Travel Behavior and Financial Impacts of Fare Capping

Effective fare payment policies and practices are essential to the efficient operation of public transportation services. Transit agencies in the United States and internationally have implemented fare capping since the early 2000s as account-based fare payment technologies and systems became available. Account-based technologies offer numerous benefits, including faster boarding, reduced cash handling, and the ability to provide fare product options, such as fare capping. Currently, limited information is known about the effects of fare capping on transit ridership and revenue. Research conducted on fare capping during the past decade has raised questions such as: Does fare capping impact transit use? If so, which rider segments change their transit travel patterns and how? Do riders perceive increased marginal costs of individual trips, potentially leading to fewer trips? To what extent does this travel behavior differ by market segment? To what extent does a customer’s understanding of fare capping influence their use of fare capping products? Does fare capping have positive or negative financial impacts for transit agencies? How do factors such as transit agency size and operational characteristics influence these outcomes? How should fare capping programs be structured at transit agencies with different attributes? How do the effects of fare capping vary based on tariff and fare policy? What are appropriate metrics and measures of effectiveness for fare capping? Research is needed to provide answers to these and other questions. OBJECTIVES: The objectives of this research are to (1) examine the ridership and revenue effects of fare capping for public transit agencies in North America, and (2) provide sketch planning tools that estimate the potential ridership and revenue impacts of fare capping for transit agencies with varying attributes. This research should build on the available research on fare capping and the experiences of domestic and international transit agencies with fare capping programs.

• Record URL:
  • http://apps.trb.org/cmsfeed/TRBNetProjectDisplay.asp?ProjectID=5825
• Supplemental Notes:
  • Contract to a Performing Organization has not yet been awarded.

Language

• English

Project

• Funding: $300,000.00
• Contract Numbers:

  Project A-55

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Transit Cooperative Research Program

  Transportation Research Board
  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC    20001

  Federal Transit Administration

  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Project Managers:

  Schwager, Dianne

• Start Date: 20250514
• Expected Completion Date: 0
• Actual Completion Date: 0

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Demographics; Fares; Mobility; Public transit; Transportation equity; Travel behavior
• Subject Areas: Finance; Passenger Transportation; Public Transportation; Society;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01937966
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Transportation Research Board
• Contract Numbers: Project A-55
• Files: TRB, RIP
• Created Date: Nov 26 2024 6:17AM