The impact of “free” public transport: The case of Brussels

Witte, Astrid De; Macharis, Cathy; Livet, Pierre; Polain, Céline; Steenberghen, Thérèse; Walle, Stefaan Van de

doi:10.1016/j.tra.2005.12.008

Cited by 62 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…Therefore, rather than reducing/removing fares, operators are more likely to achieve greater passenger satisfaction and ridership by improving the quality of the service to a level which meets the customers' perceived value of the existing fare price (Hensher et al, 2003). This backs the argument of (De Witte et al, 2006) who states that it would be more pragmatic to invest in improving the quality of the service, rather than increasing the level of PT subsidies. Furthermore, research has also shown that free PT tickets could, in a small amount of cases, even be considered a bribe or a waste of resources, causing them to use PT even less (Beale and Bonsall, 2007).…”

Section: Costmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…students, the elderly) and others offering free PT usage for all. For example, De Witte et al (2006) records how 'almost free' PT passes were provided to the students of Flemish-speaking universities and colleges in Brussels, who had to pay €10 for a €200 annual PT ticket. Almost half of the eligible students applied for a ticket, which resulted in 26% of participants using PT for journeys previously made by foot or bike.…”

Section: Costmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus, to demonstrate the viability of the results, a model will be required, which is out of the scope of this project. The quality requirements of citizens regarding their transport mode have also been recorded to differ depending on trip type (Anable and Gatersleben, 2005;Passenger Focus, 2012), citizen gender (dell'Olio et al, 2011b;Rojo et al, 2012), citizen income level (dell'Olio et al, 2011b) and citizen age (De Witte et al, 2006). This highlights the problematic nature of focussing upon a specific demographic, demonstrating the need to apply a holistic approach when attempting to effect modal shift.…”

Section: Comparison Of Different Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Challenges and opportunities in developing urban modal shift

Batty

Palacín

González-Gil

2015

Travel Behaviour and Society

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Agriculture and Engineering, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU, UK * Contact: paul.batty2@ncl.ac.uk; +44 (0) 191 208 8657 Abstract Continued urbanisation, and the resultant increase in urban trips, presents one of the greatest challenges to the environmental, economic and social sustainability of society. Given that the modal split between transport modes has remained relatively unaltered in recent decades, this suggests that the levels of private car usage will lead to even greater levels of congestion and air pollution in urban areas. Therefore, a modal shift from private to public transport needs to be effected with urgency. However, whilst in theory this could be achieved with relative ease, numerous societal, political and economic barriers have thus far prevented such a shift from occurring. These have been analysed in detail, using a holistic approach which simultaneously considers all stakeholder needs. Recognising that traveller opinions and requirements are fundamental in effecting modal shift measures, the effects of public transport quality attributes on encouraging modal shift are discussed, accompanied by an updated version of the UK Department for Transport's hierarchy of public transport needs. This investigation then proceeds to analyse the effectiveness of methods to control urban car usage, before discussing solutions to address the barriers to a notable, successful modal shift, including guidance on how to design modal shift programmes. This paper provides useful and insightful guidance for all those involved in attempting to evoke sustainable mobility through a modal shift to public transport systems.2

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Section: Costmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Costmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Comparison Of Different Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Challenges and opportunities in developing urban modal shift

Batty

Palacín

González-Gil

2015

Travel Behaviour and Society

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“…This study examines three main urban transportation policies in our proposed model: fuel tax, motorcycle parking management, and free bus service. Prior studies mainly investigate the effect of a particular policy, such as fuel tax in Europe and the US [57]; parking management policies in China [58]; and free bus policy in Japan, Belgium, and England [59][60][61]. A limited number of studies analyze the effect of these policies on energy consumption and CO 2 emission reduction simultaneously and compare the respective policy with the synthetic policy to compare the policy effectiveness.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Urban transportation energy and carbon dioxide emission reduction strategies

