Free public transport

Stephen15 wrote: »

That's why I said you were somewhat incorrect not fully incorrect. Also I was referring to the €2.50 and €2.25 fare bands are merged as a flat fare which will make a difference to dwell times as all validation will be done on the right hand validator not the the 2018 fare revisions when the 2.15 fare was increased to 2.25.

Fares have actually remained relatively stagnant since Leap has been introduced especially the 13+ stage fare band apart from the fares which have been merged into the same band over over the years. This I will admit has more so benefitted people making longer journies by bus as these fares have remained more or less the same as they were back in 2012.

How am I somewhat incorrect? A bus journey that cost €1.60 in 2011 now costs €2.25. Which part is somewhat incorrect?

A 40% increase in a period of low inflation is relatively stagnant?

Longer journeys do appear to be better value in comparison. I guess I should stay on the bus longer than I need to in order to get value for money.

devnull wrote: »

Dwell time is a major problem though, more than traffic a lot of the time, and full use of two doors and removal of driver interaction would mean buses spent seconds waiting at busy stops and not minutes.

You don't need to abolish fares to do that.

Varta wrote: »

But if there were no fares more people would use public transport. Congestion charges may not be necessary with free public transport and bus priority. At the moment there are many situations whereby a bus must yield to traffic to get back into the flow. Buses should always have priority and traffic should yield. It would require nothing more than a rule change. As I said, a near car-free city is inevitable, especially at peak times, so people are going to have to adapt whether they like it or not.

This is a naive analysis. The problem is not that buses are going around the city half-empty because fares are too high. And saying a car-free city is inevitable is all pie in the sky without a practical means of bringing that about.

Once you have free fares then what? Reduced congestion means more incentive to take your private car, not less. The only way to counteract this is (quite a high level of) congestion charging. You can make the disincentive of a congestion charge much higher than the incentive of a free fare would be. e.g. if a return PT trip is a max of €5 a day, make the congestion charge €10 a day and invest the money in PT capacity.

What about free fares giving an incentive to walkers/cyclists to give up their sustainable mode for free PT? We don't want to incentivise that and it'll only make the capacity problem worse, while losing the population health benefits of walking/cycling.

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

But if you have to squeeze out one of the above, the general lane with all the 80% empty cars would be a good starting point.

How do you do that without also eliminating all commercial traffic, etc?

The people saying that something like this would cost the taxpayer seem to be missing the important fact that in most cases taxpayers are the only people paying for public transport already. Taxpayers are already paying for free public transport for over a million people in this country, removing the need to pay at the point of use just streamlines the process of using and administering public transport. It could potentially have multiple advantages;

Quicker loading and unloading times, leading to quicker commutes
No need to administer payment networks like Leap
Reduced maintenance costs as no need for repairs to Leap terminals, train turnstiles, pay stations at Luas and Dart stops etc.
No need to pay for ticket inspectors
Reduced burden on civil service as they no longer need to take care of the massive workload for processing travel pass applications

I think anyone suggesting that making public transport free would cause a massive spike in demand during peak times is crazy. Nobody is going to get on a packed bus or Luas because it's free unless they need to actually get on. What it could do however is incentive people to get out of the car and use public transport more at off peak hours. Want to head to the city on a saturday for shopping? No need to drive and deal with finding a place to park when you can hop on a free bus. Visiting a mate in Cork? Grab the train and no need to worry about being too hung over to drive the next day.

We need to move away from a model where driving is the first choice for people and that doesn't just apply to getting in and out of work. The morning commute is so ingrained in peoples routine that it's probably the hardest part to change but free public transport could encourage people to ditch the cars for everything else. Once using public transport has been normalised it becomes much easier politically to justify spending more on it. There's an attitude in Ireland where public transport is considered a second class mode of transport, a necessary evil that has to be put up with in order to get to work, rather than a convenient alternative to driving. We need to try and do things to change that idea.

magicbastarder wrote: »

and you wouldn't have to go full bore on 'free' transport. have discounted prices for off-peak travel. e.g. 50% reduction in fares if not travelling between 7am and 10am, and 4pm to 7pm, mon-fri, for example.
or, if you've a leap card, allow two bus journeys per day for free off-peak, and charge normal for the rest.

You could look at introducing discounts for off peak travel rather than free transport. Doing that though means you don't get any potential cost and hassle reductions in running the service though. Everyone still needs to have a Leap card and has to remember to top it up, and someone still needs to fix the ticket machines when they break.

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Most? What proportion of journeys are "free" and what proportion pay a fare?




Most of whom are retired, don't live near PT or are otherwise not daily commuters, so are not relevant to this discussion which is about making life better for daily commuters with increased speed/capacity.

I can't find numbers of total journeys put according to this https://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/free-travel-for-nearly-1m-people-cost-77m-in-2017-469806.html 1.2 million people had access to public transport for free in 2017 and only 21% of travel pass holders rarely or never used them, meaning nearly 1 million people use them somewhat regularly. Suggesting that 1 million users of public transport are not relevant to the discussion is ridiculous.

The topic of the thread is public transport and whether or not is should be free at the point of use. It is not about increasing speed or capacity. Public transport is for everyone, not just people who use it to get in and out work. That was the entire point of my post.

magicbastarder wrote: »

are there any stats collected about how long buses spend stationary at lights, vs. stationary at stops, vs. stationary in traffic?
in short, what's the biggest contributor to buses not moving?

It's all doable with the data available but I only ever see the source of problems used in a very general way such as the improvements delivered as part of Bus Connects.

This paper looks interesting though http://www.jctconsultancy.co.uk/Symposium/Symposium2018/PapersForDownload/Data%20Driven%20Decisions%20For%20Centralised%20Bus%20Priority%20in%20Dublin%20City%20-%20Margaret%20ODonnell%20-%20Dublin%20City%20Council.pdf

As mentioned earlier, using data visualisation tools and the SIRI-VM data from Dublin Bus,
we can map and quantify these delays. Another data set from Dublin Bus is the “Unscheduled
Stop” details, which measures stationary time for buses on route. This information can be
mapped on a per bus stop location as delays before and after a bus stop, as presented via a
dashboard in Figure 11. This clearly presents the North Quays as the most congested, and that
route experiences the most delays. Figure 11, shows that for a typical week, there were 517.8
minutes of accumulated delays for all buses servicing that stop.

Getting to the stage where there ought to be a citizens/commuter Assembly about all this.

Those in charge are not listening to commuters. Well Lord Ross has a driver surely, so he can avoid the great unwashed, apart from publicity shots that is.

There is so much that could be fixed relatively cheaply. But it involves massively reducing car traffic. Huh, not happening.

But BusConnects and Metro are in the pipeline, 7 -10 years hence though. Still it's positive.

My thinking is that all those employed should be able to avail of the Taxsaver scheme at 41% + PRSI as salary sacrifice, no matter what their tax rate is. Maybe even 50%. Revenue will be scratching their heads at that one, but I am sure it could be worked out somehow.

Encourage commuters to use PT. But I do realise that capacity is an issue. Still....

bingbong500 wrote: »

In true Irish myth maybe, like your example! Having a medical card doesn't make people go to the Dr more often. People are either the type to go for every cough or they aren't, money has little if anything to do with it.

Doctors saw a large increase in GP visits for under-6s when it became free.

L1011 wrote: »

Medical card and DVC holders go to the GP significantly more than those without, about 40% more. Possibly the private patients should actually be going at those times and aren't, damaging their health

Do you have a source for this please?