Universal Fare-Free Public Transport

Summary

"Es­to­ni­a’s cap­ital re­cently launched Europe’s largest ini­ti­at­ive for FFPT to date. Since Janu­ary 2013, Tallinn has provided free pub­lic trans­port in buses, trams, and trol­ley­buses to all city res­id­ents and all stu­dents in Es­to­nia. This is an ex­ten­sion of a suc­cess­ful meas­ure that al­lowed preschool­ers, the eld­erly, and pub­lic ser­vants to travel fare-free. The pro­ject curbs private car use, a grow­ing trend in the coun­try, and has con­trib­uted to a 7.5% an­nual de­crease in con­ges­tion in the city cen­ter between 2011 and 2015. City res­id­ents now en­joy cleaner air, safer streets, and sav­ings on trans­port costs.

The ini­ti­at­ive is pub­licly fun­ded, and the city re­ceived strong sup­port from their con­stitu­ency. A pub­lic poll on FFPT, con­duc­ted in March 2012, showed massive 75.5% sup­port for the ini­ti­at­ive. Fur­ther­more, there has been a sig­ni­fic­ant in­crease in the num­ber of re­gistered and tax-pay­ing Tallin­ners since the im­ple­ment­a­tion of free pub­lic trans­port, which the city be­lieves is a res­ult of the ini­ti­at­ive."

Quote from: http://solutions.sustainia.me/solutions/universal-fare-free-public-transport/