2015

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We established a 30-year-simplified system dynamics model. We simulated the effects of various urban transportation management policies. Our proposed approach develops appropriate models in other cities. a b s t r a c tSustainability is an urban development priority. Thus, energy and carbon dioxide emission reduction is becoming more significant in the sustainability of urban transportation systems. However, urban transportation systems are complex and involve social, economic, and environmental aspects. We present solutions for a sustainable urban transportation system by establishing a simplified system dynamics model with a timeframe of 30 years (from 1995 to 2025) to simulate the effects of urban transportation management policies and to explore their potential in reducing vehicular fuel consumption and mitigating CO 2 emissions. Kaohsiung City was selected as a case study because it is the second largest metropolis in Taiwan and is an important industrial center. Three policies are examined in the study including fuel tax, motorcycle parking management, and free bus service. Simulation results indicate that both the fuel tax and motorcycle parking management policies are suggested as potentially the most effective methods for restraining the growth of the number of private vehicles, the amount of fuel consumption, and CO 2 emissions. We also conducted a synthetic policy consisting of all policies which outperforms the three individual policies. The conclusions of this study can assist urban transport planners in designing appropriate urban transport management strategies and can assist transport operation agencies in creating operational strategies to reduce their energy consumption and CO 2 emissions. The proposed approach should be generalized in other cities to develop an appropriate model to understand the various effects of policies on energy and CO 2 emissions.

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“…Many, but not all, of these studies use multivariate regression analysis to identify the factors most strongly related to changes in transit ridership. One unfortunate commonality between many of the previous studies -small sample sizes -raises questions about both the generalizability and statistical significance of findings (Chung, 1997;Gomez-Ibanez, 1996;Kain and Liu, 1995;Liu, 1993;McLeod et al, 1991;Nelson/Nygaard Consulting Associates, 1995;Spillar and Rutherford, 1988;De Witte et al, 2006). Furthermore, the broad conceptual factors hypothesized to influence ridership and the variables operationalized in these models vary widely (Holmgren, 2007).…”

Section: Previous Research On the Factors Affecting Transit Ridershipmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nature and/or nurture? Analyzing the determinants of transit ridership across US urbanized areas

Taylor¹,

Miller²,

Iseki

et al. 2009

Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice

257

225

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a b s t r a c tPublic subsidy of transit services has increased dramatically in recent years, with little effect on overall ridership. Quite obviously, a clear understanding of the factors influencing transit ridership is central to decisions on investments in and the pricing and deployment of transit services. Yet the literature about the causes of transit use is quite spotty; most previous aggregate analyses of transit ridership have examined just one or a few systems, have not included many of the external, control variables thought to influence transit use, and have not addressed the simultaneous relationship between transit service supply and consumption. This study addresses each of these shortcomings by (1) conducting a cross-sectional analysis of transit use in 265 US urbanized areas, (2) testing dozens of variables measuring regional geography, metropolitan economy, population characteristics, auto/highway system characteristics, and transit system characteristics, and (3) constructing two-stage simultaneous equation regression models to account for simultaneity between transit service supply and consumption. We find that most of the variation in transit ridership among urbanized areas -in both absolute and relative terms -can be explained by factors outside of the control of public transit systems: (1) regional geography (specifically, area of urbanization, population, population density, and regional location in the US), (2) metropolitan economy (specifically, personal/household income), (3) population characteristics (specifically, the percent college students, recent immigrants, and Democratic voters in the population), and (4) auto/highway system characteristics (specifically, the percent carless households and nontransit/non-SOV trips, including commuting via carpools, walking, biking, etc.). While these external factors clearly go a long way toward determining the overall level of transit use in an urbanized area, we find that transit policies do make a significant difference. The observed range in both fares and service frequency in our sample could account for at least a doubling (or halving) of transit use in a given urbanized area. Controlling for the fact that public transit use is strongly correlated with urbanized area size, about 26% of the observed variance in per capita transit patronage across US urbanized areas is explained in the models presented here by service frequency and fare levels. The observed influence of these two factors is consistent with both the literature and intuition: frequent service draws passengers, and high fares drive them away.

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The impact of “free” public transport: The case of Brussels

Cited by 62 publications

References 12 publications

Challenges and opportunities in developing urban modal shift

Challenges and opportunities in developing urban modal shift

Urban transportation energy and carbon dioxide emission reduction strategies

Nature and/or nurture? Analyzing the determinants of transit ridership across US urbanized areas

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