Taking a “free” ride: Where do we stand on free or low fare public transport and where do we go next?

2026/05/21 by Matthew J. Beck, John M. Rose, Andrea Pellegrini · 1 voice
Business, Management and Accounting · Social Sciences · #Transport and Economic Policies #Transportation Planning and Optimization #Urban Transport and Accessibility

paper · doi:10.1016/j.tranpol.2026.104201

openalex publication_date 2026/05/21 · crossref created 2026/05/21 · openalex created_date 2026/05/22 · crossref deposited 2026/06/17 · crossref indexed 2026/06/17 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/18 · crossref issued 2026/09/01 · crossref published 2026/09/01 · crossref published-print 2026/09/01

Citations

• Public Transport Pricing Policy
• Transit Fare Affordability: Findings From a Qualitative Study
• Why (not) abolish fares? Exploring the global geography of fare-free public transport
• Exploring the impact of public transport including free and subsidised on the physical, mental and social well-being of older adults: a literature review
• From Bełchatów to Żory: Charting Poland's geography of fare-free public transport programmes
• Imagine the financial barrier to public transport use disappears. The impact of the 9-Euro-Ticket on the mobility and social participation of low-income households with children
• Free rides to cleaner air? Examining the impact of massive public transport fare discounts on air quality
• The Behavioral Impact of Free Public Transport in Stavanger, Norway
• Uncovering the social and spatial effects of fare cuts on public transport with mobile geolocation data
• Free fare for better air? Evaluating the impacts of free fare public transit on air pollution
• Free public transport to the destination: A causal analysis of tourists' travel mode choice
• Austria's KlimaTicket: Assessing the short-term impact of a cheap nationwide travel pass on demand
• A Public Transport Ticket that Moved a Country: Assessing the Value of the German 9-Euro-Ticket as a Socio-Technical Experiment
• Do price reductions attract customers in urban public transport? A synthetic control approach
• Public transport fare elasticities from smartcard data: Evidence from a natural experiment
• The impact of fare-free public transport on travel behavior: Evidence from a randomized controlled trial
• The prospects of fare-free public transport: evidence from Tallinn
• Transit pricing research

Discussions

• Fare-free transit can boost ridership, but service quality and network design matter far more for long-term success. Replacing lost fare revenue remains a key challenge for many transit agencies. doi [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]