Global experts share regional transit strategies: Recruiting Riders

NRU
Oct. 19, 2016
Leah Wong

In the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area—as in other densely-populated jurisdictions around the world—designing an affordable, sustainable and well-connected regional transportation network is no easy task.

Yesterday Ryerson University’s City Building Institute convened a session that featured transportation experts from Paris, Montreal and Toronto who identified common challenges—especially on fare integration and fare equity for less affluent transit riders—for those responsible for managing a growing system for commuters.

In its pending review of the Big Move transportation plan for GTHA, Metrolinx officials are taking a close look at fare integration across the region. Eve Wyatt, applied research and corporate monitoring senior manager for Metrolinx, told participants that her agency has to balance what commuters pay in fares against the cost of running a financially-stable system.

“Our vision has three parts to it—increasing ridership and mobility, providing a sustainable financial model for the operation of services in the region and, from a customer’s point of view, presenting a network of multi-modal services that people can use in the way that is most convenient,” said Wyatt. She noted that discussions on fares are tied to considerations of what it would take, from a revenue perspective, to meet the agency’s stated objectives.

In the greater Paris area, officials face a similar challenge to set fares at a level that encourage ridership while generating sufficient revenue to pay for running the regional transportation network. Pierre Messulam, deputy director of France’s national state-owned railway company Transilien SNCF, told participants that if transit fares are set too high the transportation system could lose revenue if riders choose to drive their cars.

In 2015, the Paris region’s coordinating transportation agency eliminated its zone-based fare system and introduced a flat fee. It also started to offer a monthly transit pass for €70, ($C100.80) which allows users to ride regional network of buses, regional express rail trains, the Paris Metro and commuter trains.

Creating a flat-fare was a political decision aimed at luring more people to choose transit and to address the growing income inequality across the region. Messulam said that a flat-fare system subsidizes transit for low-income workers who live far from their jobs.

“You have to [question] why people commute for such long distances—basically it’s because they can’t afford to do something else,” said Messulam. “Housing is cheaper farther away… If they travel [for long distances] it’s because they can’t afford to be housed closer to the jobs and that is a problem.”

The flat fare is not a model that could be easily replicated in the GTHA, say officials.

Wyatt said a flat fare is a difficult way to raise money while a system is also trying to boost ridership. The system works in Paris’ because the Île-de-France transit system does not rely on fare box recovery as heavily as its Canadian counterparts. École d’Urbanisme de Paris professor Marie-Hélène Massot said that transit users only cover about 28 per cent of operating costs. Comparatively, Metrolinx seeks to recover between 70 and 80 per cent of its operating costs from the fare box.

Greater Montreal, for example, chose to adopt a farebased system when it developed an integrated regional transit system that will consolidate the region’s public transit operators from 15 to four. Agence Metropolitaine de Transport strategic information and metropolitan affairs vice-president Daniel Bergeron noted that low income population in Greater Montreal is not concentrated in one area, so a flat fare would not address inequality issues identified elsewhere. His region has instead chosen to utilize targeted programs—including discounted senior and student fares—to encourage transit use.