The area of Luxemburg is 2500km2 and the estimated population is 633k. For comparison: the area of London is ~1500km2 with population of 8m+. Do you think that Luxemburg’s system can be scaled up?

Luxembourg resident here. Free public transport is a game-changer. You don't have to think about it, you just step on the bus, or tram.

This also means the bus driver doesn't have to worry about checking tickets. There aren't guards to check if people are jumping over turnstiles, etc. Moving to 'totally free' eliminates all kinds of overhead.

There is no reason it couldn't scale.

And the question of scaling hides an interesting assumption: what is the purpose of charging fares?

If it is to reduce usage (to thus ensure that the system isn't used past capacity), then why do you want to limit the usage of public transport? If people don't take public, they will take private transport (cars, etc) which have much higher social cost (you can move many more people by bus than by car).

If it is to 'raise revenue to pay for the system', does the same argument apply to use of roads? What is a fair road tax, given that this method of transport has such high social costs?

> why do you want to limit the usage of public transport? > If people don't take public, they will take > private transport (cars, etc)

This ignores two elements:

- congestion differs by time of day, and

- capacity is constrained differently by mode

In London:

- it's cheaper to take a bus than to take an underground train, and

- there are ticket types that are only valid after the morning rush hour

Both of these decrease peak congestion on the transport system.

The differential pricing would not push people to private transport, but might push them to buses (whose capacity can more easily be increased) or to postpone their journey to later in the day.

You know what might push people to private transport? Severe congestion on the underground. If you are not fit and aggressive, then trying to get on a Central Line train in the morning might mean waiting for 2-3 full trains to pass before you can get on one.

Yes, there are also weekend tickets, zone 1, 2, up to 6 tickets. It’s pretty complex.

Increasing bus capacity might not be easy either. That requires more busses, more staff, more service, more whatever the source of power is for the busses. It all costs ££££.

Shouldn't it be easier in London due to higher density?

I was considering this but higher density also means more transportation is required, more people have to employed and so on. It gets very expensive very fast.

In theory population size 12x of the population of Luxemburg would make it easier to distribute the cost of free transport. But this glosses over the fact that London is huge and only zone 1 and maybe 2 are a pain to drive. Not everyone in London works in zone 1 / 2.

I wonder if there’s anyone here able to give an answer if free transport in London would be financially realistic.

San Francisco city council voted in favor of making public transit free, even Muni was on board. Total cost was something like $20 million a year (city budget is measured in the Billions) to get rid of fares completely, forever. That happened about two months ago.

Mayor vetoed it, on the grounds that "it would be too popular and overtax muni's capacity". I'm not sure I buy that, my guess is that the local tour bus/tourist bike rental industry disapproved, but that's just speculation on my part. I would personally use Muni about 50% more but I have a chicken-and-egg problem; I don't use it enough to justify a monthly pass, and since I don't have a monthly pass, most times I'd rather just walk than catch a bus.

> most times I'd rather just walk than catch a bus

Which honestly is probably the best outcome any way, at least from an environmental and personal health perspective.

God, that's so infuriating, particularly given that for many people I know, the concern with Muni/BART is that it's oftentimes too empty, which can be a little freaky particularly as a woman.

This would not cover BART, which is not an SF run system. It would not cover SAMTRANS. This is just SF muni (busses and a handful of trolley lines) -- I think trolleys also were excluded as these are for raising money from tourists.

Honestly they rarely bother even to ask for fares. The problem with SF Muni is that the buses are dirty, smelly, and travel along at an average speed of about 8 miles per hour. This, combined with the fact that the buses always appear at random times and can never be ontime creates a very unpleasant experience that is only marginally better than walking.

It would have turned buses into homeless housing.

This is already a problem as the homeless just don't pay and no one forces them to pay. Actually you can hop on the muni today and no one will force you to pay either.

But it might have exacerbated the problem.