A recent Galaxy Poll conducted for The Greens shows that over two thirds of Australians support a trial of free public transport.
TWO-THIRDS of Australians want free travel on buses, trains and ferries, funded from Federal Government surpluses, a nationwide survey says.
In a Galaxy poll commissioned by the Greens, 66 per cent of taxpayers said they were prepared to shoulder the tax burden to participate in a trial period of free public transport - though the shortfall in fare revenue from ferries, trains and buses in Sydney alone would be at least $1.07 billion.
The question posed to 996 voters was this:
Thinking now about public transport. Are you in favour for against a trial of free public transport in your community, paid for by taxes collected by the government?
Of course free is a misnomer, fareless is a more appropriate word given the heavy taxpayer supported subsidy required to make this work even as a trial. But with so many other measures (roads pricing) being used to mitigate not just congestion but the effects of personal motoring on climate change, why not give this a shot? Particularly in Sydney where those effects are so finely felt.
I’m not convinced of the fareless public transport model as a standalone system because escalating cost recovery is a serious issue, and I don’t like the way transport issues have morphed into a wheeled version of the law and order auctions we see when it comes to crime related issues. In Sydney it’s more roads, and more tunnels to nowheresville by both parties; the last thing that should happen is a similar result with public transport.
Right now we’re all experiencing what it’s like to come between a politician and a seemingly bottomless money pit, so we know all kinds of inefficiencies can be porked into the system by your local populist de jour - free transit to your local Tasmanian hospital, council amalgamation plebicite and disabled center in Bennelong, that sort of thing. But then again maybe too much public transport is a good thing.
However, when the effects on climate change are factored into the motoring equation, not to mention the huge subsidies, tax breaks and endless road building needed to support that industry, maybe fareless public transport can be a goer if placed on a similarly supported footing.
In the unlikely event that something like this did get up for a trial I’d like to see the trial focussed on outlying areas of the city rather that the city center where there are usually a wealth of regular core services available. It’s in those outer areas that public transport is most needed and where most folks are left with no option but to drive.
So, is this worth studying for a six month trial similar to the way the Stockholm congestion charge was before it’s eventual implementation via referendum? Or are there more innovative ways to make public transport better, more pervasive and efficient?
Hardly surprising that lotsa people wouldlike free pies but nonetheless, if ever a public utility should be free at point of service (apart from health) it is transport.
The massive tax that goes to subsidising roads (free to user except for a few noxious examples)whilst railways rust through disuse, the congestion - every new road or expanded lane encourages more cars (mostly with ONE occupant)which slows up the buses with 50-70 people.
I recently suggested the european Umsteiger ticket - valid for a a couple of hours on all the city’s transport and on the ABC this morning looking at this story I learned that melbourne has that concept. Sydney’s continued failure to implement is beyond parody - almost as if they din’t WANT it to work. (First the green machines, then those red ticket chewers, now the current kerchunkers which seem to work, but still haven’t reached 1960’s euro standards.)
What brain dead bean counter (excuse tuatology) tries to have public transport make a profit? Next they’ll be wanting electricity, water,sewerage, medical services to make a prof… oh.
This morning I waited 30 minutes for a bus to university that should have come in 5 (two more should have come before it) which filled up before it turned off its “unique” route — meaning that people would have to wait another 30 minutes for another bus. Every morning my bus to the city is late… Frequently several services are cancelled.
If they can’t get it right with fares, how can they get it right when the transport is free? There isn’t enough buses or enough drivers to cater for Sydney’s growing population.
This is in the Lower North Shore - in the very Eastern Tip of Bennelong too - of Sydney so the service is run by SydneyBuses.
Forget free transport I want free money.
Um, sorry. So how much would be federal surplus and how much taxpayer expense?
I’d much rather see the coffers blown on major infrastructure than subsidising fareless PT. In one sense it’s a good idea to look at easing congestion and increasing transport efficiency (one person per car infuriates me as well), but in another sense it’s as much a non-policy as Rudd’s supermarket audits.
Fareless public transport is a spectacularly good idea and I’m astounded that it isn’t tried regularly.
As to making up the costing from lost fare revenue, I bet that in a city the size of Sydney, the cost could very probably be mainly covered through the interaction of two things:
1) Say you raise the sales tax or VAT tax across the board for various goods and services by no more than 0.5%; this new uptick in revenue stream would be greatly augmented (or if I’m wrong, I don’t know squat about big cities) by…
2) the general improvement in public mood and confidence, leading to increased human circulation, trade, consumer spending and efficiency in people’s personal choices.
Add to these the reduction in auto traffic, with its easing of wear and tear on roads (with those costs) and a further improvement in general quality of life, and you get further overall savings.
If you’re worried about the inefficiency of bus routes, you can do a few things:
a. Adopt that so-crazy-it-actually-works passenger “cartridge” thingy that they use in parts of Brazil, or else you could just cut to the chase, and…
b. Let me re-conceive and re-design your bus routes for you. I’m perfectly serious. Urban public transport is a bit of a visionary intellectual hobby with me, and it runs in my family. I’ll re-do your buses and trams in some Australian city and you’ll be just ecstatic with the results. And then everyone else in Oz will want to move there, then your cost of living will spike insanely, and then you’ll all angrily run me out of town on one of the rails that ironically I built for you. But hey, you’ll still have a great system.
