Riding without a ticket: geography of free fare public transport policy in Poland

Abstract

A policy instrument promoting a free fare public transport policy (FFPT) has recently been put into practice in 66 municipalities across Poland. By contributing to the academic debate on the concept of FFPT (e.g. Kębłowski 2019), the main goal of this paper is to create a typology of the schemes where FFPT is in operation in Poland based on analyses of a geographical mapping of these projects. This study analyses how different municipalities are implementing the concept in order to define a typology of FFTP projects and to understand how the development landscape of the urban transport system is changing in the light of free fare transport policies, topics which are not fully covered in the academic literature. The findings confirm that there is a new dynamic in the development of urban transport systems and permit the identification of key characteristics of this trend. Besides the typology of implementation of FFPT, the study also presents an up-to-date inventory of FFPT projects with the key characteristic features of each system. Although the study does not provide specific recommendations regarding the introduction of a FFPT policy, it represents a good starting point for future and more detailed studies. Such studies are necessary in order to understand the role of FFPT not only in the context of the development of a given transport system, its impact on modal split, and travel behaviour, but also to uncover the different politics which lie behind them.

The Effects of Fare-Free Public Transport: A Lesson from Frýdek-Místek (Czechia)

“…Certain studies have noticed municipalities which are implementing the FFPT policy not in order to address the environmental issues linked with the growing use of cars and decreasing public transport ridership, but as a strategical tool reforming the financing of the service of public transport [27,35,39,41] or to challenge the socio-spatial development issues in metropolitan areas [38]. Reforming the financing of the public transport results from avoiding the costs related with the tickets agenda (e.g., accounting, printing, maintaining or modernising the equipment, ticket controls), which could generate savings and decrease the operational expenses especially in a small system of public transport [27,52], and recently those facts underpinned the decision to go fare-free in Olympia (USA) [53].…”

“…Reforming the financing of the public transport results from avoiding the costs related with the tickets agenda (e.g., accounting, printing, maintaining or modernising the equipment, ticket controls), which could generate savings and decrease the operational expenses especially in a small system of public transport [27,52], and recently those facts underpinned the decision to go fare-free in Olympia (USA) [53]. The fare-free public transport policy is also used to address the issues of a growing demand for a sufficient public transport network in dynamically developing metropolitan areas or hinterlands of sub-regional centres in Poland [38]. FFPT implementation is part of a broader developing strategy of public transport (e.g., modernization of bus fleet) there, which is aimed at creating an integrated network and ease the transportation within the area.…”

“…In particular, this is a case of small peripheral settlements in Poland, which are unattractive for private carriers due to financial instability. The FFPT adoption in such locations is a tool answering how to provide basic accessibility to those who do not own a car [38]. It brings FFPT into the debate of whether the service of public transport is (not) a common good [25,56,57] and whether it should be fully subsidised or based on the liberal principles of the market economy [28,29,58,59].…”

“…From that time, the academic disputes over FFPT have identified what the main drivers are that have already made more than 90 municipalities around the globe implement the fare-free public transport policy fully [16,22,23]. FFPT research has also addressed the various economic [24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31], environmental [16,22,32], socio-spatial [33][34][35][36][37][38][39], and political [40][41][42][43] implications of the FFPT implementation, as well as exploring the imprint of the abolished fares on travel behaviour and mobility strategies [31,35,[44][45][46].…”

The Effects of the Selective Enlargement of Fare-Free Public Transport

“…The catchment area of FFPT may include a particular transport network. In practice, this may mean any of the following: the entire area where public transport services are provided, a specified area (e.g., town centre), specified routes, specific public transport mode (e.g., only ferries), particular hours (e.g., off-peak hours), particular days (e.g., every first day of the month, weekends or Car Free Days) or particular group of users (e.g., students, children, elderly or visitors and tourists) [20,21]. For more on the various forms of full and partial FFPT, see for example [20][21][22].…”