Free Public Transport becomes a Reality

A functional and financially accessible public transport system is critical for the sustainable mobility of any urban environment.

Free public transport was so far an utopian theory raised curiously by sociologists, not by transportation experts.

Now is about to become a reality: Luxembourg announced that will be the first country in the world to introduce free public transport. Trams, trains and buses will run free of charge from next summer.

There are three perspectives on the subject.

From a social perspective, experts state that making public transport free helps the labor market become more efficient and promote social equality, since people with less resources are able to reach more and better jobs and in long term contributes to the reduction of poverty.

From a transportation perspective, it stimulates the use public transport, reducing significantly the vehicle traffic. This leads to a wide range of benefits:

1. Reduces traffic congestion
2. Reduces accidents 
3. Reduces air pollution
4. Improves the pedestrian safety and quality of living
5. Reduces road infrastructure requirements and related investment.

Now an economist would criticize and ask “who will pay for it?!”. Fair enough. There are multiple options:

1. Tax the use of individual vehicles;
2. Tax extra the fuel for individual vehicles;
3. Use public transport for marketing purposes and collect profit from it.

I personally believe in a mix of all the above, but on the basis that the public transport is indeed efficient and offers a true near-home to near-destiny integrated solution.

Luxembourg will be a nice lab to test the idea and hopefully will inspire other cities or countries to replicate it.