There’s also the very reasonable reaction to be expected from people who can’t use public transport - people in the bush and the outer suburbs. If I lived in Gooloolabaga I’d be really pissed to have to pay more tax to let people in Sydney’s Eastern suburbs ride the buses free (mind you, I’ll no doubt overlook the fact that those people in the Eastern suburbs will be paying for the new bitumen road to Gooloolabaga that my National Party member just promised).
A pilot would be a good idea, provided someone did a genuine analysis of the effects on other forms of transport, eg how many cars displaced etc.
Ongoing free at point of sale is probably too much to ask but I agree that Australia’s obsession that public transport should simultaneously turn a profit is insane.
I used to go to Geneva a bit for work - a bus or trolley car would come past every 5-7 minutes, its was quite cheap and (from simple observation only) well patronised, ie the trolley cars were never full and never empty.
Asking people whether they want free stuff isn’t going to lead to particularly useful results whether you ask them if they want free public transport or lower taxes.
If instead they’d asked if people wanted as a trial for it to be compulsory for everyone to buy a monthly public transport pass whether they used it or not I think they’d get very different results.
Would love to see some numbers comparing how much public transport is subsidised versus how much roads are subsidised (taking into account things like car rego etc) as I’ve heard both sides of the debate say that the other form of transport is subsidised more. But then you get into debates about whether you need to take into account things like cost of accidents etc..
There’s the kicker, Phil, and I don’t mean in the ‘taxation is theft’ sense. Services really oughtn’t to be duplicated throughout levels of Government without thought to the political implications. I’m open to free public transport just as to road pricing and congestion charges, but it should be the State Governments, who now do the buses and trains, who provide it.
This scheme of the Federal(!) Greens is a recipe for the same quasi-duplication that currently occurs in education, with the Commonwealth kicking in a pittance and then demanding policy and curriculum control. The last thing you want is an inter-governmental joint-Premiers-and-Minister bunfight about late-night bus timetabling in Toongabbie and Reservoir and Ipswich, but that’s what you’d end up with.
DD, the urge to National Party pork is one thing, the fact of Australia’s population actually being extremely concentrated and urbanised by world standards is another.
Mark B calls himself Australia’s last liberal—I’ll go for Australia’s last Federalist.
IIRC there was a report that came out a few months ago that contrary to popular belief more is spent per capita in a given region on city roads than country roads due to higher density and much higher usage meaning a lot of maintnenace costs in comparison.
Intuitively, this is a good idea. The main caveat I have is that, in my experience, public transport (bus) in my area (Enmore/Marrickville) runs very close to capacity during peak hour. They’d then also have to cater for the extra passenger count that you’d expect if public transport was free. I also wonder whether compensation would be owed to any of toll operators if this was seen to be taking revenue away from them. So a scheme like this would likely be more expensive than it seems at first glance. The idea of focussing on the outlying regions sounds reasonable, though I’d expect a huge whinge if such a policy was confined to specific regions.
From a bussing perspective free PT would be ideal. I reckon 10 minutes from my trip would be saved just because the driver wouldn’t have to keep giving change for $50. And there’d generally be a faster trip just because there’s less congestion on the road.
Does public transport anywhere in Australia even get vaguely close to turning a profit (if you don’t count the subusidies that private companies running public transport get for doing so)? I think the Canberra system loses about 70-80 million a year.
The Feds’d be happy, as long as the bus flew a flag and had a cheesy pic of the relevant Minister handing over the dosh on clear display.
Sydney’s trains may be rusting away through lack of use, but here in Melbourne the problem is getting a place on a train (where all peak hour services are chock-a-block). The campaign to encourage the public to use public transport has been spectacularly successful. The last thing we need is a trial of free public transport. What we need is more services on existing lines paid for by, dare I say it, increased ticket prices.
TSY: “more services on existing lines paid for by, dare I say it, increased ticket prices.”
You’ll never get the kind of extra services you envision, funded by a fare hike. Or, more correctly, if it was truly funded by a fare hike, the $$ spike would be so extreme it would make Margaret Dumont’s opera glasses go flying into the air making an amusing whistling sound, and you’d start riding a bike.
The only way to get what you really want at a cost you can tolerate, is to re-think the system holistically.
They should go w/ the honor system they had in Vienna & Graz, Austria in the early 80s…most paid for the trams, buses etc….but the uni students and poor occasionally got to where they needed to free…but then contributed to businesses like cafes, cinemas etc…& as they got older paid up. Gave flexibility…& made the system addictive and exciting, full of varieties…by creating a wondrous multi-cultural, imaginative place that tourists wanted to go to & pay for the public transport.
I’m not sure about that, but I can say with absolute certainty: I won’t get the services I envision by removing fares.
