By Jacob Henrique Barata de Boms, Year 11
Nowadays, the majority of the world’s public transportation is, in fact, the opposite of public. Citizens must pay fares to use the transport, which often tend to be a wide percentage of the spendings of the socioeconomic group with the least income.
Some nations have passed a zero fare policy, such as Luxemburg in 2020. Although introducing this fiscal policy did lead to an increase in government expenditure, its advantages outweigh the extra spending.
One of its primary advantages is that it increases the mobility of human capital. A well developed and free transportation system allows citizens to work in areas which they previously were unable to reach. This allows specialists to move to new locations, increasing an area’s development. Furthermore it helps people living in small cities and rural areas by giving them accessibility to work in more urbanized locations assuming that the citizens which this applies to do not own a car.
Furthermore, although the increase in government spending may heighten the budget deficit, it will also provide new jobs (mechanics, bus drivers, upper management) and encourage industries within the nations (such as a mechanized parts industry). This could help a nation recover from a deflationary period although it could be problematic if a nation is currently going through an inflationary one.
Let’s take into account the Municipality of Salvador in Brazil. A one way ticket in the public transportation of this municipality costs CHF 0.85 (R$5.6). If they only had to pay 2 fares daily to go to and from work, CHF 36.5 for a month. Taking into account that minimum wage in this municipality is CHF 227, with minimal use it would cost minimum wage individuals 16.23% of their salaries. This value increases drastically if they use it for things other than work (assuming that they would do 2 trips every day of the month) to CHF 99.9 or 44.27% of their salaries. Even if we take the median federal salary into account, being CHF 495 (R$3378), it would still be 7.29% of their salaries with minimum use, and 19.89% of their salaries with regular use. This demonstrates the failing of pricing for public transportation since the people with the lowest salaries could not realistically afford the transportation that is meant to be public, and even those with median salaries would have to spend around one-fifth of their salaries just to use it regularly. Having the zero fare policy would correct this issue, allowing even the poorest of families, who often miss medical appointments due to high costs, to be able to afford their own transportation.
To continue, removing the fare for public transportation would have profoundly positive environmental implications. With Brazil, studies show that it would cost CHF 13.4 billion (R$90,000,000,000) yearly to make public transportation in Brazil free. It is also estimated that each ton of CO2 costs CHF 188 (R$1258.45). In Márica, Rio de Janeiro, they introduced the zero fare policy in December 2014. The same municipality also found a 144% increase in public transportation usage after passing the act (2021). If Brazil’s public transportation saw the same increase in passengers as Márica’s, they would save CHF 27.9 Billion (R$186,656,823,898.83) yearly in CO2 emissions, actually saving more money in the preservation of environmental assets than they would spend yearly.
Clearly, from the wide array of benefits, public transportation should be free in the majority of nations.
