From August 5, Queenslanders will pay just 50 cents for each bus, train, ferry and light rail journey they take.
The dramatic reduction was recently announced by Queensland Premier Steven Miles as part of a six-month trial aimed at encouraging public transport use and easing road congestion.
“Public transport usage has never returned to its pre-COVID levels and that’s one of the things contributing to congestion, particularly in the south-east”, said Miles. “Fifty-cent fares will give people a reason to rethink their habits.”
It’s a wonder, if he was feeling brave, Miles didn’t just abolish fares entirely to reduce administrative costs. The state’s transport agency has confirmed it will still police fare evasion under the trial, requiring more than 300 safety and security officers to safeguard a pint-sized revenue pool.
But whether free or very cheap, there remains a fierce debate about whether fare prices are the most important factor in promoting public transport use. Some argue money is better spent making services more frequent and covering a wider area than cheapening fares.
So who’s right? And can’t we do both?
The next service departs in (2)6 minutes
There is certainly an urgent need to expand public transport networks in Australia’s cities and regions, which lag significantly behind our global peers. Frequency and closeness is particularly poor in Queensland.
Unsurprisingly then, only approximately 10% of trips in Brisbane are via public transport — most residents use their cars. In Hong Kong, that figure is 90%. In Paris, only 4% of trips within the metro area are via car, because there are lots of public transport connections, plentiful bike lanes, and housing near where people live and work — not to mention finding a park is a headache.
I have recently moved to London, where tickets are more expensive than in my hometown of Melbourne — I routinely grumble about hitting my £10 (A$19) daily cap. And the UK’s train network isn’t what it once was, having suffered from decades of austerity and privatisation.
Nonetheless, 25% of trips in London are via public transport, and 42% are via active transport modes like walking and cycling. This is mainly because the level of frequency and interconnection (in inner London, at least) blows Australian cities out of the water — one usually waits about three to eight minutes for the tube — and Mayor Sadiq Khan is rolling out bike lanes at breakneck speed.
Australia has settled for infrequent and inaccessible transit for too long, while many peers in Europe and Asia have zoomed ahead.
A free ticket, 20 miles away, in an hour
It’s this inconvenience factor that has neutered many similar free or cheap trials elsewhere.
Cities such as Dunkirk, Malta (for buses), Tallinn, and the whole country of Luxembourg — which have struggled with car dependence — have tried similar low- or no-fare trials to Queensland to coax residents to travel differently. While these places modestly improved public transport use, many residents still kept driving — usually because the nearest station was too far away and they’d need to wait too long.
German and Austrian forecasts suggest that their governments’ cheap “climate” train tickets, aimed at reducing car emissions, will massively undershoot their targets. That’s because, as Euronews reports, “more people using public transport without improving capacity leads to overcrowding. The prospect of an uncomfortable journey does little to encourage people to ditch their cars.”
So unless large upgrades to Queensland’s system are rolled out simultaneously, Miles is likely to be somewhat disappointed by his trial’s bang-for-buck on easing congestion.
Free fares for ditching your car?
Even for those who live near stations, cars also have strong lock-in effects. Quitting habitual driving can be as hard as ditching other addictive substances, as many drivers have grown unaccustomed to other forms of transport.
For that reason, Barcelona introduced three-year free transit cards in 2021, but only for residents who ditch their older, less environmentally-friendly cars. France and Finland also have similar schemes for trading in older cars for subsidised e-bikes.
And then there are road use charges, such as London’s much-bemoaned Ultra Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ), which directly discourages driving older, polluting vehicles in inner-city areas.
Politicians are usually loath to impose them for fear of electoral backlash, and with Miles facing an election later this year, I doubt he’ll be adding sticks to his transport carrots. Indeed, Miles announced on Saturday he will be slashing car registration by 20%, the opposite of disincentivising private road travel.
But it’s worth noting Khan recently won an emphatic re-election, despite fears ULEZ could cost him votes.
It’s not necessarily either/or
Public transport users in Queensland will still benefit from lower costs during the trial, however, particularly those on lower incomes.
But housing is often more expensive near transport hubs and many of the neediest commuters are farthest away from connections. Many renters in inner suburbs will deservedly benefit, but the gains will be unevenly distributed.
Thus, expansion of the network should be a higher priority. But one mustn’t overstate how much cheap fares undermine this goal.
Fares usually only pay for part of a public transport network. In NSW, for instance, they cover approximately one-quarter of public transport costs — the rest is covered by governments.
Thus, governments cannot credibly use cheapening fares as an excuse to go slower on network expansion. And advocates for network expansion need not be so concerned by the revenue impact of low-fare trials as to renounce them entirely — their fight must always, invariably, be with governments who don’t spend enough from general revenue. Free trials might have middling outcomes in low-coverage systems, but they aren’t the real threat — austerity is.
It’s thus time for a conversation about other ways of financing network expansions. One possibility, as governments like NSW’s rezone neighbourhoods along transport corridors for greater density, could be hypothecated windfall taxes. If your land value went up after rezoning, you’d have to pay some of that back to the transport department upon sale to improve local services for the increased number of new residents.
Until then, residents will be waiting impatiently for better public transport networks. And waiting. And waiting…