TSY: “I won’t get the services I envision by removing fares.”
Fair point. But let me take a crack at the system, and I wager you just might.
Instead of framing it in terms of ‘how can we get more people to one concentrated spot faster?’ why not just expanddiversify the spots we’re communting to? Build things like courthouses and other services considered the preserve of the CBD in selected suburbs, near existing lines. Combine this of course with a major review and restructure of PT (especially so in regard to that capital city near Geelong which hasn’t touched its rail infrastructure since 1930).
The resident groups and local councils that take ‘four storeys’ (or whatever the height restriction is) as divine prescription are a hindrance to progress as well.
Public Transport is not and shold not be a Federal isue. The excess taxes collected should be returned to the taxpayers. It is our money.
Stupid, stupid, stupid idea.
All this means is that the money for future growth of our public transport systems won;t be there. All the spare budget dollars will go into increasing capacity on existing services, not adding new services into growth areas and other areas with inadequate services.
Any serious public transport activist will tell you that this is a no no - why not ask groups like Melbourne’s PTUA….
If the Greens think this is good public policy, then they have shown that they have no responsibility and no credibility.
From a life long public transport user - great post, Phil, and great thread.
I’m a bit too knackered tonight to get my head around all the issues but the best thing Brisvegas did in about a hundred years was build a dedicated busway as a separate road parallel to the SE Freeway. Consequently you can get from the CBD to the outer suburbs in as little as 15 mins for 10k out of town, and 40 for 20k. Public transport usage on the southside has jumped remarkably, and people get to speed past all the cars stuck in traffic on the freeway. It’s now being built on the northside.
In another recent poll, 100% of men want a blowjob every night.
With respect, that depends on the financial situation and political will of the governments involved.
It is a little different in this state of private operators, but where the government runs public transport, the revenue aised from fares is just consolidated revenue. It makes no more sense to say that your train ticket pays for a new train line than in does to say that your train ticket builds a new road, or a new hospital, or just pays some public servant.
Oh please. If say the farebox is $250 million per annum (a number plucked from nowhere by the way) logic dictates that with free public transport there is not only $250 million pa less available for capital projects, but that you would need to allocate more money on EXISTING routes to meet an increase in demand.
Its bad public policy to give people who already have services a cheaper ride, when there is unmet demand for new services elsewhere.
Sure you can do it, but you would have to be a mug of the first rank!
Okay, some real figures. In real terms from April 2006 to March 2007 Melbournians paid over $452 million on train, tram and bus fares (all integrated into one ticketing system btw). Government funding of $937 million per annum in subsidies to operators of these services would need to increase to $1.389 billion per annum.
Would you prefer your government to spend this money on new transport services, let alone health, education, police etc. Or would you prefer what is in effect a massive tax transfer to certain - mostly well off - sectors of society? As a lefty, I prefer more services and less tax boondoggles!
While the idea of fare-free public transport seems good on the surface, it does have some significant drawbacks. A key one is that, as a free service, the emphasis will be on providing services at the lowest cost possible. Now, while that itself is admirable - having a program of ongoing improvements means that there’s a set structure and method of delivery, thus reducing costs - it could go so far as to strip costs out of the system to the point where services become unreliable, and possibly unsafe. Not to mention that, without a revenue stream of some kind (whether it covers costs or not), there is little incentive to actually improve or expend the system.
Another issue, for the ‘Laura Norder’ fanatics, is that public transport itself becomes the moving equivalent of parks and shopping centres: places where undesirables congregate in search of something to do, often making things uncomfortable for others. There is a certain element of this in Melbourne, where the botched methodology behind our ticketing system means that it almost functions fare-free.
(While the actual fare system in Melbourne works well - zonal, multimodal fares valid for varying periods of time - the ticketing system, relying heavily on vending machines and standalone validators rather than stationmasters and conductors, means that there is a high level of fare evasion.)
My belief is that passengers are willing to pay to use public transport, as long as the service provided is worth the fare paid. Of course, it can be argued that there are many cases where this doesn’t apply (Melbourne trains, Sydney trains, Sydney buses, Sydney… you get the drift), so the emphasis should be on improved capacity, coverage and convenience before we decide to ditch the tickets.
(Oh, and j_p_z, I’ll happily join in the PT redesign crusade with you. I have been working on a redesign of Melbourne’s system for a few years now - when the time allows - and I have a few ideas for other parts of the country as well.)
I disagree. Public Transport is funded up to 50 percent federally in many countries and matched with funding at the State level (eg. in the US) - as is done here for roads.
There is no federal framework for promoting or developing public transport. There should be, and funding, as good public transport addresses social justice issues and sustainability/environmental/climate change concerns.
From what I have seen in Australia regarding public tranport:
* NSW & Vic are cloase to basket cases
* Adelaide is below par - car dependent and not yet gridlocked
* Perth is well above par - new rail, good integration with buses etc
* Brisbane is closer to Perth - at least there is a train to the airport.
Not sure free public tranport is the immediate concern. The trains in Melbourne are now all chockers, there aren’t enough of them, and there is not nearly enough lines (none have been built since 1937 except for the city loop connector).
