Full-fledged FFPT
Full-fledged FFPT policy was introduced and followed up by an empirical evaluation in several cities in the last decade. Hasselt (c.a. 70,000 inhabitants), Belgium, was arguably the most well-known showcase of FFPT. The city introduced a truly universal (not only for city residents) FFPT scheme on 1996 together with substantial additions to the relatively small network supply with a momentarily fivefold increase in fleet size. Van Goeverden et al. (2006) reported that ridership increased tenfold and 37 % of the new trips were attributed to new users—more than half of them substituted walking or cycling. This implies that former bus users carried out 567 % more bus trips. Notwithstanding, the market share of buses in 2013—after 15 years of FFPT—was merely 5 % (Verachtert 2013). This underlines the problems associated with incomplete information and reporting percentile change without providing the overall context which may result with misconceptions. Due to a rapid increase in the operations costs, the FFPT scheme became unviable for Hasselt and was withdrawn. Fees were re-introduced on January 1, 2014 with exemptions for special user groups. There are no indications of long-term implications on car ownership with more than 90 % of the households owning a car (motorization rate of 2.1 cars per household).
The small city of Templin (c.a. 15,000 inhabitants), Germany introduced a FFPT policy on 1997 (Storchmann 2003). Since then the local public transport system is universally free. The ridership increased by 1200 % within 3 years with the vast majority of this increase reported to be among children and youth. This led to an increasing problem of vandalism. Similarly to the case of Hasselt, the absolute ridership level portraits the results in a dramatically different light as the number of annual passenger trips performed prior to FFPT was merely 41,000, or 115 per day, and thus increased to 0.1 trip pas passenger per day with FFPT. Furthermore, the vast majority of the substitution effects were due to shift from soft modes—30–40 % from biking and 35–50 % from walking. Only 10–20 % of the substitution effects were associated with previous car trips. A cost–benefit analysis suggested that the FFPT policy resulted in considerable safety benefits due to the undesired shift from the more dangerous soft modes.
Since 2009, all public transport services in the city of Aubagne and nearby municipalities (c.a. 100,000 inhabitants in total), France, are free for all users. The main motivation was social and supported by the fact that user fares accounted for only 9 % of the public transport system budget. No systematic analysis was carried out, but there are some indications that ridership doubled and more resources were allocated to increase system capacity. Similarly, Chapel Hill (a population of c.a. 60,000) implemented in 2002 after conducting an analysis that showed that revenues from fares (full paying passengers) were relatively low—around 8 % of the operating costs. After the implementation of FFPT, the ridership increased by 43 % during 9 months period. This was introduced simultaneously with an increase in service supply (Volinski 2012).
Several towns in Sweden—Kiruna, Avesta and Kristinehamn (each with a population of c.a. 20,000)—implemented FFPT, as well as the medium-size city of Örebro (c.a. 100,000). In Örebro and Kristinhamn it was abolished soon afterwards with indications that ridership first decreased when fees were reintroduced but returned to the level prior to the policy or slightly higher within a year. An evaluation based on interviews and passenger counts indicates a 80 % increase in ridership in Avesta, with most of the increase attributed to more frequent trips by public transport users (Ramböll 2013).
The average number of trips per person remains almost unchanged, 1.98 in 2012 and 1.96 in 2013. The modal shares in the before and after periods were calculated based on the analysis of the detailed travel diary records for the entire survey results as well as for different socio-demographic groups and city district. Figure 2 shows the modal split in 2012 and 2013. It is evident that the modal share of public transport increased from an already high level of 55–63 %. This implies an increase of 14 % in the number of trips performed by public transport. This trend clearly differs from the rest of Estonia, as the modal share of PT in the entire country decreased from 23.1 to 22.9 % between 2012 and 2013. The increase in the market share of public transport stems from a decrease of 10 % in the number of car trips and a staggering decrease of 40 % in the number of trips for which walking was the main model of travel.
The study provides evidence that the modal shift objective from car to public transport has been achieved. Almost a year after the introduction of FFPT, public transport usage increased by 14 %. The patronage increased by 24 % due to an increase in the average public transport length. The effect of FFPT on ridership is substantially lower than those reported in previous studies (Sect. “Full-fledged FFPT”) due to the good level of service provision, high public transport usage and low public transport fees that existed already prior to the FFPT.
Our finding confirms the early indications in Cats et al. (2014) concerning a considerable shift from walking to public transport in 2013, with a 40 % decrease in the share of walking trips while the distance of the average walking trip remains unchanged. It is noteworthy that while the share of car users decreased by 5 %, the average distance travelled by car increased resulting with a 31 % increase in total vehicle-km. This is explained by the increase in daily travel distance, i.e., from 7.98 to 9.07 km per person, a 13 % increase, driven by changes in shopping and leisure destination choices. In summary, the modal shift from car to public transport was accompanied by an undesired shift from walking to public transport and an increase in car traffic.
... the rest of Estonia, as the modal share of PT in the entire country decreased from 23.1 to 22.9 % between 2012 and 2013.
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