[sustran] Info on Free Public Transport or Transit

[EcoPlan, Paris]

Here from one long time transport observer are my quick thoughts on
this.
 
*	In general, free transit appears to work best when you have a
situation of a defined area (such as CBD), well identified relatively
heavily used travel nodes, shortish trips, O/Ds and time profiles of the
users (such as you have in both places like Hasselt and Adelaide). A
certain common social identification of the users does not hurt either
(students being one example).


*	What is important about traditional public transport services
financed by the community is that they are used, and that by their easy
and intense use they are taking as big as possible a cut out of the use
of cars in cities. For this to work, once the usual daunting problems of
origin, destination, scheduling, conditions of transit, interfaces,
balancing the books, etc. are taken care of, the keys are: (1)
facility/simplicity of access and, yes, (2) a certain sense of
"ownership".


*	When we were working on one of the ordinal studies for the Carte
Orange scheme here in France way back, we gave a lot of thought and
attention to both of these last. And what we found as we pushed ahead
with our studies and interviews was that while unfettered (or close to
it) walk-on access is critical (with free schemes being one of several
ways of going about this), the latter has important long term effects.


*	If you "own" the public transport system in the sense that it is
yours and you can use it when you need it, you are more likely (a) to
use it (fine!) and (b) to take better care of it (hmm). Our analogy was
that we were going to offer them the 'keys' to the public transport
system, which does require some kind of counter-part initiative and
identification on their part.  (As Todd and several others here have
already pointed out.)


*	Now, there are myriad ways of paying for it as we here all know
well, and if we use these other channels with wit and energy we should
be able to make the 'membership fee' a great deal, with the objective of
putting the keys to public transportation into the pockets of everyone
in our community.


*	All that said, if in any place you find that you have a strong
consensus for free public transportation I would certainly urge you to
go for it (albeit with the reserve that it has to be a robust financial
proposition otherwise it will just fade away in a daze of ever poorer
management).
 
To conclude: All I am thinking about these days in my work is our just
forming up New Mobility 20/20 Emergency Initiative (see
http://newmobility.org for details), which is based on strategically
applied carrots and sticks to achieve its ambitious objectives, which in
turn boil down to what Professor Phil Goodwin many years ago used the
phrase "packages of measures".  Measures, carrots and sticks, policies
and practices, which mutually synergize and reinforce each other so that
they each do their part, including in many cases lots of small parts, to
move us away step by step from the 'Old Mobility' (stuck in traffic,
huge transport bills for public sector and individuals, pollution,
physical dangers and deaths, rampant public health problems, faceless
lives, urban sprawl, and that list which you all know so well goes on
and on). . .  and on to something better, which we call to keep it as
simple as possible 'New Mobility'.
 
PS. I am cross-posting selected items from Sustran to our New Mobility
Cafe (at NewMobilityCafe at yahoogroups.com) so that the several hundred
people who check into it regularly will have the benefit of these fine
exchanges.  
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