innovative offer, where overnight guests who stay for at least three nights can order a free public transport ticket (for the whole Swiss public transport network) for their arrival and departure-reducing the monetary cost for sustainable arrivals and departures within Switzerland to zero. Adding to studies investigating fare-free policies (see, e.g., Cats et al., 2017;Kębłowski, 2020;Štraub et al., 2023;Lu et al., 2024), this paper analyzes the effect of a free arrival and departure offer on the travel mode choice of the specific group of overnight tourists. Whereas research papers present various estimates of the effects of price changes in public transport due to natural experiments (see, e.g., Kholodov et al., 2021;Wallimann et al., 2023), studies identifying the effects of natural policy experiments on overnight travelers are rare. ...
... Our study relates to the literature on fare-free policies, the most drastic possible price reduction, as we generate new insights for researchers and policy-makers by analyzing a free public transport policy for the customer segment of overnight guests. The thing to notice is that fare-free public transportation can be implemented twofold: Full fare-free public transport and partial fare-free public transport (Kębłowski, 2020). The latter subsumes temporary (short period of time), spatially (only one or two routes), and socially (a specific group) limited fare-free policies (Kębłowski, 2020). ...
... The thing to notice is that fare-free public transportation can be implemented twofold: Full fare-free public transport and partial fare-free public transport (Kębłowski, 2020). The latter subsumes temporary (short period of time), spatially (only one or two routes), and socially (a specific group) limited fare-free policies (Kębłowski, 2020). An example is the paper of Cats et al. (2017), concluding that full fare-free public transport in Tallinn (Estonia) led to a demand increase (i.e., number of trips) of 14%, while in the rest of the country during the period of investigation, the mode share of public transport decreased. ...
... An extreme form of a pricing policy is fare-free public transport, which can take different forms (Kębłowski, 2020). On the one hand, fare-free public transport can be implemented temporarily, spatially (e.g., specific routes), or socially limited. ...
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