>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

>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.