Comment by dxdm

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.)