Family-Friendly Transit Fares

Interest is growing in family-friendly transit services, including transit fares that address the needs of families and caregivers traveling together and independently. These fares are designed to recognize that (1) traveling with dependents, whether younger children, older adults, or a person with disabilities, can require multiple fares, burdening parents or caregivers with higher travel costs or complex fare payment policies; (2) fares for families traveling as a group can make travel by transit more desirable and a less costly option than driving and parking or using private ridesharing; and (3) free or reduced fares for children can increase their autonomy and reduce the chaperoning burdens of parents and caregivers. Research on family-friendly transit service is growing, too. TCRP Research Report 265: Addressing Travel Needs of Women and Families on Public Transportation (2026) discusses transit fares as well as other opportunities to improve transit services for families. Recently, the Federal Transit Administration published a Request for Information on Family Friendly Transit in the Federal Register asking for ideas and suggestions to make transit more family friendly. Transit fare programs targeted to specific transit riders are not new to the public transit agencies in the United States. Policies regarding special fares have been implemented at many levels of governance. (1) Federal Law (49 USC Section 5307 (d) (1) (D)) has long required transit agencies that receive any federal capital or operating funds in urban areas with populations of 200,000 or more and 75 or more Peak Buses to provide: (a) Discounts for older adults: 50% discount of peak period fares for seniors (defined as 65 years of age or older, though many transit agencies use different age thresholds for senior fare programs); and (b) Discounts for people with disabilities: 50% discount for people meeting disability requirements as defined in law and having a Medicare card issued under Title II or XVII of the Social Security Act (42 USC Section 4011). These requirements are designed to support transit passengers with limited incomes, are older adults, or have disabilities. (2) State and local transit fares. Many transit agencies and some states and regions have introduced reduced and free transit fares for children and young adults. These fare programs typically stipulate eligibility requirements by age and sometimes by time of day. For example, some transit agencies stipulate: (a) Free fares for small children (typically under 5-6 years); (b) Free or reduced fares for pre-teen, elementary/primary school children (typically in the 5-11 age range); (c) Free or reduced fares for teenagers (i.e., children 12 to18 years of age) traveling on their own; and (d) Free or reduced fares for students at public and private schools (including postsecondary schools such as vocational, technical, college, and professional institutions) with student identification cards. Considering the growing interest in family-friendly transit fares and emerging fare technologies, transit agencies and communities need information regarding which fare programs, administration strategies, funding approaches, and promotional strategies are most effective under different operating environments (e.g., agency sizes, service models, fare media sales and validation equipment, community types, rider populations, and other circumstances). Research is needed to fill this gap and enable interested communities in the United States to design, implement, and sustain family-friendly transit fares that are effective. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this research is to develop practical guidance and tools that transit agencies of all sizes and modes in the United States and their stakeholders can use to plan, implement, administer, promote, evaluate, and sustain family-friendly transit fare programs that are tailored to local and regional goals, resources, and capabilities. At a minimum, the resource should consider: (1) Current landscape and future scenarios. Summarize current fare policies and practices that may facilitate family travel by improving traveler convenience and reducing passenger costs. Assess the availability and quality of data, research, and performance measures that can be used to evaluate the impacts of family-friendly transit fares. (a) Provide examples of transit fare programs, policies, and technologies designed to be family friendly in the United States and internationally. How do these fare programs define family relationships, caregivers, dependents, and eligible household members? (b) What are potential goals and anticipated benefits of family-friendly transit fares? (c) What are important criteria and factors that affect the design, administration, and funding of family-friendly transit fare programs? (d) What data on travel (including travel on transit) by family groups and young people may be needed by transit agencies to estimate the potential market for and impacts of family-friendly fares? (2) Administration. Identify and examine criteria, methods, and technologies that may be used to effectively administer family-friendly transit fare programs. Address how transit fare program administration may be structured in different communities (e.g., communities with one transit agency that operates one transit mode; one transit agency that operates multiple transit modes; and more than one transit agency, where seamless travel among transit agencies and their different modes is important). This includes at a minimum: (a) Potential fare policies and strategies. These include fare policies that eliminate transfer costs, open payments, pass back policies that allow multiple people to pay with one fare media, and fare-capping which limits the amount a rider pays during a given time period (e.g., day, week or month) and precludes the need to incur the full cost of a fare pass in advance. (b) Eligibility and enforcement. How can transit agencies ensure that eligibility criteria for family-friendly fares include parents, legal guardians, caregivers, foster parents, and other adults who serve as primary caregivers? What methods can be used by transit passengers to prove their eligibility? What methods can be used to establish and verify eligibility while minimizing administrative burden and protecting passenger privacy? What enforcement methods may be used by transit agencies so that only eligible riders receive the benefits of family-friendly fares? (c) Fare payment media and technology. How do different fare payment media and technologies create opportunities and barriers for different types of family-friendly transit fare programs? How will they potentially affect transit agency operations? (3) Cost and Funding. Identify and describe (a) the direct and indirect costs of implementing and operating family-friendly transit fares; (b) potential funding sources and funding strategies that may offset these costs, and the revenue impacts associated with free or reduced fares; and (c) examples of funding sources for children such as schools, special districts, employers, and special events. (4) Communication and promotion. Identify and describe communication and outreach strategies to help transit agencies (a) increase awareness and communicate benefits of family-friendly transit fares and (b) increase transit ridership by people eligible for these fares. (5) Outcomes. Provide criteria and methods to evaluate the impacts of family-friendly transit fares including, but not limited to, (a) transit ridership, travel behavior impacts and customer satisfaction, (b) cost and financial implications for transit agencies, (c) economic, social, community, and family benefits, and (d) other intended and unintended consequences. (6) Barriers