Comment by cloudbonsai
7 days ago
I think one solution is to embed a self-adjusting feedback mechanism into the transit fee.
- If the rush hour contines to get more crowded, the transit fee would raise until people avoid commuting on peak hours.
- If the rush hour disappears, the extra premium fee would fall to zero.
It is not unrealistic as it sounds; JR East (the biggest railway operator in Japan) recently introduced "Off-peak Commuter Pass", which is 1) 15% cheaper than a normal pass 2) and cannot be used between 7:30 - 9:00 AM.
So they are beginning to implement a dynamic policy based on how crowded their trains are.
I don't think that public transportation should strive to price out people of lesser means to fix demand vs supply problems. That's what Uber is for.
Of course it's fine to give people an incentive to ride outside of peak hours if they can, but demand is not that elastic, because of daily rhythms and how interconnected they are. Raising prices until you have removed the last option a lot of people have to get around, just so that others can enjoy their ride more, will remove a lot of opportunities from the economy.
I'd also be interested to know if the slack introduced by people moving their travel to off-peak times is not immediately taken up by others again, in the way that widening a congested road often just allows more cars to be congested at the same time. (Edit: Which can still be a good thing, especially for public transportation, because I'd argue that giving more utility to more people is its mission.)
I mean Japan is a obvious extreme what with the subway pushers and all.
Commuting times used to be rigid until COVID and the resulting WFH and hybrid policies showed corporate the world would not burn down if some people showed up at 800 vs 830 vs 930 vs 1000. Being in at 9am sharp it turns out is not a hard requirement for many jobs.