[chumali]

Have you even bothered to check the figures?

You mention Oyster cards so I'll assume you're talking about London in which case the operator (TfL) clearly states that "Fares are the single largest source of our income (projected to be 47% in 2019/20)". [0]

This income more than covers the operational costs, with the difference being used to support new infrastructure projects and upgrades such as the Elizabeth Line (as well as concessions for students, the elderly, etc).

Clearly there is a very strong argument for charging.

[0] https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/about-tfl/how-we-work/how-we-ar...

[AnthonyMouse]

What percentage of operating costs are paid for with fares has basically nothing to do with what percentage should be paid for with fares. If paying 100% with taxes results in lower costs per rider because you don't have to pay for fare collection costs and higher use of public transport because there is less friction (which benefits even those who don't use it via lower traffic and pollution etc.), why shouldn't we do that instead?

[chumali]

Fare collection in London is almost frictionless. Almost all public transport can be paid for with contactless debit/credit or prepaid cards. Drivers have no requirement to verify fares and all stations have self-service terminals.

Although the administration cost is not zero, it is almost certainly negligible enough that moving to a taxpayer funded model would increase these costs. This is particularly true given that transport budgets are operated at the regional level and would require the introduction of new regional taxes rather than simply relying on exiting tax revenue. (The politics of passing any new tax legislation would be a monumental hurdle in the first instance).

Then there is the question of whether a broad tax is more equitable then the current model. I fail to see how this could be the case given the current system retains the price signal and through a system of concessions ensures that those who most benefit from the provision (e.g. professional working in the inner city) contribute the most and effectively subsidise fares for the rest of society.

[AnthonyMouse]

> Almost all public transport can be paid for with contactless debit/credit or prepaid cards. Drivers have no requirement to verify fares and all stations have self-service terminals.

You're talking about the time it takes as you step onto the vehicle. That's not zero, but it's not half of the cost. You also have to fill the card to begin with, but most importantly it causes people to incur an incremental cost for using public transportation, which discourages its use. That's very bad.

> Although the administration cost is not zero, it is almost certainly negligible enough that moving to a taxpayer funded model would increase these costs. This is particularly true given that transport budgets are operated at the regional level and would require the introduction of new regional taxes rather than simply relying on exiting tax revenue.

There are surely existing regional taxes. The collection cost is therefore sunk and the overhead of adjusting the rate is nominal. Moreover, people don't like paying taxes, but people don't like paying fares either, so it balances out -- or comes out in favor of using taxes because in that case the cost is lower when you don't have the overhead of doing fare collection (and you have the overhead of tax collection either way).

> Then there is the question of whether a broad tax is more equitable then the current model. I fail to see how this could be the case given the current system retains the price signal and through a system of concessions ensures that those who most benefit from the provision (e.g. professional working in the inner city) contribute the most and effectively subsidise fares for the rest of society.

Professionals working in the inner city don't pay different transit fares than janitors working in the inner city (and if they did you're just imposing income tax but calling it something else and paying more overhead to collect it), and you don't want a pricing signal here because pricing is a method of rationing scarce resources but we want people to use public transit as much as possible.

[chumali]

> You also have to fill the card to begin with.

Any bank card works, so does Apple/Android pay. Even the prepaid card can be purchased from a self-service machine in less than a minute and topped up via an app.

> There are surely existing regional taxes.

The only broadly administered regional tax in the UK is the council tax. This only covers property owners. There is no other regional taxation - certainly not one that is broader. You also vastly underestimate the public opposition to taxes versus fare increases.

> Professionals working in the inner city don't pay different transit fares than janitors working in the inner city. ...and you don't want a pricing signal...

People pay different rates based on how close to the centre they commute to. Typically professionals commute further because the white collar jobs are located in the centre, blue collar workers on the other hand tend look for work close to where they live and are more likely to travel outside of peak hours.

As for the price signal, it plays a hugely important part. It enables fares to change depending on demand in order to spread out congestion rather than having everyone commute at rush hour (infrastructure cannot support unlimited travellers and public transport is most certainly a scarce resource that requires rationing). The price signal also provides a strong incentive to cycle/walk by imposing a marginal cost on each journey. This incentive would be completely lost if you'd already been taxed, leading to over-consumption and environmental costs.

