- As of this Sunday, Luxembourg will be the first country to offer total free public transport (train-tram-bus) throughout its territory, whether one is resident, cross-border or tourist.
- In France, 35 cities already introduce this free transport. The idea is in the wind because the arguments are multiple: favor the mobility of the most precarious, revitalize the city centers, lower the share of the car, redistribute purchasing power ...
- Could the Luxembourg experience accelerate the movement? Or make it change scale?
Whether it be the train, the bus or the tram, and whether you are Luxembourger, cross-border or just a tourist… As of this Sunday, March 1, you will no longer need tickets to get around the Grand Duchy. Luxembourg is preparing to become the first country in the world to offer free public transport throughout its territory. Only the first class by train will remain charged.
In France, 35 cities have already introduced total free public transport, some as early as the 1970s. Will the Luxembourg experience accelerate the movement? And even make it change scale? Maxime Huré, lecturer in political science at the University of Perpignan and chairman of the scientific committee of the Observatory of Free Transport Cities answers our questions.
Will Luxembourg become, this Sunday, the largest community to implement free transport on its territory?
Luxembourg will indeed dethrone Talinn, the capital of Estonia, which passed in 2013 to the total free of charge of its public transport. It was undoubtedly the most resounding experience in this matter to date, with Kansas City, in the United States, two agglomerations which revolve around 450,000 inhabitants.
Luxembourg is even more, since there are 600,000 inhabitants [the equivalent of Nantes approximately]. Above all, this time, gratuity is no longer at the scale of a city, but of a country. Of course, we can see Luxembourg as a big city. But this means that this free transport will not only apply to urban transport - buses or trams - as was often limited in the experiments already carried out, but also therefore to trains. Finally, this transport will be free not only for Luxembourg residents, but also for tourists and cross-border workers, when Talinn and Kansas City only applied free to their residents. It will be a very interesting experiment.
Making transportation free is not a new idea. You describe a first group of cities to have launched in the 1970s…
We can even go back to 1962, with the experiment carried out by Commerce, in the suburbs of Los Angeles. Several cities then followed in the United States, Belgium, Italy, Germany, but also in France. In Compiègne, the bus has been free since 1975. The movement was then a little breathless, before being brought up to date at the turn of the 2000s, and even more in recent years. Thirty-five French cities - right and left - have now implemented free transport on their territory. Including the urban community of Dunkirk (200,000 inhabitants) since September 1, 2018. It is the largest French agglomeration to have changed.
What are the political colors of the cities that have already implemented total gratuity? Https: //t.co/CJtPi1Jmus pic.twitter.com/nicEhZHEuT
- Observatory of free transport cities (@Obsgratuite) February 20, 2020Could other cities introduce this free service after the municipal elections?
It is in any case a recurring theme of this campaign. Without doubt even the most debated on the mobility aspect. At the Observatory of Free Transport Cities, we have identified 94 cities with more than 20,000 inhabitants in which at least one candidate offers to introduce total free public transport. It goes from Perpignan to Alençon, via Rennes. The profiles are very diverse. And if we take into account the cities where at least one candidate offers partial free transport (on weekends, for example), we go to 150. We will publish the map next week.
Why is free transport on the rise?
Three main arguments are put forward by his supporters. It is primarily a social measure. The bet is to allow a return to mobility for people who are isolated or in situations of great social difficulties. It is also an economic measure. City centers of medium-sized municipalities are in great difficulty today. Free transport aims to revitalize them, restore their attractiveness, by allowing them to get there for free. For several years now, the argument has also been ecological, the hope being that this incentive will encourage motorists to leave their cars in the garage. To these three arguments is added a fourth, more recent still. It is linked to the “yellow vests” crisis and this need to redistribute purchasing power to the French.
But does free transport make it possible to reduce the place of the car in the cities which have experienced it for a long time?
We lack studies to answer precisely. Within our observatory, we conducted a questionnaire survey on the buses in Dunkirk. Out of 2,000 users questioned, 24% said they had put their cars aside. It is still a significant part. But it should be supplemented by other studies. Above all, the error would be to extrapolate these figures. This is not because the modal share [number of journeys made by car per 100 journeys] of the car has decreased so much in Dunkirk that it will drop the same in another city which has introduced free transport.
There is strong opposition, in France, against free transport, including the Federation of transport users (Fnaut). We point out the lack of impact it would have on the drop in the car in the city, but also the financial challenges it poses, or the symbolic and physical devaluation of the service it entails ...
Some of these arguments are lies, others are worth considering. The idea that incivility would increase in networks that have become free is part of the first part. This is not true in Dunkirk or Châteauroux, where the bus has been free since 2001. On the contrary, incivility decreases, according to data from operators. There are more people on the buses, and therefore more social control. In other words, it is less easy to commit degradations.
Furthermore, tensions in public transport are often linked to a monetary exchange. Typically, a check goes wrong. These moments of tension no longer exist more or less when we switch to free.
And what are the arguments to be taken seriously?
We must be aware of the technical difficulties posed by the transition to free education. It is for example complicated to do it in cities which have saturated transport at rush hour. Free transport can then be counterproductive by saturating transport a little more and thereby degrading supply.
The budget issue also deserves to be addressed. But it must be remembered that in the funding of public transport, there is one envelope for operation and another for investment. The latter is financed entirely, or almost, by public subsidies. The first is financed both by the public authorities, via subsidies again, both by companies, via transport payment, and both by users, through tickets or subscriptions. Apart from Lyon or Paris, where it is around 30%, the share of tickets and subscriptions in the funding of the operating envelope is low in France. The national average is around 17%. That said, switching to free transport requires finding solutions to balance the budget. That is why it is a political choice. In Dunkirk, for example, they halted the construction of an Arena and put part of this money thus saved to finance free transport. The question I ask myself is whether we will manage to finance these free services over time. That is to say fifteen or twenty years. In my opinion, we should change the model in the funding of public transport.
Like Luxembourg, could France also, one day, decree free public transport?
It seems unthinkable today, even if everything often goes very quickly on mobility issues. But the Luxembourg example could encourage experiments on larger scales in France. This will perhaps be one of the much discussed subjects of the next regional elections, in 2021. Before that, it will also be necessary to focus on the new cities to introduce free transport on their territory. If there are many of them, surely the State, regions and departments will be encouraged to set up mechanisms to facilitate these free passages.
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