Let's break the transit mold

Public transit is a conundrum. Particularly in smaller city such as ours.

That's not to say we can't make it work, it just means the answers are not obvious or easy. It's time to get creative and re-imagine our transit service.

I was reading an interesting article on transit in smaller cities. In it, the writer contends that to achieve better transit systems for smaller cities you've got to have a fareless system.

To provide some background, in 2011, DOS transit expenses were just under $950,000 for our internal transit system [not including Squamish-Whistler commuter...that's another topic altogether] The projected revenue in 2011 is $187,600. To give you some contextual information, Transit expenses in 2010 were $827,335, revenue $180,131, and in 2009 expenses were $768,195, revenue $153,639. Note: There was an increase of service in 2009.

This article first poses the question: Why have fares in the first place? We don't pay to check out books at the library. We don't have turnstiles to visit a neighbourhood park. We don't pay when the fire truck comes to our house to douse a fire. Most non-utility municipal services are provided for free to users and funded by taxes. So why is transit different? The article suposes that it's rooted in the origins of the transit system when they were run by for-profit companies. They are publicly funded and run today so perhaps this practice should be abandoned.

As you can see from the numbers above, transit revenues do not come close to covering the costs. Even large cities do not come close to covering their operational costs. We'd have to increase ridership almost 6 fold to cover expenses in Squamish. Raising the fares simply does not work. The amount of riders lost due to fare increases counteracts the potential revenue in many cases.

Transit in smaller cities like Squamish have a completely different purpose than transit in larger cities who can generate considerable offsetting revenue and who need to find solutions to over-crowding and traffic congestion.

One key to a successful transit program is to figure out how to convince the discretionary rider to take the bus. Perhaps there is a benefit to going fareless. 

[5 points From shareable.net with some editorialization by me in italics]

1. Reduced capital expenses. No fares = no fare collection equipment. You don’t need to kit out buses with fareboxes, rail stations with turnstiles or ticketing equipment, etc. I'm not sure what this cost is for our buses. 

2. Reduced operating expenses. Collecting fares means you need an entire cash management apparatus. Handling money requires care, proper processes, accounting, security, etc. Get rid of all that and you are saving money. Plus, you don’t have to worry about enforcement. Even on POP systems you’ve got the labor of people auditing tickets. Why bother? And you don’t need to pay repair technicians to service this equipment because it will never break down because it doesn’t exist. That also means no spare parts, which can mean less storage requirements, etc. And with less personnel you probably need a smaller office. The list of savings goes on and on. Again, actual numbers on this would be interesting to know.

3. Improved operations. How long does it take for everybody to board at a bus stop as one person after another swipes a pass or fumbles for change? No fare collection means boarding is quicker. You can even board through every door, not just the front. This means less time spent idling, lower fuel consumption, and faster journey times (a big point in getting people into transit). This might be negligible considering the goal is to significantly increase ridership but it would be an interesting analysis.

4. Better ROI. You are building a transit system so that people will ride it. Fares discourage ridership, especially off peak, non-commute trips. That ain’t good. A transit system is a more or less fixed cost network like an airline. Every seat that goes empty goes to waste. We’re paying to run the buses or trains whether or not anyone is on them. The marginal cost of an additional passenger, up until the point where capacity is maxed, is very low. So why not make sure those seats don’t expire worthless?

5. Marketing. It’s a lot easier to sell something that costs nothing. And any city that did this would get major kudos. And possibly grants etc because of it...PR bonus! You can't buy that kind of advertising.

It's interesting food for thought. I wonder if we create a free bus service and we tripled the ridership, might we be able to generate the lost ticket revenue in advertising alone on the buses? Perhaps we can spend our own carbon offsets on a local fareless transit program. Afterall, by 2012 all BC municipalities will have to be carbon neutral in respect to their operation, and if we're not, we have to buy offsets. Why not spend those offsets augmenting our own transit system.

HMMM, this idea of a fareless bus transit system may be worth exploring.

But it doesn't solve the problem of aiming to increase times and service into the evening and on Sundays. A marriage of our local school bus services and our transit system might be able to accomplish that.

The bottom line is we need some creative thinking, political courage and a desire to lead.

Love to hear your thoughts on this crazy idea.

Cheers
Patty

PS. I'm trying to keep these short but I got a little carried away with this one.