Translink fare increase comments
Posted in Commentary on January 19th, 2008 by Sacha PeterAt the beginning of the year, fares on Translink went up. The changes can be summarized as follows:
1 Zone –
$2.25 to $2.50 (cash),
$1.80 to $1.90 (10 tickets),
$69 to $73 (after tax: $58.65 to $62.05) (monthly)2 Zone –
$3.25 to $3.75 (cash),
$2.75 to $2.85 (10 tickets),
$95 to $99 (after tax: $80.75 to $84.15) (monthly)3 Zone –
$4.50 to $5.00 (cash),
$3.60 to $3.80 (10 tickets),
$130 to $136 (after tax: $110.50 to $115.60) (monthly)
Now while it’s not good to be chewing a price increase, if you don’t have an automobile then there is really no choice but to suck it up, or reduce the number of trips taken. If you are a monthly pass holder then chances are you will chew the cost. Obviously there is some threshold where people will decide a car is a more efficient alternative, and I’m curious for how many people whether a 5.6% increase will do the trick. I doubt it – most automobile drivers have faced a greater than 5.6% increase in their operating costs over the past year and if anything, Translink fare increases don’t keeping up with operating costs – typically they’ve made the difference with tax increases.
Translink has increased the incentive to get away from cash fares – using 10-packs of tickets is 24% cheaper than cash fares. This was previously 20%/15%/20% for 1/2/3 zone fares. The other view is that assuming that you are taking two trips in a business day, this amounts to an average of 40 trips a month. So if you compare the cost of 40 tickets versus a monthly pass – 40 tickets cost $76 vs. $62.05 for a monthly pass. Breakeven would be four “missed” days in this case. The difference between bus tickets and monthly passes for the higher zones, is much more pronounced (6 “missed” round trip days).
My other comment is that the zone system is quite arbitrary and could use an overhaul. For example, you can take a trip from Richmond to SFU (North Burnaby) and require a one zone ticket, while crossing from the River Rock casino (North Richmond) to Granville and 70th (South Vancouver) will cost you a two zone pass. My five second fare zone recommendation with the existing infrastructure would be to make all trips along the Skytrain a one-zone pass (bought anywhere along the Translink system), irrespective of length of trip. I would also eliminate the third fare zone and require any trip that has a bridge crossing to be a two-zone fare.
I wonder how much such an implementation would cost Translink.
I think the solution to the arbitrary zones could be the introduction of Smart Cards with a tag-on/tag-off system that will charge according to the length of the trip. Another feature we’re looking at is the idea of the ‘automatic montlhly pass.’ If you use your Smart Card more than a certain number of times, it automatically treats it as a monthly pass and the rest of your rides for that month are at no extra charge.
What do you think?
Ken
Smart cards won’t work with “the existing infrastructure” (which is what I constrained my suggestion to – i.e. to existing fare boxes). If you allow the ability to implement new technology in the fare system, pre-paid RFID type cards (like the HK metro system) are the way to go, especially if they are mileage based (which would reduce the fare zone structure to distance).
The more complexity you introduce into fare pricing, the more people you will have that won’t have an idea of how much a trip from X to Y will cost, so there is a trade-off. Having a simple fare system might increase adoption since people tend to consume a product more often if they know its cost.
Personally, one would have to study whether implementing $100 million (just a wild-assed guess) of new technology to support smart cards would be worth it – the simplicity of a flat fare system given the zoning proposal I mentioned in my post should be costed out and seriously considered – there is a certain beauty in simplicity.
I know Translink currently employs a ridiculously large amount of man-hour time to keeping the fare boxes in busses maintained, so would a smart card system consume even more operational expenses beyond the initial capital outlay?
About my previous comment, I am assuming the existing fare boxes can’t be converted to support “smart card” technology… I could be mistaken though.
About the “automatic monthly pass”, this is an excellent idea. If smart cards were implemented, the logical thing would be to cap monthly fees to whatever an X-zone pass would otherwise cost.
Although this idea is not mine, I think it would be the cheapest solution that would eliminate fare passes, fare boxes, fare gates, zones, coin collection, and fare evasion.
Simply, attach a transit tax to property taxes. Once the tax is applied, everyone could use the transit services without having to pay. A special hotel tax could cover the tourists.
I guess all the money that is regularly collected from the Surrey Central skytrain ticket machines that then don’t give you a ticket will cover the translink board’s new six fold salary increase. Also, all the down time on the escalator at Surrey Central will help as well. And that weird looking guy in the home made security hoodie that annoyed the entire trainload of peaceful riders will save money on the “official ” security patrols too right?
Surrey Central has and will be a basket case for the foreseeable future.
The move to increase the Translink board’s meeting fees (from 200 to 1200 per meeting) is a PR disaster. I’ll likely post about it in the future.