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French city of Montpellier makes public transport free for all residents (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 10 months ago by sabreW4K3@lemmy.tf to c/fuck_cars@lemmy.ml
22 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Cross posted from: https://lemmy.nz/post/4701018

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[-] mondoman712@lemmy.ml 45 points 10 months ago

Making it free just for residents is an interesting choice. I guess the argument is that they're paying taxes to cover the use while non residents are, but then you have to maintain all of the ticketing infrastructure for much lower revenue. They've also banned taking bikes on the trams as part of this, which isn't great.

[-] roastpotatothief@lemmy.ml 8 points 10 months ago

For private business the tickets are to fund the business. But for public transport they are never expected to cover the costs of the business.

It is run as a public service, not to make money. The function of tickets is to prevent overcrowding.

That's why in well designed systems, the price is different at rush hour, and for high traffic routes and times.

I don't know anything about montpellier specifically though.

[-] lemann@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 10 months ago

That's why in well designed systems, the price is different at rush hour, and for high traffic routes and times.

Introducing something variable or unpredictable into public transit would probably deter a few people from using it

From an efficiency perspective this makes sense, but I don't like it to be honest. The long distance trains do that here and it's very off putting, although I can understand why - the trains are already usually very overcrowded, long and don't fit in most stations, no funding is available to extend the platforms any further, and companies can't buy newer, denser, faster trains because the railway electrify project is decades late...

As an alternative I'd propose increasing the frequency of the trams if possible, or maybe even use longer trams during those times if the stops are suitably long

[-] mondoman712@lemmy.ml 1 points 10 months ago

It's not too make money but they still need money to run it, and in a lot of places a significant portion of that comes from fares. If they're replacing all of it with money coming from elsewhere then great.

[-] kameecoding@lemmy.world -2 points 10 months ago

Replace tickets with tap payments, problem solved

[-] mondoman712@lemmy.ml 4 points 10 months ago

It's still infrastructure to maintain all over the system.

[-] toastal@lemmy.ml 4 points 10 months ago

I don’t like the idea of requiring folks have chips on them & needing bank accounts to access transport. Worse if a for-profit payment processor gets to skim a little off on every transaction.

[-] kameecoding@lemmy.world -4 points 10 months ago

What the fuck are you talking about, contactless payment with cards and apple/google pay are not subdermal chips

[-] toastal@lemmy.ml 1 points 10 months ago

All of these devices emit traceable signals. If someone doesn’t want to be tracked, which there are tools that do this, folks should have the option to opt out as paper & coins have worked fine for a millennia. But also what you are now proposing is that Google & Apple, two ad companies, get to take a piece of the pie for doing nothing and collecting that user data of what user is going where/when.

[-] kameecoding@lemmy.world -3 points 10 months ago

Bruh, those payment methods are ubiquitous in developed countries, like those in Europe.

the advantage of credit/debit cards is that you don't need to fucking buy some obscure city specific card for public transport or need to figure out the tickets, you just tap your card when you get on.

New York is also rolling this out btw

[-] toastal@lemmy.ml 1 points 10 months ago

I live in Asia & I’m real happy cash is preferred for everywhere. It’s not some tech startup or credit card’s business how/when I’m spending my money & it’s never been difficult to hand currency to the driver.

[-] kameecoding@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

It is when the system serves thousands or hundreds of thousands a day...

[-] toastal@lemmy.ml 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Then I guess you’ve never met the most populated continent that seems to be alright as is.

But also we could have free transit before the internet. Wrapping something in technology doesn’t mean its better. A smart watch doesn’t tell you the time any better than are without Bluetooth.

[-] AdamEatsAss@lemmy.world 17 points 10 months ago

Great news everyone! Hopefully the system works well and other cities will follow suit. I know in the USA (in the few places we do have public transit) the argument for keeping fares is always 1.we don't want to pay taxes for that and 2.if we charge that'll keep the vagrants from using it. Two arguments that make no sense at all, 1. We already pay taxes for the public transit, why pay more to actually use it? And 2.anyone who has used public transit knows the fare doesn't keep vagrants out.

[-] Aux@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago

It's not even the first city in Europe to do so. It works, but also causes some issues.

[-] alehc@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago

What type of issues?

[-] Barbarian@sh.itjust.works 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

In the short term, there's also a lack of capacity. Fares function as a limiter on the number of people using it. Too many people for your capacity? Raise prices. Spare capacity? Lower prices.

This can be solved by increasing capacity, but it takes time to figure out what the capacity necessary actually is and then buying more trains/buses and hiring/training drivers.

[-] Aux@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

My home city of Riga tried to do that after success in Tallinn. The mayor thought of releasing special Riga cards to residents. The issue was that many people come to Riga for work from other cities, towns and villages and they got angry to pay for transport. So mayor said to declare themselves in Riga instead of their home towns. That caused an uproar from town councils as that meant that they will lose all the tax income and won't be able to provide local services. And Riga is already home to a third of the country's population, so town budgets are overstretched.

In the end the government had to step in and ban the whole thing. The end.

[-] 970372@sh.itjust.works 1 points 10 months ago

Not an issue, but in many cases the issue is service quality, not price.

[-] kittenzrulz123@lemmy.world 9 points 10 months ago

I hope New York takes inspiration instead of raising fares.

[-] PanArab@lemmy.ml 9 points 10 months ago

This is the way to go.

[-] autotldr@lemmings.world 8 points 10 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The French city of Montpellier in southern France became the latest European metropolis to allow all its residents to ride public transport for free.

From Thursday evening, Montpellier residents with a special pass were able to ride trams and buses free of charge in the southern city.

Michael Delafosse, the Socialist mayor of the city of 500,000 people, promised free public transport when he was elected in 2020.

Before the initiative to make public transport free in Montpellier, just 86,000 people had paid subscriptions to use it, according to figures obtained by AFP.

But that figure has tripled to 260,000 subscribers in recent days running up to the launch of the free pass, either in card or smartphone app form.

Last year city residents accounted for 90% of the 39 million euros in public transport ticket sales.

The original article contains 292 words, the summary contains 137 words. Saved 53%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

this post was submitted on 22 Dec 2023
332 points (99.4% liked)

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