The cruddy bit, at least in Victoria, is not the cost of an inner city ticket but the way it increases the further you get from the centre. ie, the poor tend to pay more. After all, one reason for increased prices of housing in the inner city is that people buy preferential access to public utilities like parks, close schools and hospials, and ample public transport.
And fares from the bush to the city are gross.
Reducing fares helps if it increases patronage, because you can get the same revenue for greater social utility. That doesn’t work if you have no fares at all, or if the train is already full, as in Melbourne’s peak hour. As I understand the problem, solving that would cost buckets of money, like many more trains that are only used in peak hour, or raising the wires to accomodate double decker trains.
I wonder how much the system has been slowed down by removing the Jolimont yards, which provided very convenient repairs adjacent to most breakdowns. And whether the trains have been able to fix the power supply problem - more modern trains need more power, which restricts the number in a section. Or used to, anyway.
In Victoria, we should just spend the money and build a decent train system, which would add hugely to the liveability of Melbourne. And build some road tunnels too - it shouldn’t be either/or.
Where are the Perth voices here? (Not that I’m one.)
I was listening to the radio this afternoon and some Perth PT boffin was talking about their system, where they’ve abolished fares in the CBD and concurrently with upgrades to the system that mean rail is appreciably faster than road, have seen their usage jump from 7 million whatsits to 50 million whatsists over the last decade or so (sorry for the inexactitude, I was driving while listening). As suits in the CBD have used the free system and seen that it doesn’t smell, they have increasingly used the paid part of the system to commute from the suburbs as well.
The boffin involved was apparently a former advisor to Sydney rail, and they refused to implement his ideas.
Ahh, good old Smartrider and the Free Transit Zone
Plus there are the Free CAT Busses as wwell which cover the CBD area.
Free Transport Zone info here.
THe Transperth site also has info on the Smartrider Smart Card System with closed barrier stations.
Canberra doesn’t have a bus system, as such. Similar to Melbourne, it has a kind of CDEP scheme whereby people are paid to drive empty buses around the city for most of the day.
These buses commonly follow routes where nobody wants to go.
I have observed similar schemes in operation also in places like Cairns and Darwin.
The voluntary fare scheme of Graz, Austria, as described above, is also in operation in Melbourne. It seems to work quite well for students, dopers and the like.
Melbourne public transport has one really unique feature. It is the only major city where parked cars are used by local councils to block the path of passenger-carrying light rail vehicles (trams). Even better, the greenish Moreland Council lets cars park for free in Sydney Road while charging for its off-street parking. Brilliant!
Yes, I’ve heard him speak, tt, though I also don’t remember his name. His ideas brought out the worst in boutique train-spotters and light rail anorakkists. Perth and Sydney and Melbourne have entirely different geographies and political economies, and transport planning has to encompass it.
For instance, Sydney, the Illawara and the Hunter are all large-scale heavy freight centres, and the NSW Government can use parts of the container rail budget to pay for the rail infrastructure passenger services use. Unfortunately it also means that a lot of the works are old, expensive leftovers. Perth’s passenger train system is for passengers, and it’s simpler and cheaper because it has to do less.
Melbourne suffers from underspending on infrastructure and chronic understaffing—which is a problem just as bad as a lack of carriages. But then, some dickhead’s Government privatised the passenger services.
Nailed it, Chris.
LIam & Tigtog,
As a Perthite, I’m interested to know where you heard this guy being interviewed. Was it on the ABC ??
A Rough Program/announcer’s name would be useful and I’ll try to track down a podcast.
RIchard Glover, ABC702
Peter Newman is the name of the boffin we’re talking about. I heard him speak at a NSW Fabian Society forum that must have been put on three years ago or more.
Actually, the first thing I’d do, in the unlikely event of my being made Premier, to encourage public transport use in the city would be to institute licence demerit points for parents driving their lazy children to school. That, and APEC-style tear gas free-fire zones for people stopping anywhere near a school between 8.30-9am and 3pm-3.30pm.
Just looked on the 702 website - no podcast
Re Perth’s PT System, you can thank the Labor Govts for the new Perth to Mandurtah Line - which has many knockers, especially from those who love busses, and the West Australian. Thank Goodness Allanah MacTeirnan can hold her own - CK will tell you more about that
Ahh, Professor Peter Newman, he’s good value - he had it tough during the Cort Years when Daddy Court closed the Perth to Fremantle Line and replaced them with Conertina type Busses - a move which was reversed when Brian Burke became Premier.
The Libs here have this love affair with the car and always whinge about of money that is spent on PT.
I’m an inner-city Sydney person who does not have a car. I’m fortunate to live reasonably close to where I work, meaning most of the time I can walk there and back, or ride my bike, given it’s an area of Sydney that actually has OK bike infrastructure (paying a lot in rent, though). To get to places I can’t walk or cycle to, I rely on public transport.
But up until recently I lived a bit further out and relied on the bus, which was slowly driving me crazy. If the bus showed up within 15 minutes of the scheduled time it was a good day. More than once I waited for more than 30 minutes, a time in which at least two services should have come along.
