"I leave the car at home" - do free buses work?

[wirewiper]

Interesting article in The Guardian Online, about the abolition of bus fares in Dunkerque, France, a city of 200,000 and the largest European City so far to have gone fares-free. The article also looks at the wider arguments for and against free travel and considers whether it could be applied to Paris, whose socialist Mayor Anne Hildago has given it serious consideration. Although London is not mentioned in the article, how far could the arguments be applied here too? 

tinyurl.com/yc69sc5j

[snoggle]

Oct 15, 2018 9:08:36 GMT wirewiper said:

Interesting article in The Guardian Online, about the abolition of bus fares in Dunkerque, France, a city of 200,000 and the largest European City so far to have gone fares-free. The article also looks at the wider arguments for and against free travel and considers whether it could be applied to Paris, whose socialist Mayor Anne Hildago has given it serious consideration. Although London is not mentioned in the article, how far could the arguments be applied here too? 

tinyurl.com/yc69sc5j

It isn't applicable to London at all. The revenue from the various transport modes is far too great to be replaced by subsidy to make public transport free. Worse the system doesn't have the capacity to cope with a large transfer of users from non public transport moedes. Finally the network is inadequate in a number of places and where would the money come from to "fill the gaps"? This is particularly relevant in Outer London where even local journeys are cumbersome / impossible.

The Dunkirk example is centred on a small town with, I assume, a relatively compact bus network. Also the revenue contribution to costs was only 10% whereas London is close to 100% overall. In short it's a relatively simple thing to achieve on a small network. It isn't in London or on a large scale network.

[Pilot]

Let's see how long it will last when few big claims come in at one point or another...

[bn12cny]

I would disagree with you Snoogle because in Shenzhen and Some other cities in China if you use Alipay on your phone all bus travel is free, this city is larger than London and it reduces traffic, buses in Shenzhen has priority over cars however to make it work in London is to reduce bus waiting at stops, Floor to the metal and sufficient networks. Okay TFL will lose revenue because the journeys are free but can gain revenue elsewhere ie Less Pollution because less cars, thus less illnesses etc, paid Advertising if using smart cards that streamed to person phone, I believe it can be done, it’s being introduced here in China why not elsewhere?

[snoggle]

Oct 15, 2018 11:59:53 GMT bn12cny said:

I would disagree with you Snoogle because in Shenzhen and Some other cities in China if you use Alipay on your phone all bus travel is free, this city is larger than London and it reduces traffic, buses in Shenzhen has priority over cars however to make it work in London is to reduce bus waiting at stops, Floor to the metal and sufficient networks. Okay TFL will lose revenue because the journeys are free but can gain revenue elsewhere ie Less Pollution because less cars, thus less illnesses etc, paid Advertising if using smart cards that streamed to person phone, I believe it can be done, it’s being introduced here in China why not elsewhere?

China is different to many other places given the scale of the country's development, its financial position and its political system. I doubt China has ever taken a decision to remove subsidies from urban transport. Our government did. The fact remains that there will be NO appetite whatsoever in the UK for the commensurate tax increases to provide multi billions of subsidy - equivalent to the TfL's bus, tube and rail revenues. No one in the private sector can construct a compensatory deal off the back of mobile phones etc. TfL already rake in hundreds of millions from advertising. There's little scope, IMO, to extend this unless you are prepared to subsume the system's identity under a suffocating blanket of advertising. I certainly don't want every bus, tube train, tube station and bus station plastered in advertising. We already have FAR TOO MUCH advertising on the tube and I loathe all over advert buses. Once you "sell your soul" to the advertisers you never get it back. You become dependent on their money and the balance of control shifts.

I would also point out that if you reduce the volume of cars too much then TfL actually loses money from congestion and emissions charging, from parking fines and red route / junction enforcement cameras. Yes there is an upside too in that buses might run more efficiently but in the short term all that happens is that bus companies earn bigger bonuses so that's even more money for TfL to pay out. Worse, given the overly slack schedules, it would probably mean buses sitting at stops for 7-10 mins at a time rather than 2-3 mins as happens now. TfL would have to act very quickly to require the bus companies to bring in new schedules very quickly to reflect the reduced congestion and thus avoid the undesirable short term effects on service regulation and financial bonus payments.

The simple fact remains that public transport in big cities should not be entirely funded from fares. It's ludicrous given the support effective transport gives to the running of cities and their economies. There should be an appropriate level of subsidy to provide unremunerative services and affordable fares. I do think it is sensible that people do actually pay to use public transport. The real question is what that fare should be. Beyond that the actual operation of the network - both in terms of day to day running and delivering improvement projects / renewing worn out assets - should be done as efficiently and effectively as possible to avoid public funds being wasted. There are many different structures that can be employed to deliver that objective.

[twobellstogo]

I’m generally not as wordy as snoggle 😃 but in summary, I feel, in London :
Increase tax a bit/reduce fares a bit - possible but probably not a vote winner in elections.
Increase tax a lot/reduce fares to zero - not feasible.

snoggle - you are right, Dunkerque is a smallish sized town with a smallish bus network. Maybe about same size as, say, Stevenage?

[bn12cny]

I understand about all over advertising because here when you use Alipay in cities to get free travel, pop up and annoying adverts will come on your phone, advertising gone to a different scale here, it’s ridiculous because even when you on the subway there are moving adverts in the tunnels!!

The progressive of the subway here is so so fast, it’s unbelievable....

www.thebeijinger.com/blog/2017/06/28/beijing-subway-line-12-open-2020-promise-less-100-meter-walk-transfer