Why (not) abolish fares? Exploring the global geography of fare-free public transport
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Why (not) abolish fares? Exploring the global geography of fare‑free public transport Wojciech Kębłowski1,2
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2019
Abstract Although the policy of abolishing fares in public transport—here referred to as “fare-free public transport” (FFPT)—exists in nearly 100 localities worldwide, it has not been thoroughly researched. To start filling this gap, I enhance the conceptual clarity about fare abolition. I start by providing a definition of FFPT, discussing its different forms, and introducing a distinction between “partial” FFPT and—the main focus of the paper—“full” FFPT. Next, I distinguish three perspectives on full FFPT—first, approaches that assess fare abolition primarily against its economic impact; second, analyses that look at its contribution to “sustainable” development; third, more critical arguments highlighting its politically transformative and socially just potential. Against the background of this debate I offer the most comprehensive inventory of full FFPT programmes to date, and begin to chart and examine their global geography. As a result, FFPT emerges as a policy that takes diverse forms and exists in diverse locations. Supported and contested by diverse rationales, it cannot be analysed as transport instrument alone. Keywords Fare-free public transport · Public transport · Urban transport · Transport policy · Transport geography · Fares
Introduction Although the policy of abolishing fares in public transport (PT)—here referred to as “fare-free public transport” (FFPT)—exists in full form in nearly 100 cities worldwide, it remains highly controversial. On the one hand, it is criticised by transport engineers and economists. They argue that from the perspective of utility, efficiency and economic growth (Cervero 1990; Storchmann 2003), zeroing fares may harm PT networks financially and generate “useless mobility” (Baum 1973; Duhamel 2004). They further claim that FFPT negates the essentially liberal principle according to which a commodity such as collective transport must always come at a “right” price (CERTU 2010). Moreover, scholars and practitioners who perceive * Wojciech Kębłowski [email protected] 1
COSMOPOLIS Centre for Urban Research, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium
2
Institut de Gestion de l’Environnement et d’Aménagement du Territoire (IGEAT), Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium
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Transportation
mobility problems through the question of “sustainable” development (Kębłowski and Bassens 2018) point out the weakness of FFPT in terms of generating a modal shift from private vehicles to PT (Cats et al. 2014, 2017; Cervero 1990; Fearnley 2013). On the other hand, albeit much less prominently, a number of arguments in favour of FFPT have been raised by academics working in the field of transport and mobility (Briche et al. 2017a; b; Volinski 2012), as well as outside it—most notably by political scientists (Ariès 2011; Larrabure 2016), urbanists (Brown et al. 20
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