Grand River Transit

[danbrotherston]

It seems like the GRT fares have really increased over the past few years. I don't have the facts but I think in 2011 when I was taking the bus a 5 ticket strip was less than $10.

I've gotten this impression, there was some directive at some point to increase the farebox recovery rate, with no real basis besides the idea that transit users should "pay for themselves".

And I find the tickets here pretty pricey, far more than London, ON.

[KevinL]

I've gotten this impression, there was some directive at some point to increase the farebox recovery rate, with no real basis besides the idea that transit users should "pay for themselves".

Thanks, Sean Strickland.

Yes, Coun. Strickland seems to have this lofty goal of 50% farebox recovery (ie, half of GRT's revenue from fares) but does not seem to have any rationale for that number. I don't know why so many at council just follow along.

[rangersfan]

In most cases it has made transportation through the city more expensive than driving on a straight fare dollar to gasoline dollar. I think this is a serious consideration when someone opts to take public transportation even though they have a vehicle and pay all the boat loads of money to keep a car on the road.

[Canard]

Yep - it's far cheaper for me to drive my Prius 40 km to work and back every day than it is to take the bus. I can't make it work financially. As much fun as it would be to bus/bike there, which I do want to do.

(40 km @ 4.5 L/100 km = 1.8 litres of fuel. Price = ~$1.20 (high side) = $2.16 to drive to work and back. Before someone says "but insurance and taxes and...!", car would be sitting in my driveway and I'd still be paying that anyway so it's a wash. And my commute goes from 20 minutes to over 60, so I've lost 80 minutes a day that I could be working extra, making (a lot) more money, which actually eclipses the above savings/expenditures by an order of magnitude of so.)

[timc]

I live close enough that it takes similar amounts of time to bus or drive, and I appreciate that riding the bus has saved us from needing a second vehicle. But the last couple of years the cost to ride the bus has been high enough to make me want to walk/run to work (2014-15), or bike through the winter (2015-16). Most years I ride my bike from at least the beginning of April until sometime in November.

It's no exaggeration to say that I could buy a new bike each year and let it get destroyed by the winter salt for less money than it would cost to ride the bus. It just seems wasteful to do that.

[Markster]

Oh hey look TriTAG wrote something on this exact topic!

GRT: A Brief History of Fares

[tomh009]

I've gotten this impression, there was some directive at some point to increase the farebox recovery rate, with no real basis besides the idea that transit users should "pay for themselves".

And I find the tickets here pretty pricey, far more than London, ON.

The vast majority of the transit costs is still covered by the taxpayers.  What is the ideal percentage is the question.

In the other London, the cash fare for the Tube is a whopping £4.90.  (About half that using an Oyster Card.)

[tomh009]

Yep - it's far cheaper for me to drive my Prius 40 km to work and back every day than it is to take the bus. I can't make it work financially. As much fun as it would be to bus/bike there, which I do want to do.

(40 km @ 4.5 L/100 km = 1.8 litres of fuel. Price = ~$1.20 (high side) = $2.16 to drive to work and back. Before someone says "but insurance and taxes and...!", car would be sitting in my driveway and I'd still be paying that anyway so it's a wash. And my commute goes from 20 minutes to over 60, so I've lost 80 minutes a day that I could be working extra, making (a lot) more money, which actually eclipses the above savings/expenditures by an order of magnitude of so.)

While the Prius and the insurance are paid for, driving will still cause wear on your car and your tires, so assuming it's exactly $2.16 per days isn't quite right, either.

Two hours a day is a valid argument against transit in your personal case, though.

[Canard]

Ok, throw in a buck. Still cheaper than $6/day to ride the bus.

KC Streetcar was free, parking along the line is free... And it was very heavily used. I was so impressed with that little system.

[MidTowner]

I think many people’s numbers would be very similar to Canard’s. His vehicle is more efficient than many people’s, but the average commute is shorter: probably less than 10 kilometres, (that’s an old figure, but it was for all of Ontario, and I’m assuming the Ontario figure would be pulled up by the GTA). I bet his bottom line number on gas isn’t far off from an average. Good point that it doesn’t include wear-and-tear, but I think it would be optimistic to think that many people would have a very good idea of their fuel economy and even just the gas cost of their trip.

The calculations will favour driving as long as the price of gas at the pumps doesn’t include externalities (greenhouse gases, and other air pollutants), and roads are free to the user. Until then, it’s senseless to insist that transit achieve a certain level of farebox recovery if we want it to be attractive to potential users.

[danbrotherston]

The calculations will favour driving as long as the price of gas at the pumps doesn’t include externalities (greenhouse gases, and other air pollutants), and roads are free to the user. Until then, it’s senseless to insist that transit achieve a certain level of farebox recovery if we want it to be attractive to potential users.

This is really a rather good point, cars are attractive because they have a huge fixed cost, and huge externalities, but for most are seen as necessary, thus you must have one, and once you have one, not using it doesn't make financial sense.

[Canard]

So how does an operator decide what the fare should be, if it's really just deciding "how much to cushion the loss"?

[MidTowner]

I don't think that's how a fare level should be determined. I think that fare box recovery ratio is a poor way to set fares. We should instead set fares at a level likely to be able to compete with driving.

Edit: I think we've talked about this before here. People have linked to articles suggesting there are good reasons to ask transit users to pay some amount of their cost, so they feel ownership over the system and so on.

[chutten]

I don't think that's how a fare level should be determined. I think that fare box recovery ratio is a poor way to set fares. We should instead set fares at a level likely to be able to compete with driving.

Edit: I think we've talked about this before here. People have linked to articles suggesting there are good reasons to ask transit users to pay some amount of their cost, so they feel ownership over the system and so on.

Wow, but it's hard to search the forum usefully. The search page gives you threads, but no useful post-by-post view to see if the terms you're looking for happen in the threads you've found.

Anyway, yes, we did talk about it. Here's my calculations and the surrounding conversation is quite clearly being echoed here.

[jamincan]

I don't think that's how a fare level should be determined. I think that fare box recovery ratio is a poor way to set fares. We should instead set fares at a level likely to be able to compete with driving.

Edit: I think we've talked about this before here. People have linked to articles suggesting there are good reasons to ask transit users to pay some amount of their cost, so they feel ownership over the system and so on.

Wow, but it's hard to search the forum usefully. The search page gives you threads, but no useful post-by-post view to see if the terms you're looking for happen in the threads you've found.

Anyway, yes, we did talk about it. Here's my calculations and the surrounding conversation is quite clearly being echoed here.

If you select "Display Results by Post" or something along those lines, it will break the threads apart into individual posts containing the search terms in the results.