Thread

Why should I have to pay more for buses if I don't use a smartphone?

65 points · 89 comments · DamonHD

bell-cot · 1791016958 · focus · HN ↗
Because the transit authority has to work at taking your fare. Vs. the easy route of trusting a cheap & convenient app ecosystem (helpfully run by SpyCo, CreepTech, and DataHarvest Ltd.) do all the hard bits. While the authority basks in feeling cool and trendy. Plus, smartphone fare fraud looks really complicated (vs. counterfeit metal tokens or whatever) - so the authority feels no pressure to do anything about it.
Less cynically, a good national policy might be to treat all "excess" revenues collected by organizations providing better deals to those passing various wealth/class/fluency tests ("has bank account", "has smart phone", etc.) as "poor taxes". Which are totally legal...but must be accounted for in excruciating detail, and every last farthing turned over to the greedy nitpickers staffing the Poor Tax Dept. of His Majesty's Revenue Authority. Every month, no excuses. So, to avoid that monthly misery for their so-privileged selves, the managers at every org with the paper power to collect poor taxes work hard to make sure that they are not doing so.
1. simoncion · 1791021317 · focus · HN ↗
  > Because the transit authority has to work at taking your fare.
  Then why did they remove the option that has them "work[ing] at taking your fare" once per month and leave in the one that has them doing that four times per month?
  Hell, one can pay cash on the bus itself for a ticket to ride the bus. If cash-handling were the motivation, that'd be the first to go... the author of TFA mentions "First's weekly bus pass" and that they're in Scotland. This leads me to a company called "FirstGroup", which operates "First Bus" and "First Train". First Bus has this to say [0][1] about acquiring tickets on a bus:
  With a wide range available, including weekly and monthly tickets, there’s no need to have the right change as you can make your purchase in advance. ... Contactless payments, Apple pay, Google pay and cash are accepted on our buses.
  Again, if it's actually about the work of taking the fare, you'd expect the fares that are the most work to gather to be the ones to move to "Payment via Google Android or Apple iOS only" fares.
  [0] <<a href="https://www.firstbus.co.uk/buy-tickets/buy-ticket" rel="nofollow">https://www.firstbus.co.uk/buy-tickets/buy-ticket>
  [1] You might note that First Bus says it operates in England and Ireland but makes no mention of Scotland. IDK why that is, but this Scottish tourism website [2] links straight to First Bus's website to answer the question "Where can I find accessible bus and coach travel in Scotland?", so I believe the omission of a mention of Scotland to be an oversight.
  [2] <<a href="https://www.visitscotland.com/travel-planning/bus-coach" rel="nofollow">https://www.visitscotland.com/travel-planning/bus-coach>
  1. snottynose · 1791036492 · focus · HN ↗
    I wonder how the costs of "working at taking your fare" measure up to just eliminate that work, and accept that people ride public transport for free and is paid from public funds, as they have decided in Luxembourg (where there is ample tax revenue) and Belgrade (where people have historically refused to pay, then the city made it official policy).
    Do not discount the many benefits, which might be difficult to quantify!
    simoncion · 1791097969 · focus · HN ↗
    > ...and Belgrade (where people have historically refused to pay, then the city made it official policy).
    That sounds like a great story.
    > Do not discount the many benefits, which might be difficult to quantify!
    Yep! Anyone who thinks that a public transit company should make a monetary profit from rider fares is completely wrong. Public transit and public roads exist to facilitate happy lives as well as economic activity. If those things aren't included in your "are we making a profit?" analysis, then your analysis is just fucking wrong.
    Every now and again, folks talk about making San Francisco's city transit system (MUNI) free of charge. The most frequent argument against that that I've heard is "but then the homeless will use the vehicles as mobile homeless shelters!"... which, like, there are ways to fix that, if you think it's a thing that needs fixing. As far as I know, MUNI has always required subsidies to operate, which -IMO- is how public transit should be run.

Open on Hacker News to reply ↗

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.