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Because we use accounting to measure how equipment is used and decide how to allocate resources efficiently. Without accounting, we can't tell where to divert

Because we use accounting to measure how equipment is used and decide how to allocate resources efficiently. Without accounting, we can't tell where to divert resources to maintain or improve the equipment. It's also not possible to limit the use of the equipment beyond its stress limits without using money. Trains in particular require additional staff to handle high passenger loads. Some passenger trains are not set up to handle high traffic loads. Charging money limits the ridership to the people who want/need to use the train more than others. It also limits ridership of likely bad actors who will do things like key the windows or spray graffiti in the tunnels or on the trains themselves. >Why would city spend significant resources to discourage usage of public transport? Because then they would otherwise need to rely entirely upon the political process to maintain needed funding to the system, and there would be other spill-over impacts to the quality of the rail network. >Do they really prefer for the people to buy cars and stand in traffic for hours on overcrowded streets and subsequently be disgruntled and pressure local governments for more roads? I'm unfamiliar with road policy in Sweden. I imagine that the fares are paid through taxes on gasoline, tickets for driving violations, licensing fees for commercial vehicles, and other fees. The two transportation methods are not completely interchangeable. You can't run heavy freight on a passenger rail line. It's a bit easier to have shared freight and passenger traffic a highway. Expanding rail coverage to other regions is much more capital intensive than expanding road coverage, and much more challenging to estimate (see: the underutilized light rail projects all over the United States). In a magical world of infinite resources and immortal human beings and infinite time, then there would be no reason to charge fees on anything. Because we live in a finite world of finite time and resources, we use money as a measurement tool to make better decisions with how we allocate our resources. >Why only public traffic commuters pay if all benefit from the fact that they are not on the street crawling in 1.5 tonne of steel each? Not all benefit at all times to the same degree. Also, it is probably also partially funded by taxes. That people are rebelling probably indicates other problems with the system outside the scope of the article.

morsch 12y ago
We don't use accounting (fares) to plan local public transport, at least not exclusively as it's not at all a reliable, what with its inability to track routes, lots of unregistered riders with monthly tickets, etc. etc. To get reliable data, you need to count people in the vehicles and poll them regarding their route and other things -- which of course the public transport authorities do routinely. Automatically tracking people is an invasive technical improvement to this, and it's deployed in some places, but again it doesn't really require fares. Trains of course do require additional staff to handle higher loads, as do all modes of transportation, but with trains the staff/passenger ratio is ridiculously low, and it gets lower as they are used more. Of course there's a resource allocation problem there, but again, fares don't seem to be very useful there, at least in the realm of local public transport. Charging money does limit the ridership, which was GP's point, and which is the opposite of what sensible minds would want, namely less cars on the roads. Vandalising trains carries with it much harsher penalties than free-riding, so I doubt fares are a very effective deterrent; you don't need to pay a fare to spray a tunnel wall, just a disregard for the law and maybe your own safety. Other people you might describe as bad actors might be affected by fares, but I'd hold that if homeless people have no better recourse than abusing trains, you might want to solve that problem instead of making it less publicly visible.
- hagbardgroup 12y ago
  >We don't use accounting (fares) to plan local public transport, at least not exclusively as it's not at all a reliable, what with its inability to track routes, lots of unregistered riders with monthly tickets, etc. etc. To get reliable data, you need to count people in the vehicles and poll them regarding their route and other things -- which of course the public transport authorities do routinely. Automatically tracking people is an invasive technical improvement to this, and it's deployed in some places, but again it doesn't really require fares. That depends on the system: many do track the routes purchased and use it to optimize scheduling (and that includes some systems with monthly riders). It's not the same as in a private sector system in which there are no public subsidies but it does make it easier to allocate the resources more efficiently.
Executor 12y ago
Have you heard about resource-based economies or anarcho-communist Spain in the 1930's? No money is required to have an economy.

morsch 12y ago

We don't use accounting (fares) to plan local public transport, at least not exclusively as it's not at all a reliable, what with its inability to track routes, lots of unregistered riders with monthly tickets, etc. etc. To get reliable data, you need to count people in the vehicles and poll them regarding their route and other things -- which of course the public transport authorities do routinely. Automatically tracking people is an invasive technical improvement to this, and it's deployed in some places, but again it doesn't really require fares. Trains of course do require additional staff to handle higher loads, as do all modes of transportation, but with trains the staff/passenger ratio is ridiculously low, and it gets lower as they are used more. Of course there's a resource allocation problem there, but again, fares don't seem to be very useful there, at least in the realm of local public transport. Charging money does limit the ridership, which was GP's point, and which is the opposite of what sensible minds would want, namely less cars on the roads. Vandalising trains carries with it much harsher penalties than free-riding, so I doubt fares are a very effective deterrent; you don't need to pay a fare to spray a tunnel wall, just a disregard for the law and maybe your own safety. Other people you might describe as bad actors might be affected by fares, but I'd hold that if homeless people have no better recourse than abusing trains, you might want to solve that problem instead of making it less publicly visible.

hagbardgroup 12y ago
>We don't use accounting (fares) to plan local public transport, at least not exclusively as it's not at all a reliable, what with its inability to track routes, lots of unregistered riders with monthly tickets, etc. etc. To get reliable data, you need to count people in the vehicles and poll them regarding their route and other things -- which of course the public transport authorities do routinely. Automatically tracking people is an invasive technical improvement to this, and it's deployed in some places, but again it doesn't really require fares. That depends on the system: many do track the routes purchased and use it to optimize scheduling (and that includes some systems with monthly riders). It's not the same as in a private sector system in which there are no public subsidies but it does make it easier to allocate the resources more efficiently.

Executor 12y ago

Have you heard about resource-based economies or anarcho-communist Spain in the 1930's? No money is required to have an economy.