Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan drew quite a reaction for suggesting that the abolition of public transport fares would result in “reductions in active travel and an increased level of unnecessary trips” when asked by People Before Profit’s Bríd Smith if he was considering the introduction of free fares.
This gave an opening to the Opposition, who seized on the notion that Ryan was implying that if you give the Irish public something for free, they will abuse your largesse. The Minister said his assertion was backed by research, and last week the National Transport Authority (NTA) published the Fare-Free Travel Policy Analysis it had commissioned from EY, which was submitted last December.
The report does indeed find that free fares would incentivise excessive travel, but in far greater detail it goes on to explain how fare abolition does not encourage commuters out of their cars. Academic literature, case studies of free schemes, and surveys of the Irish travelling public show motorists would be far more likely to use public transport if they saw substantial improvements in its quality, availability, capacity, and reliability, than if fares were removed.
From the point of view of financial motivators, increasing the cost of using a car, either through congestion charges or higher parking charges, in addition to restrictions on car access to city centres, were bigger drivers towards public transport use than fare costs.
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Ryan has been accused of looking at the issue through a middle-class lens, by focusing on the comfortable motorist who is not price sensitive. And it would be nice to think that existing bus passengers could be given a reward for their patronage. However, from an environmental sustainability point of view that is not money well spent. To achieve carbon emissions reductions motorists have to be the target, and listening to what would get them on a bus is not pandering to the well-off, but sound public transport policy.
Ryan did say free fares would not “boost the sustainability of the transport system, primarily because passenger demand is much more sensitive to levels of service provision than it is to pricing”. However, this salient point was lost amid suggestions that he might be implying that some people would game a free-fare system.
There are good arguments – from an equity and climate point of view– to keep public transport costs at affordable levels. But the cost of abolition runs into hundreds of millions of euro. This money would be better spent on improving services.
This is happening, but as with many major projects, progress in some areas seems painfully slow. If people are to get out of their cars, improvements in public transport have to accelerate – and this will require funding and management.