[loeg]

> The farebox recovery ratio in many western nations are not enough to ever fully fund public transport.

True, with emphasis on fully.

> In many cases, the systems to collect fares end up costing hundreds of millions of dollars.

That figure seems extremely high for "many cases," but the exact figure isn't really material.

> These costs are never made back. It makes sense to make it free.

No, that's just not true.

My local metro spent $17 million on fare collection to net $167 million in revenue (2019). It would have to cut $150 million in other service to go to free fares.

[sien]

For people interested - Farebox Recovery Ratios around the world :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farebox_recovery_ratio

In many parts of the developed world the ratio is 30% plus which can be an enormous amount of money. In Boston fare revenue is 500M .

Making things free would cause big issues for many of them as you say.

[Xylakant]

The calculation is not that simple, though. One expected effect is less car rides, which would require less car infrastructure and maintenance. That would also result in significant savings, car infrastructure is expensive.

[loeg]

Maybe in some holistic view of spending, but that isn't the reality of transit agency budgets. If transit saves DOT $50M, it doesn't go into transit's budget.