@ajsadauskas@TheOne - yes, but the situation needs to be evaluated as a whole from the point of view of the user and trip: car vs PT vs active transport: marginal cost, door to door speed, quality, safety, comfort, availability. By making PT free, we would be making it a bit more competitive against car here. As it is, it loses to car in most categories for most trips, in #GoldCoast: 5% to 85%.
@tom_andraszek@ajsadauskas@TheOne I don’t think people are entirely rational economic access-seeking actors on a per-trip basis. I’m more interested in the psychological difference between pay-per-trip (transit) and pay-once-a-year (car insurance, rates - plus monthly payments if you have a lease, but you can’t just not pay them if you don’t drive, it’s a long term commitment too).
@tom_andraszek@ajsadauskas@TheOne Free PT is one way to align payment frequency (well, remove the pay-per-trip and replace it with nothing), but another is discounted long term public transport passes, creating pre-commitment to taking public transport. And another, perhaps more politically difficult, is road fares per car trip…
@jroper@ajsadauskas@TheOne - oh, people are definitely #PredictablyIrrational when making decisions - check out the 2008 book by Dan Ariely, especially the chapter about the disproportional power of free.
Yep, if you want people to use something less, make them pay for it every time they use it (there are no PT passes in Queensland).
Also, people rarely compare total car ownership costs, which some PT advocates are fixated on, vs fares. It’s per trip decision if you have a car already.
@tom_andraszek@ajsadauskas@TheOne Well not perhaps, obviously more difficult. Discounted monthly passes already used to exist, and I don’t see that they’re technically incompatible with smart-card systems.
Monthly or yearly passes could be salary sacrified and/or a welfare benefit, resulting in many people getting effectively free PT - but seeing it differently from general free PT, as a thing of value that they paid for/were given and should take advantage of… maybe.
@ajsadauskas @TheOne - yes, but the situation needs to be evaluated as a whole from the point of view of the user and trip: car vs PT vs active transport: marginal cost, door to door speed, quality, safety, comfort, availability. By making PT free, we would be making it a bit more competitive against car here. As it is, it loses to car in most categories for most trips, in #GoldCoast: 5% to 85%.
@tom_andraszek @ajsadauskas @TheOne I’d rather increase the frequency of PT before we remove fairs.
@tom_andraszek @ajsadauskas @TheOne I don’t think people are entirely rational economic access-seeking actors on a per-trip basis. I’m more interested in the psychological difference between pay-per-trip (transit) and pay-once-a-year (car insurance, rates - plus monthly payments if you have a lease, but you can’t just not pay them if you don’t drive, it’s a long term commitment too).
@tom_andraszek @ajsadauskas @TheOne Free PT is one way to align payment frequency (well, remove the pay-per-trip and replace it with nothing), but another is discounted long term public transport passes, creating pre-commitment to taking public transport. And another, perhaps more politically difficult, is road fares per car trip…
@jroper @ajsadauskas @TheOne - oh, people are definitely #PredictablyIrrational when making decisions - check out the 2008 book by Dan Ariely, especially the chapter about the disproportional power of free.
Yep, if you want people to use something less, make them pay for it every time they use it (there are no PT passes in Queensland).
Also, people rarely compare total car ownership costs, which some PT advocates are fixated on, vs fares. It’s per trip decision if you have a car already.
@tom_andraszek @ajsadauskas @TheOne Well not perhaps, obviously more difficult. Discounted monthly passes already used to exist, and I don’t see that they’re technically incompatible with smart-card systems.
Monthly or yearly passes could be salary sacrified and/or a welfare benefit, resulting in many people getting effectively free PT - but seeing it differently from general free PT, as a thing of value that they paid for/were given and should take advantage of… maybe.
@tom_andraszek @ajsadauskas @TheOne but this is all just tinkering compared to competitive speed, frequency, and reach/door-to-door time.