Your plan would also mean that residents would effectively subsidise the travel of all outsiders - which for cities like London (which get huge amounts of tourists and external commuters) would impose an unfair cost on the residents.

[AnthonyMouse]

> Any bank card works, so does Apple/Android pay. Even the prepaid card can be purchased from a self-service machine in less than a minute and topped up via an app.

A little bit here, a little bit there. So easy to tap your card, only then you get a statement at the end of the month with 50 charges on it and have to reconcile each one with your actual usage to make sure none of the charges are fraudulent or in erroneous amounts.

Multiply by a couple million people and you're wasting a whole lot of people's time.

> The only broadly administered regional tax in the UK is the council tax. This only covers property owners.

Tax is tax. If it's property tax then it filters through to rents, which filters through to local consumer prices etc. There is a lot to be said about which ones are better from an economic and efficiency standpoint, but that really has nothing to do with transit -- if you have a bad tax system then switch to a better one regardless of how you fund public transit. But property tax for local services is far from the worst.

> You also vastly underestimate the public opposition to taxes versus fare increases.

Not wanting to do something that benefits people because people oppose it is just begging the question. If it benefits people then they shouldn't oppose it, so then the issue becomes convincing them, which is separate from the question of what the best policy is to begin with.

> People pay different rates based on how close to the centre they commute to. Typically professionals commute further because the white collar jobs are located in the centre, blue collar workers on the other hand tend look for work close to where they live and are more likely to travel outside of peak hours.

Blue collar workers avoid jobs with expensive commutes because they can't afford it -- but that's the problem.

> As for the price signal, it plays a hugely important part. It enables fares to change depending on demand in order to spread out congestion rather than having everyone commute at rush hour (infrastructure cannot support unlimited travellers and public transport is most certainly a scarce resource that requires rationing).

Use of public transport increases efficiency and become more attractive to everyone the more people use it, because then you get e.g. train service every 10 minutes rather than 30 because there are three times as many trains to carry three times as many people. If there isn't enough of it the answer is to increase capacity, not deter usage with pricing.

> The price signal also provides a strong incentive to cycle/walk by imposing a marginal cost on each journey. This incentive would be completely lost if you'd already been taxed, leading to over-consumption and environmental costs.

The environmental impact of an incremental passenger using mass transit is negligible and completely dwarfed by the efficiency improvement of people getting to their destination faster. The only real trade off is saving time vs. getting exercise, but that's a decision each individual can make for themselves. And you could easily be deterring someone from saving time that they could then use to engage in a more balanced exercise routine than 100% cycling and 0% any other exercise.

Moreover, many of the other alternatives to mass transit are things like driving or accepting a closer, lower paying job with lower overall economic efficiency, or having to waste hours a day to leave for work early and get home late to avoid congestion charges. Which are all costs we don't want to impose when there is a better alternative in building enough mass transit capacity to meet the peak demand without having to ration it.

> Your plan would also mean that residents would effectively subsidise the travel of all outsiders - which for cities like London (which get huge amounts of tourists and external commuters) would impose an unfair cost on the residents.

On the other hand, then it's cheaper to go into the city and patronize businesses there (so business make more money) and cheaper to live a little further outside the city and commute in (which lowers rents for people in the city), which could easily more than outweigh those costs.

[crispyporkbites]

Actually bus drivers can’t move the bus until all passengers have tapped in.

Then you have all the ticket machines, barriers, stations, staff etc that would be completely unnecessary.

The only real bonus of collecting fares is that tfl acts as a treasury with millions of pounds in funds to invest.

[afarrell]

> Actually bus drivers can’t move the bus until all passengers have tapped in.

I have observed that this is false in London at least 30 times.

[dx034]

Not in London. You can use card readers at all doors and drivers tend to start driving once everyone is on board, not only once everyone has checked in.

[crispyporkbites]

That’s only on the new route masters in zone1, outside of zone 1 there’s one door and everyone must enter through that door, tap in while the driver watches and the driver will not leave until everyone who gets on has paid

[crispyporkbites]

Right but how much of those operating costs go away if you don’t have to charge?

And let’s say you scope this only to buses (which are used less by commuters, and have real impacts on the environment)

Honestly I think not charging for buses in London would net out positively financially, and be better for all involved (faster, less cars on the road, easier to design buses for disabled access and prams etc.)

[lonelappde]

Why don't any of the agencies that ever investigated this question come to the same conclusion?