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Are the fees there to actually provide a meaningful portion of the funding, or just to make rich people who don’t use public transit feel like it’s more fair be

Are the fees there to actually provide a meaningful portion of the funding, or just to make rich people who don’t use public transit feel like it’s more fair because the poor people don’t get to ride for free? I’d be surprised if the fees are meaningful on many transit systems, especially if you also throw out the costs of selling the tickets and enforcement.

BuyMyBitcoins 4y ago
>”Are the fees there to actually provide a meaningful portion of the funding, or just to make rich people who don’t use public transit feel like it’s more fair because the poor people don’t get to ride for free?” It is entirely the first reason - mass transit is not cheap and fares help alleviate the burden of the subsidy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farebox_recovery_ratio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farebox_recovery_ratio
- tshaddox 4y ago
  Recovery rates are almost all under 20% in the US, and these numbers don’t even incorporate the cost of selling tickets and ticket enforcement or the costs of the initial builds and expansions (which are almost entirely paid for by the taxpayer).
  - BuyMyBitcoins 4y ago
    That’s still a significant amount of money, even though it’s under 20% of the total operating cost. For most of the entries in that article it covers tens of millions of dollars. I don’t think the cost of issuing tickets and enforcement is that significant compared to how much money collecting fares brings in. It certainly doesn’t seem like something that is done at a loss or something that barely breaks even.
    - tshaddox 4y ago
      It's not nothing, but if the goal is to turn a profit it's nowhere close. On the other hand, if the goal is to get more people riding public transit, I'd want to look into how removing fees might help that goal.
chimeracoder 4y ago
> I’d be surprised if the fees are meaningful on many transit systems, especially if you also throw out the costs of selling the tickets and enforcement. Almost no public transit system has a farebox recovery rate even close to 100%. For municipal service (ie, excluding specialty transit), even 50% is almost unheard-of in the US, and only a few systems in Europe exceed 50% as well. In the US, the better transit systems have a farebox recovery ratio of 25% or less. In other words, over 75% is already funded by taxes, not by point-of-service. Enforcement is a huge cost. In fact, in NY, the government has decided to spend increasing amounts of money over the last five years on police presence to combat "fare evasion", even though their own numbers show that the amount of money they are "losing" to fare evasion is less than the amount they have decided to spend on the additional police dedicated specifically to fare evasion. So yes, it's a political, choice, not a fiscally rational one.
- piperswe 4y ago
  Almost no _Western_ public transit system, that is. High farebox recovery rates (>100%) aren't all that uncommon in Asia.
  - chimeracoder 4y ago
    > Almost no _Western_ public transit system, that is. High farebox recovery rates (>100%) aren't all that uncommon in Asia. Sort of, not exactly. Asian countries typically report their metrics differently, so they look much higher, but it's because they have non-fare sources of revenue that provide a massive source of income which they combine with their fare revenue for reporting purposes. So it's not an apples to apples comparison.
- prawn 4y ago
  Is advertising revenue for public transport at a level where it's useful incorporating into data?

BuyMyBitcoins 4y ago

>”Are the fees there to actually provide a meaningful portion of the funding, or just to make rich people who don’t use public transit feel like it’s more fair because the poor people don’t get to ride for free?” It is entirely the first reason - mass transit is not cheap and fares help alleviate the burden of the subsidy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farebox_recovery_ratio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farebox_recovery_ratio

tshaddox 4y ago
Recovery rates are almost all under 20% in the US, and these numbers don’t even incorporate the cost of selling tickets and ticket enforcement or the costs of the initial builds and expansions (which are almost entirely paid for by the taxpayer).
- BuyMyBitcoins 4y ago
  That’s still a significant amount of money, even though it’s under 20% of the total operating cost. For most of the entries in that article it covers tens of millions of dollars. I don’t think the cost of issuing tickets and enforcement is that significant compared to how much money collecting fares brings in. It certainly doesn’t seem like something that is done at a loss or something that barely breaks even.
  - tshaddox 4y ago
    It's not nothing, but if the goal is to turn a profit it's nowhere close. On the other hand, if the goal is to get more people riding public transit, I'd want to look into how removing fees might help that goal.

chimeracoder 4y ago

> I’d be surprised if the fees are meaningful on many transit systems, especially if you also throw out the costs of selling the tickets and enforcement. Almost no public transit system has a farebox recovery rate even close to 100%. For municipal service (ie, excluding specialty transit), even 50% is almost unheard-of in the US, and only a few systems in Europe exceed 50% as well. In the US, the better transit systems have a farebox recovery ratio of 25% or less. In other words, over 75% is already funded by taxes, not by point-of-service. Enforcement is a huge cost. In fact, in NY, the government has decided to spend increasing amounts of money over the last five years on police presence to combat "fare evasion", even though their own numbers show that the amount of money they are "losing" to fare evasion is less than the amount they have decided to spend on the additional police dedicated specifically to fare evasion. So yes, it's a political, choice, not a fiscally rational one.

piperswe 4y ago
Almost no _Western_ public transit system, that is. High farebox recovery rates (>100%) aren't all that uncommon in Asia.
- chimeracoder 4y ago
  > Almost no _Western_ public transit system, that is. High farebox recovery rates (>100%) aren't all that uncommon in Asia. Sort of, not exactly. Asian countries typically report their metrics differently, so they look much higher, but it's because they have non-fare sources of revenue that provide a massive source of income which they combine with their fare revenue for reporting purposes. So it's not an apples to apples comparison.
prawn 4y ago
Is advertising revenue for public transport at a level where it's useful incorporating into data?