What’s massively inefficient on State Government buses in Sydney, though, is how long it takes to move on from a stop - people fussing around for change, using a Travel Ten to find they’ve already used the last ride, arguing with the driver about how they’re eligible for a concession but can’t produce proof, this, that and the other thing.
Fareless sounds good, but I’d actually be happy to pay for public transport provided the service was generally reliable, safe and efficient. But it really, really ain’t.
In Melbourne the state has been propping up the companies that run the public transport networks with millions of dollars a year, since kennett privatized the system. The tram system has turned from a tourism assett to one with more than a whiff of fear due to the thugs parading as inspectors who have increasing power over passengers. They run in packs of 6-8 but despite the stick fare evasion still seems high. Considering what we are paying these companies through our taxes as it is, putting the system back in state hands and making it fareless is a good idea. Though personally, I’d like a system where only residents rode free.
Surely free, safe and reliable public transport would be a better way to reduce pollution, as well as traffic congestion. That has to make more sense than a cbd congestion tax that keeps getting mooted.
David - since june or july the 3rd zone was abolished, so now people who live the furthest out pay significantly less than they used to (zone 2 has been extended).
Seems to me there’s a lot of assumptions running around in this thread. The Greens with this poll have shown there is a demonstrated strong public interest in examining free public transport through a pilot. That would by any reasonable measure therefore consist of
a) determining the nature of the trial by looking at successful systems elsewhere
b) a full cost-benefit analysis including looking at the transport system for the pilot city as a whole
c) an actualy physical trial over sufficient period for theory to be tested by reality
d) consideration as part of the trial via negotiations with the state over appropriate levels of federal/state funding for such a system, taking into account (b)
etc etc.
Say what you like about the Greens, but they rarely propose anything without having looked carefully at the evidence overseas. I’m pretty confident there’s some excellent and relevant examples of free public transport having a strong societal benefit around the world, and I’ll go looking in my lunch hour - my point is I’ve got little doubt that the Greens will have already looked at them, as well as looking at the other alternative, eg Zurich where the public transport is user-pays but excellent - but then everyone’s taxes are extremely low.
I think the point of this survey is also a good one to - to start debunking the myth of the major parties that Australians are so totally wedded to their cars that nothing other than cheap fuel and more, more, more roads (now usually private tollways) is the only way forward. Any transport planner will tell you how assinine that it - at least all the ones I used to work with did over and over - yet it’s just too profitable for the private sector, so we keep doing it.
For your reading enjoyment.
PDF.
On a related note, as a long time public transport user in Melbourne I have noticed something very odd.
I’ve heard two stories from people and saw with my own eyes an almost unprecedented event. Ticket inspectors letting people off.
Anyone who has traveled in recent years on Melbourne’s PT will understand the upside down nature of this. For years people have been subject to the most extreme, arbitrary interpretations and enforcement one could ever see.
Ticket machine not working at the station you got on? - Fine! and if the evidence backs it up we’ll let you off.
Should your foot hover within an inch of a seat? Fine!
Get on and realise you don’t have the right change for the tram? - Fine! - even though the law states you can get off at the next stop!
Yet all of a sudden the endless ticket writing has been replaced by stern (or not so stern) warnings in many cases. This is for blatant fare evasion as well, not just the technicalities mentioned above.
Methinks the quota system has been eased in light of the uproar concerning overcrowding. Easing the inevitable uproar when the gouging permits are reissued to the operators may have something to do with it as well.
As others have made the point the issue is that
1) this is primarily a subsidy for the wealthy who live in the suburbs best serviced by public tranport.
2) The major cost to public transport for most people not using it already is the inconvinience and time in using it not the fare price. Making it free is only a marginal reduction in the overal cost.
3) You will inevitably get very inefficient use, people jumping on for a stop or two when they could just as well walk. These people then overcrowd the busses and squeeze out people with a more demanding need - ie travelling further.
A survey of a Belgian city where free public transport was introduced found that significant numbers of new passengers, around a third, where ex-cyclists and pedestrians, where as only just under a quater were ex-car users.
So if you want to reduce car use it works but is it efficient. Why not just put a congestion charge on the cars then you can reduce car use without clogging the busses with people who could just as well walk.
Brisbane has cronic bus and train overcrowding already and apparently can’t source ennough vehicles to move the masses (especially along the busway routes that Mark talked about up there ^^^ somewhere). So on the face of it - a free PT trial would be doomed to fail.
South East Qld PT also needs to get past Campbell Newman (current Brisbane mayor) who has actively removed bus lanes in the past 3 years - ensuring there is no competitive advantage in catching the bus over sitting in the car by yourself. Maybe JWH could poll Brisbane PT users on that issue (would never happen - Newman stands a reasonable chance of being the “senior” elected Liberal in Australia by Christmas!)
