The Case for Making Public Transit Free Everywhere

From Spain to Germany and Luxembourg to Estonia, more and more countries are experimenting with fare-free transportation.

Used to spending hundreds of dollars on public transit every month? Soon, depending on where you live, all those bus, train, and tram journeys could be totally free. Sure, transit operators would earn less revenue. But some are willing to risk the cash to find out whether free fare policies can help reduce car journeys and make cities run more smoothly.

Does it work? So far, the evidence is mixed—but ditching tickets has other benefits, from ensuring equitable access to transport to keeping buses running on time, with costs offset by savings on ticketing systems or fare enforcement.

If it feels strange not to pay, experts draw parallels with public health, libraries, and schools—services that some use more than others, but everyone pays into. “When you remove fares that says to people that you’ve got a right to get around regardless of your means, it’s a public good,” says Jenny Mcarthur, urban infrastructure researcher at University College London. The need for new thinking is acute: Road transport makes up a tenth of global carbon dioxide emissions, with soaring fuel prices also putting a squeeze on already stretched household budgets.

This is why cities and countries around the world have been edging toward free fares. Spain is the latest to join the list, offering free train travel on a selection of routes for a few months to relieve pressure on commuters as the cost-of-living crisis bites. Officials in Germany introduced a 9-euro-a-month travel pass, Ireland slashed fares for the first time in 75 years, and Italy doled out a 60-euro, one-off public transport voucher for lower-income workers. Luxembourg and Estonia ditched fares to get commuters out of cars years ago, which is the same motivation for Austria’s 3-euro-a-day Klimaticket for countrywide transport, launched last year.

Free fares boost ridership, but not necessarily from drivers. In Estonia, free transport was more likely to be used by those who were walking or cycling, a trend repeated elsewhere. That’s a problem, as pedestrians and cyclists create fewer emissions than public transport.

Short trials make it difficult to discern impact. Car use in Copenhagen initially dropped after a one-month trial of a free transport ticket, but people eventually returned to their old habits. But that’s not always true: Initial analysis of German traffic in June, just a few weeks into the 9-euro-a-month tickets, showed fewer cars on the road and faster driving times in most of the cities studied.

In 2020, Luxembourg became the first country to offer free public transport, but its tickets were already cheap, and it’s a small country—with a population of about 630,000, plenty of cities are larger—that’s famously wealthy. Two years later, traffic remains about the same or worse than before the free fare policy, at least partially because a large number of people who can’t afford to live in Luxembourg commute from across the border.

So while free fares can and do boost public transport use, such policies don’t necessarily get cars off the road. But free transport has benefits beyond the environment. In Spain, free tickets have been introduced to ease the burden of inflation and rising fuel prices rather than to directly target emissions.

Free train tickets might entice drivers to ditch the car when fuel prices are high, traffic is snarled, or when traveling for a holiday. But for low-income people who are unable to afford a car, free transport keeps cash in their pockets—and means some who can’t afford a ticket can catch a ride rather than walk. “It’s common for people to rationalize their trips when public transport is very expensive,” says Mcarthur. “They make one trip to the shops each week and can’t go whenever they please because it adds up too much.”

Local context matters. In Australia, the Tasmanian government made buses free for five weeks to offset cost of living increases. While that project was deemed a success, researchers argue that expanding the policy elsewhere in the country would benefit richer residents, as public transport in Australia is more heavily used by residents of inner cities or central suburbs traveling to central business districts—in other words, people living in expensive neighborhoods commuting to well-paying jobs. The farther away people live from central areas, the more likely they are to rely on cars to travel to dispersed workplaces, the researchers say, and that means free fares benefit wealthier people rather than those on low incomes.

In Spain, the free tickets will overwhelmingly benefit people living in urban areas that can access regional trains, known as Media Distancia, and suburban railways called Cercanías. “85 percent of Cercanías trips are done daily in Madrid and Barcelona,” says Pablo Muñoz Nieto, a campaigner at environmental activist group Confederación de Ecologistas en Acción, adding that regional trains have suffered from lack of investment and many areas don’t have services. “What do you want a free train ticket for if you don’t have a train?”