and mitigation strategies. Identify potential institutional, financial, technological, operational, legal, and policy barriers that may affect the successful implementation and long-term sustainability of family-friendly transit fare programs, and recommend strategies to address them. RESEARCH PLAN: TCRP is seeking proposers’ insights on how best to achieve the research objective. Proposers are expected to describe research plans that can realistically be accomplished within the constraints of available funds and subaward time. Proposals must present the proposers' current thinking in sufficient detail to demonstrate their understanding of the issues and the soundness of their approach to meeting the research objectives. Task descriptions are intended to provide a framework for conducting the research. The research plan will describe appropriate deliverables that include the following (which also represent key project milestones): (1) An amplified research plan that responds to comments provided by the project panel at the subawardee selection meeting. (2) An interim report and panel meeting. The interim report should include the analyses and results of completed tasks, a plan for the remaining tasks, and a detailed outline of the final research product(s). The panel meeting may be in-person or virtual (e.g., Teams ) and will take place after the panel reviews the interim report. The interim report should be submitted and the panel meeting should occur after the expenditure of 40 to 50 percent of the project budget. (3) Final deliverables should provide practical guidance and tools that transit agencies and stakeholders can use to develop, administer, promote, and evaluate family-friendly transit fares that are tailored to local and regional goals, resources, and capabilities, supplemented by a conduct of research report that documents the research process. (4) A technical memorandum titled “Implementation of Research Findings and Products”. (5) A slide deck that presents the research findings and conclusions that may be used in webinars. Note: The research plan may include additional deliverables and additional panel meetings via teleconferences. Note: The research plan shall include a schedule for completion of the research that includes 1 month for panel review of the interim report and 3 months for panel review and research team's revision of the final research product(s). IMPORTANT: (1) The brochure Information and Instructions for Preparing Proposals for the Transportation Research Board’s Cooperative Research Programs includes extensive guidance on the preparation of acceptable proposals for submission to CRP. Revisions to these instructions are highlighted in yellow within that document. (2) Proposals will be rejected if any of the proposed research team members work for organizations represented on the project panel. The panel roster for this project can be found at https://www.mytrb.org/OnlineDirectory/Committee/Details/7442. Proposers may not contact panel members directly; this roster is provided solely for the purpose of avoiding potential conflicts of interest. (3) The text of the final deliverable is expected to be publication ready when it is submitted. It is strongly recommended that the research team include the expertise of a technical editor as early in the project timeline as possible. See Appendix F of the Procedural Manual for Subawardees Conducting Research in the Transportation Research Board’s Cooperative Research Program for technical editing standards expected in final deliverables. (4) The required technical memorandum titled “Implementation of Research Findings and Products” should (a) provide recommendations on how to best put the research findings/products into practice; (b) identify possible institutions that might take leadership in applying the research findings/products; (c) identify issues affecting potential implementation of the findings/products and recommend possible actions to address these issues; and (d) recommend methods of identifying and measuring the impacts associated with implementation of the findings/products. Implementation of these recommendations is not part of the research project and, if warranted, details of these actions will be developed and implemented in future efforts. (5) The National Academies have an ethical and legal obligation to provide proper attribution whenever material from other sources is included in its reports, online postings, and other publications and products. TRB will review all Cooperative Research Programs draft final deliverables using the software iThenticate for potential plagiarism. If plagiarized text appears in the draft final deliverable, the research team will be required to make revisions and the opportunity to submit future proposals may be affected. Proposals must be uploaded via this link: https://www.dropbox.com/request/qslzl6c44uufk55now6o Proposals are due not later than 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time on 8/20/2026. This is a firm deadline, and extensions are not granted. In order to be considered for award, the agency's proposal must be in our offices not later than the deadline shown, or the proposal will be rejected. General Notes: (1) Regarding non-discrimination practices and policies, proposers are required to comply with applicable federal and state laws and regulations (including without limitation, federal civil rights laws, regulations, and requirements) and follow applicable federal guidance, except as the Federal Government determines otherwise in writing. Without limitation of the foregoing, proposers agree to prohibit discrimination as prescribed by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. (2) The essential features required in a proposal for research are detailed in the current brochure entitled "Information and Instructions for Preparing Proposals". Proposals must be prepared according to this document, and attention is directed specifically to Section IV for mandatory requirements. Proposals that do not conform with these requirements will be rejected. (3) The total funds available are made known in the project statement, and line items of the budget are examined to determine the reasonableness of the allocation of funds to the various tasks. If the proposed total cost exceeds the funds available, the proposal is rejected. (4) All proposals become the property of the Transportation Research Board. Final disposition will be made according to the policies thereof, including the right to reject all proposals. (5) Potential proposers should understand that follow-on activities for this project may be carried out through either a contract amendment modifying the scope of work with additional time and funds, or through a new contract (via sole source, full, or restrictive competition).

• Record URL:
  • http://apps.trb.org/cmsfeed/TRBNetProjectDisplay.asp?ProjectID=5999
• Supplemental Notes:
  • Contract to a Performing Organization has not yet been awarded. RFP Close Date: 8/20/2026. Contract Time: 20 months (includes 1 month for TCRP review and approval of the interim report and 3 months for TCRP review and for research team’s revision of the final report).

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Proposed
• Funding: $200,000.00
• Contract Numbers:

  Project A-57

• 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: 20261201
• Expected Completion Date: 0
• Actual Completion Date: 0

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Families; Fares; Feasibility analysis; Public transit
• Subject Areas: Finance; Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01973733
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Transportation Research Board
• Contract Numbers: Project A-57
• Files: TRB, RIP
• Created Date: Dec 8 2025 8:00PM