Sydney has a huge range of infrastructure problems which seem to compound appalling delivery service. Buses can not run to timetable, because of road congestion. Traffic authorities cannot provide bus lanes as required because this would cause the car-based road systems to choke to a standstill in peak hour. Freeways & tollways have been built deliberately excluding mass transport options, public or private. Duplication of rail lines to allow an increase in volume have still not been completed, & the last State budget failed to fund desperately needed line duplication from Sydenham to Central, with Minister Watkins refusing to state what the hell is going on.
It’s a bloody disaster, its been poorly planned & underfunded for at least two decades, & all transport authorities from local to federal have yet to demonstrate the vaguest understanding of transport requirements in the face of peak oil, the imperative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Bleating about public transport failing to pay its way in economic rationalist terms is beside the point - the social & environmental costs of our current transport systems are unsustainable, & inequitable to boot. If even thinking about free public transport induces something other than sheer stupidity in planning from our political masters, it is a good start.
Look, I absolutely agree with you that this is a real issue that would need to be addressed with such a policy. Clearly we are talking about an investment of >$500 million into the system (on your figures), which means that this money is not available for investment elsewhere.
However exactly what is cut to allow for this investment is a political decision. I’m just contesting the idea that this investment must necessarily come from other areas of public transport. It would be possible, obviously, to shift this money from elsewhere in the budget. Let’s get the first $70 million from the Grand Prix…
I saw it myself Michael, more than once, when I was living there last year and the year before.
Compared to the Sydney’s stasi, who won’t even let you through the non-automated gates when you _have_ a valid ticket, it’s kinda heartening. Just don’t try it on the St Kilda tram, though…
Well, that’s not exactly true, now, is it Bill? Given that by far the busiest bus routes, in numbers and services are the “intercity” Woden/Civic/Belco/Tuggers lines, which are busy (not by big city standards I grant, but at least half full) almost all the time. Methinks you’ve not actually caught a lot of buses during the day in Canberra.
I don’t think free public transport is really great policy, for the many reasons stated above. To be honest, I would be happy - living in Sydney now - with acceptable public transport. Instead, I get an almost astonishing tutorial in incompetence, every time I’m forced to use public transport. What genius signed off on ticket vending machines that don’t take five cent pieces, or more than ten coins, imposed a $19 eftpos limit - ah jesus, I’m just gonna quit going on; no need to ruin my day twice over!
I’ve just agreed that this is generally speaking a real issue, but let’s not fall into the trap of thinking that everyone who lives in Fitzroy or North Melbourne is wealthy.
Phil, thanks for the link - interestingly despite pointing out a number of flaws in the free transport trial, it does conclude it was overall beneficial, from my quick reading.
Steve,
you make some reasonable points but are assuming (as have many others in this thread) that the Greens in proposing free public transport would stop there - but a quick look at their policies and initiatives shows that simply not to be the case, they are very interested in redesigning the public transport system to benefit low income areas, other social issues and promote tourism etc., as well as dealing with the major issue of congestion.
I’m in Tasmania, and the Greens down here have been proposing excellent public transport initiatives for years in their alternative budgets - you can find them here.
In Tas a lot of the local green council reps, particularly in places like my sprawling electorate of Lyons have suggested looking at bus stock that can travel on rail and road, and other measures that have been proven to be successful, particularly to facilitate people in rural areas looking for work, getting to services and helping to break down social isolation.
Whether it’s free is another matter, but if it could be designed in a way to reduce congestion in our major CBDs, would that not be a good thing? Other cities have financed similar schemes through car/congestion taxes, which seems pretty reasonable.
Perhaps the different opinions about fareless public transport are influenced by the differences between public transport in different areas. For example, I used to be quite happy paying my dollar or so (as a student) for a bus ride in Canberra - until they changed the timetables (because of low patronage) to only one bus per hour on most suburban routes, and a night-time service that ran depending on need (you have to ring up to organise to use it)… Conversely, I remember being quite peeved by the fare of just over four dollars (as a non-student) to travel from one of the outlying suburbs to the centre of Cairns: mostly, I was annoyed by the timetabling (one bus an hour) and by the huge variations in when buses would arrive - anything from five minutes early to twenty minutes late. The bus would usually be ten or fifteen minutes late, but not always…. it made for a lot of sitting around waiting.
Ultimately, public transport is of greatest value to those who *cannot* choose to live closer to urban centres or to drive. So it has huge significance as an issue of social justice and social inclusion. Part of the appeal of getting rid of fares is the possible implication that timetabling and services might be funded well, rather than being determined by the need to make a profit (or, as others have pointed out, it would be more correct to call this the need not to make too great a loss).
Similarly, unreliable public transport services really raise the hackles (as evident in my first paragraph…) because they make it unnecessarily difficult to manage one’s own life and time.
I seem to remember reading somewhere about a study that found that a low fare - rather than no fare - meant that people still saw the service as having some sort of value. I think there should be some incentive to create more convenient routes and timetables; yet conversely, we should be able to articulate a minimum standard of access to public transport which is worth the up-front cost. The Greens have the right idea in raising the issue of public transport, but they need to engage with with it in a more nuanced way.
