r/Glasgow Tools

Title
Author	Scunnered20
Comment	Been in the works for a while. It's a Green Party policy which has gotten support from the Glasgow SNP group. Important to understand all that's happening is that there will be a short trial, probably involved a small group of circa 100-1000 participants. All to explore what happens if you do it in terms of cost-benefit. Lots of similar small scale free transport trials have happened in cities around the world in recent years. I'd be astonished if it goes much further than this trial though. So far there's been mixed, and often underwhelming results in trials like this. The most common findings are that it minimally encourages and helps those on low incomes to use transport more, but has a relatively underwhelming impact on encouraging people to swap cars for PT. Not to say no impact, but that it is often very minimal (suggesting it your goal is moving people from cars to PT, you need sticks as well as carrots). From memory, previous studies have generally pointed to there being an optimal low price point, higher than zero but still very cheap for the typical passenger, at which you maximise the appeal of PT and allow the system to still generate some revenue. Something like the €365 annual ticket in Vienna, as an example. In other news, the Scottish Government has the Fair Fares Commission under way, and is meant to report back sometime next year. It will be making recommendations on new subsidy levels for ticketing across Scotland, and will potentially lead to reduced bus fares for the average punter in Glasgow.
Reddit Link	https://www.reddit.com/r/glasgow/comments/zou42l/plans_move_forward_for_free_public_transport/j0p67x2/
Created	Sun 18th Dec 2022 10:56am
Status	normal ()

Been in the works for a while.

It's a Green Party policy which has gotten support from the Glasgow SNP group. Important to understand all that's happening is that there will be a short trial, probably involved a small group of circa 100-1000 participants. All to explore what happens if you do it in terms of cost-benefit. Lots of similar small scale free transport trials have happened in cities around the world in recent years.

I'd be astonished if it goes much further than this trial though. So far there's been mixed, and often underwhelming results in trials like this. The most common findings are that it minimally encourages and helps those on low incomes to use transport more, but has a relatively underwhelming impact on encouraging people to swap cars for PT. Not to say no impact, but that it is often very minimal (suggesting it your goal is moving people from cars to PT, you need sticks as well as carrots).

From memory, previous studies have generally pointed to there being an optimal low price point, higher than zero but still very cheap for the typical passenger, at which you maximise the appeal of PT and allow the system to still generate some revenue. Something like the €365 annual ticket in Vienna, as an example.

In other news, the Scottish Government has the Fair Fares Commission under way, and is meant to report back sometime next year. It will be making recommendations on new subsidy levels for ticketing across Scotland, and will potentially lead to reduced bus fares for the average punter in Glasgow.