In the US, the divide between the haves and have-nots often falls along racial lines, meaning free fares could support racial equity. But while that’s true on financial grounds, there’s more to the story. As community organizer Destiny Thomas notes, US transit systems “rely on the criminalization of poverty as a primary source of revenue,” with operators issuing significant fines to those who lack the funds to buy a ticket. In 2019, the city council in Washington, DC, voted to slash fines and remove the risk of jail for fare evaders following evidence that nine in ten court summons for failing to have a ticket were given to African Americans. By removing fares entirely, transit operators avoid the risk of discriminatory enforcement.

Free fares also remove the financial cost of creating ticketing systems and enforcing them. In Boston, an extension of a free fare trial was in part inspired by a $1 billion new ticketing system, Mcarthur says—a serious investment when bus fares bring in only $60 million annually. A single-route bus trial in the city revealed an unexpected benefit: faster boarding time. “That means faster and more reliable journey times, and improved overall service,” Mcarthur says. “If you’re a public transport agency, a lot of money is spent trying to get dwell time down.”

But the rush for free or heavily-discounted tickets can have the opposite effect. In Germany, the first long weekend of the 9-euro-a-month tickets led to overcrowding, service disruptions, and thousands of hours of overtime for staff. In Spain, Muñoz Nieto warns that if train frequencies aren’t increased, services will become overcrowded; plus, making one mode free and not others could pull passengers away from buses or metro services.

Boosting services when cutting fares costs money—which has to come from somewhere. In Spain, the free tickets will be paid for out of a windfall tax on energy companies and banks that the government believes will be worth 7 billion euros over two years. “Subsidizing trains is phenomenally expensive, but it needs to be done if you want to get lots of people in and out of cities for work,” says Paul Chatterton, professor of urban futures at the University of Leeds.

And mass transit systems across the world are already subsidized to some extent by public funds. In France, fares make up as little as 10 percent of public transport budgets. Luxembourg could easily make trains free because a two-hour ticket costs only 2 euros, with fares pulling in just 30 million euros in revenue out of a 1 billion euro budget. But two-thirds of Transport for London’s budget is from fares, meaning the central government would have a bigger gap to make up if it wanted to make all public transit in the capital free.

Transit systems that rely heavily on fares for funding were put under enormous strain during the pandemic, with many networks still struggling as commuters switch to hybrid working. An empty office on a Monday, for example, also means a lot of empty commuter trains. “All the funding models have been predicated on this huge demand for commuter travel, which has been stable for 50 years,” Mcarthur says. “But then the pandemic came along and that model fell apart.”

One alternative to free fares for all is targeted discounts, offering free or cheap passes to students, young people, seniors, and those on benefits, already a common practice. Rather than subsidize transport costs for those who can afford it, free passes could be given to those on lower incomes or in regions where public transport is available but unpopular. Another intermediate step is charging a cheap flat rate, as Germany has done this summer. “People would still value the service, but you also generate some revenue,” Chatterton says.

Free fares might not get everyone out of cars, but will convert some journeys, which benefits everyone in terms of carbon reduction and improving local air quality—and even helps drivers by calming traffic. Free fares won’t pull low-income people out of poverty, but will keep money in their pockets and ensure everyone can travel when they need to. Ditching fares comes at a cost, but there are savings to be had by not investing in expensive ticketing systems and wider logistical and societal benefits.

But setting aside figures about costs and statistics about ridership, there’s another way to look at it: Public transport should be considered a human right, alongside access to health and education. It’s necessary to life in a city, says Mcarthur. “Public transport is an extremely efficient way to get people around,” she says. “Buses and trains are not only efficient for people who use them, but also people who don’t.”

The Case for Making Public Transit Free Everywhere

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