Apologies for the mighty long post (if anyone’s actually made it to the end…)
“but I agree that Australia’s obsession that public transport should simultaneously turn a profit is insane.”
Yes, but they never insist that ‘roads’ make a profit? All roads, that is, not just the privately owned ones.
Road users often whinge about subsidised PT but fail to understand they receive far more subsidies for their car use than PT user receive.
I’d like to see the Bishop Austrans system implemented somewhere to see if it really is a leap ahead in public transport thinking.
The system relies on many, relatively small, automatically piloted modules which are dispatched and routed according to sophisticated optimisation software and the desired destination of the commuters in the system.
Could be way nifty.
We almost had a test track in Canberra when our free-wheeling big spending Kate Carnell was on top of the heap. If not for exploding hospitals and incompetent infrastructure upgrades we might have had one of these systems in Da Capital.
The main problem with public transport is not expense, for the bulk of people who use PT, it is a cheaper alternative than driving into the CBD or activity centre that they work in. The people who have no other option are the minority. As Steve Edney pointed out earlier the costs of using it are much more than the price.
Anecdotally the only counter-example I can think of is when I go to the footy at the MCG or the Docklands. Both grounds are right next to massive train stations that feed directly into most of Melbourne’s train network (or in the case of the Docklands, the whole state). When I lived in the suburbs my usual posse consisted of at least three (normally four or five) people. A daily zone one and two ticket for a single adult in Melbourne is nine dollars ninety. For a paid carpark ten or fifteen minutes walk from the ground it is 6-8 dollars. In the carparks it is almost always a lot of people in each car.
Most people would prefer to use the train, especially with football traffic snarls, but it is often four or five times more expensive as most people go to the football in groups.
I think one of the few things the state government has got right in Victoria is cutting fares on Sundays, as more people travel in groups at the weekend - they would do well to similarly push down fares in the evening and all weekend.
A different view from Perth: I caught the train to work in the CBD for years - the pre-electrified, un-airconditioned old rattler (with opening windows). I was sometimes scared of walking home from the station late at night - and given so many stories of violence around stations in the last few years I’d be a lot more scared now. But when the line was electrified with flash looking new cars many more people started using it, which meant you couldn’t sit down (and read), you were pressed promiscuously close to people of dubious hygiene, and the carriages were unhealthily sealed (who knew so many people were so sick?)
It was such a horrible start to the day that I switched to driving to work and paying a fortune for parking. I tried the bus, but twice in two weeks it didn’t come (driver sick was the reason). I still drive in everyday (1 person, 1 car) though I’ve found a job with free parking!
Boffins like Peter Newman assume everyone wants to live in some sort of higher density arrangement. I don’t think most people do. When the last drop of oil runs out, I’ll stay in the leafy suburbs and buy an electric motor scooter. I don’t plan on ever setting foot on public transport again.
Perhaps better questions to ask in a survey would be how many fewer car trips and how many fewer kms would you drive per week if public transport was free?
True Chris, but a question that’s suited to a proper piece of research I would have thought, not a public opinion snapshot, which is what the Galaxy poll seems to be.
I also think that’s why the key word here is pilot.
Yes, that is the right question. All my commuting would still be done by public transport - indeed even if it cost 3 times as much I still would be doing it that way - way cheaper than parking and fuel. As for the weekends, generally if I am going into the city I will use public transport, otherwise the services to other areas I would travel to are poorly service and I’m not going to wait for a train and two connecting bus services so I’ll drive. I’m unlikely to change that to save a few dollars at the cost of eating up a chunk of my weekend.
To me this whole thing comes down to if you send X million dollars making public transport free, then that is X million dollars you haven’t spent creating a wider network of services. Which is more important? In my opinion more and better services. Saying you will do both is a cop out as you could always have spent those funds on increased services.
Except that we know you most likely need both, ie better services and lower costs/free services at least for some demographic groups, if we really want to get people using public transport more.
I agree entirely that better services are as much if not more of a motivation for people to use public transport. I don’t use it where I live because it’s essentially non-existent.
But we also know that many people will still use their car for a perceived convenience even if it costs them more etc. Then there’s groups on low incomes who need both service and low cost to make best use of it. One advantage with doing a fareless service pilot would be that for starters it might generate enough voter interest = political will to actually get the services vastly improved. I’d argue that the cost of doing so is more likely to be reasonably offset by savings in road infrastructure, than from any fee that could be charged.
Steve E (and others), I disagree. You shouldn’t automatically conflate the building of new infrastructure or the provision of services with the acquisition of funding. To do so is to assume that the fare itself is somehow integrated with the service, and therefore should be the defining aspect of where services should be. Obviously they shouldn’t. If they were you could close under-utilised subsidised lines and make a nice profit. Subsidised public transport is a social service, and service provision is necessarily disconnected from the funding.
If they are disconnected, then the issue is what is the best - most equitable and efficient - means of procuring funding. When this came up on Phil’s blog a couple of months ago, I argued against fares for this reason. Collecting fares is a mugs game. It is functionally equivalent to sticking a coin on the top of the television to watch the ABC. Nor does splashing half a billion on ticketing systems solve the problem, and the Victorian government has been sold down the river if they think it does.
