• ScotRail launches app for deaf passengers (RailTech)
• Berlin considering Vienna’s euro-a-day public transport model (Guardian)
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• VW cheating scandal payback is funding US ebuses (Crosscut)
• Fear of missing out is not good transport policy (CityLab)
• St Louis MetroLink LRT carries record crowds (ProgressiveRailroad)
• SF avoids fare integration at all costs (StreetsBlog)
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Vienna’s Euro a day season ticket is good policy if reducing traffic, congestion and pollution is your goal. I certainly agree with it. It does require educating the people though since the benefits although real and often with big financial plus points are often longer term of more hidden compared to the need to support it with hard cash here and now. There are also trade offs. I visited just before the Easter holidays. Schools were off and service is reduced as a result. Trams and buses are always busy and able bodied people often have to stand their whole journey. Short turn trips (albeit scheduled) are frequent although this makes the overall offer less attractive. It’s beginning to strain at the seams as more goes into subsidising the fares as opposed to increasing service. Don’t get me wrong. It’s a service all British cities outside London would die for. But the low fares are obviously costing in the short term and it may put people off trying them out.
The €1/day is a gimmick, it could quite easily be €2/day and it would still be extremely cheap. According to the article, Berlin’s annual tickets are already around €2/day, and the previous price of Vienna annual tickets was €1.23/day.
The article says nothing more than “public transport use has shot up” since Vienna residents were able to save 23 eurocents per day. A single day ticket is about €8, but the pro rata price drops rapidly even with the shorter-term season tickets. So I would like to know whether this will really encourage more people to buy annual tickets, who wouldn’t already have bought them.
To put this another way, although not directly comparable to German-speaking cities, if London had an annual ticket for £730 (£2/day) I would buy it as my TfL spend is more than that per year, but my use of public transport would not change, except I will now take buses for 1 stop instead of walking (at least, if one is approaching when I get to the stop). I already use public transport where it is convenient (going to central London, orbital journeys with max 1 change to a destination near a station) and car where it is not convenient.
John, yes it is a gimmick albeit one with serious intent and stating power. How much of a driver it is for passenger growth would need someone more qualified than me to say. Growth in Vienna has been steady and strong since at least 2006 and I think the cheap fares came in in 2011. Passenger growth has been about
25 % from 2006 to 2016. Since 2011 there has been significant growth in people owning a full price annual season ticket but the growth trajectory did not spike at that point but did continue. Maybe the best benefit is that by persuading people to commit to a years investment in a public transport ticket you are getting a bit more commitment to public transport as a whole. On the other hand some experience for example in London that significant growth in service frequency might get you even more passenger growth. I suspect it’s a combination. As I said above they have to be careful in Vienna or crowding will push some people off.