But fare-less travel doesn’t have to mean it comes from general revenue - which would be inequitable - nor does it have to mean a loss of funding - because some systems would increase the revenue raised. Thinking on it, my preferred option is probably a form of local rates with no general state (and certainly not federal) subsidies. Mostly because it allows both a funding increase that people would largely agree with - provided they got something from it - and provides political pressure from residents who think they are being shafted to make improvements (particularly on the esoteric outer suburban bus routes).
Sure, but at the same time there is no point running the pilot if although lots of people think its a good idea, but very few people are actually going to drive less.
One of the problems you have with this approach is that in areas where people are rich the councils will have a lot more money available to spend on the free transport. And in the poor areas where people need the subsidy more they can’t afford to do it.
Christ you lot are slow. This was raised by lefties 30 years ago and here you are slavishly trying to justify free public transport in the context of economic rationalism and crapping on ad nauseum about the logistics. Vomit.
and your point was…?
You’ll note I said a form of local rates. Mostly because I wouldn’t put things under council control - lack of integration - and because the variation in the levy - a much better word - would work better with a finer grain than most council boundaries. Nevertheless parts of your point still stand. Particularly with regard to new infrastructure where, for preference, you want to start building well before the local area can afford to keep it.
On the other hand, the poor in Australian cities has shifted to the edge now, so to some extent we already have a situation where the rich have great transport and the poor nothing. At least in the short term, changing to local funding may actually result in a net increase in the public transport funding in most poor areas (though without measuring it it’s hard to tell). Obviously any radical shift in funding and allocation arrangements would need to be worked through; the question is whether it would be an improvement over the current fare-based system.
In the context of taking real action on climate change - improved public tranport is a vital strategy for addressing it. Unfortunately, you can’t use it if you don’t have it, or have a system so crappy as to make it very undesirable (in my opinion anything over a 10 minute wait for a service or connection).
For carbon emissions, relative to a single occupancy car trip;
* Trains are eight times better
* Trams and light rail are four times better
* Buses are two times better.
I reckon a free pilot should be run as there is no harm in assessing how this would affect or encourage usage patterns. But the bigger issue is a huge boost in investment and planning for an expanded efficient network. There should be federal funding and a frawework established. Melbourne has not built a new heavy train line since 1937!!!! And no new ones are curently even planned!!!!
The current plan for a lengthy connection train tunnel in Melbourne does nothing to address non existent train services to most of the myriad of new outlying suburbs built here over the last 60 years. Metro style networks and tunnel connections must be accompanied by new services to outer suburbs. Otherwise we risk them becoming ghettos when petrol prices double.
Just a quick thanks to everyone for their considered comments on this post. Great stuff!
There are lots of valid criticisms brought up here, and many of the problems people pointed out were realistic; but you have to remember, all of these problems have solutions, many of them kind of ready-to-hand, in fact. You just have to anticipate them is all, and adjust accordingly.
The main point is, if you were going to try and do this, you can’t just abolish fares within the present system and just see what happens. You have to re-design the entire system taking into account the fact that the nature of behavior patterns and system use will change on account of the new fare-less situation. There’s all these new features you’d have to incorporate into the overall system, some of them having only a tangential relation to the physical plant of buses and trams.
Still, it would be awfully cool to try.
One idea that could be taken from Sweden is to have proper youth pricing on tickets up to one’s 26 birthday.
The problem of transport can not be separated from the problem of population distribution across sub/urban space and as one comment above states people ‘will not move from their leafy suburbs’. It really is a single problem. Changing the culture of automobility will be no where near as hard as changing the belief in owning a home in the suburbs as signifying a good thing. Having youth ticket prices may be one way to catalyse a shift in the culture by ensuring young people who are just out of uni/trades/whatever, and are often getting their first real jobs and making related decisions, can rely a cheaper transport infrastructure for a few years. This may give people a taste of what it is like to live with a different kind of mobility.
What needs to be stimulated is some sort of middle range mobility balance between the ecologically bankrupt stasis of the suburban home and hyper-mobility of daily automobile commutes, so there is a middle range mobility that allows people to move with their jobs or family/loved ones much more freely on something like a 6-24 month time frame. The suburban home is an outdated concept from the post-war welfare state when jobs and marriages were for life. We need other forms of middle range mobility that do not economically discriminate. The way the rental system versus the mortgage system is organised now simply reproduces the old pre-industrial class relations around property ownership but with a modern twist involving motility (mobility potential or capacity for mobility).
“The suburban home is an outdated concept from the post-war welfare state when jobs and marriages were for life. We need other forms of middle range mobility that do not economically discriminate.”
Or, we could just re-adopt the cultural-economic consensus that jobs and marriages should be for life.
“changing the belief in owning a home in the suburbs as signifying a good thing.”
But maybe owning a home in the suburbs doesn’t ’signify’ a good thing. Maybe it ‘is’ a good thing. Of course, that would depend on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is…