Should public transport be Free Luxembourg becomes the 1st country to abolish the everyone thats the solution to traffic jams and pollution but will the cost of a ticket be paid in other ways this is inside story. And i welcome to the program im nick clegg in many cities public transport is often the easiest and cheapest way to get around its more environmentally friendly because if you have petrol and diesel cars are on the road its also free if you visit luxembourg its the 1st country in the world to make public transport 0 cost for everybody but not everyone is on board thats alexi abroad or. These ticket machines in luxembourg have become obsolete everyone now gets a free ride on buses trams and trains and the richest and one of the smallest countries in the European Union many cities have taken the same route but luxembourgs government says its the 1st time an entire country has abolished fares for everyone leaders hope their initiative eases congestion reduces pollution and supports people on low incomes a transport pass used to cost nearly 500. 00 a year. On stuff all over the world we must make the same observation mobility as it is organized today is a failure there are traffic jams everywhere urban spaces no longer work people and rule areas have been neglected so we really have to change the system to system like many of the citys traffic jams a common with a population of 620000 luxembourg has the highest number of cars per person in europe congestion is made worse by the 200000 commuters who drive from neighboring belgium france and germany to work in luxembourg some say theyll now change their habits is more environmentally friendly to take public transport in my case because the buses electric at least for a certain part of the city and so that is definitely instance and to not only drive the car every day. I think luxembourg is setting an example for europe and the rest of the world by making public transport free for everyone in terms of the money that i busied and just by taking public transport it makes a lot of sense to just stop taking a bus every single day tomorrows mobility is already here lets help luxembourg move on scrapping says as part of a 15 year government plan to upgrade buses and trains build bike lanes and encourage more copple like but critics say the government has failed to invest on transport and complain about poor roads and a rundown rail system. M. The government admits it a loser around 40000000. 00 a year and ticket sales but hopes that want to rial its vision for the future. Alexey obrien for inside story. All right lets look at where else bus and tram tickets are free talent in a stone it became the 1st fat free European Capital that was back in 2013 but only if you live there good for tourists at dunkirk and northern france introduced free travel 2 years ago Bus Passenger totals have soared since then and last year indias capital new delhi announce free bus and metro phase for women at the Safety Initiative follows murders and rapes of tax on public transport and if you live in kansas city in the United StatesFree Bus Services are planned this year the 9000000. 00 annual cost is the same as collected in bus ticket revenue now. All right lets bring in our guests here in the studio with me is a release is transport correspondent for the Global Affairs and lifestyle magazine monocle in luxemburg constance cars standing by Senior Research scientist at the university of luxembourg shes also an urban geographer and in china india sagarika pond about is a founder trustee of iraq Gary Foundation which promotes road safety sustainable transport and Community Development great to see you all thanks very much indeed for joining us constance and luxemburg constance carby great to start with you on the face of it this plan sounds great doesnt it but does it back close scrutiny what do you think yes i think it does and i think. You know when as look at the specific situation of lets a regular its a small country its very much dependent on trust water labor and the infrastructure it needs to catch up to its current current Economic System so its which is quite marking at the moment and that needs to be worked on before the price but is it going to work because public transport is already incredibly cheap in luxembourg and luxembourg is pretty rich is net and youve got a lot of people who drive across the border from outside the country to work in the likes mexico. You know this is one of the issues in the driving is partly because the cross border Public Transit options are so weak and unreliable and uncomfortable and this is the least theres a lot of work that needs to be done there so the more of it the more growth pressure there is and thats a big city the more. Infrastructure is going to be required and we also have to think about the housing prices as well through many for most labor its more financial makes more Financial Sense to live in the Border Regions and look for Mobility Options from there whether theyre you know whether theyre one or 2 cars or whether theyre you know the infrastructure in public building which is rather just rather insufficient right do you think there will be an uptake in passenger numbers because petrol and diesel is also cheap in luxemburg is it and in fact you have tourists coming in petrol terraces that will have to fill up their cars for the time thats right thats right that exists now also well i cant of course one cant predict yet whats going to happen in luxembourg and there are studies being done on this but also we have to realise that there is you dont have to reinvent the wheel here in the transport geography sector thats lots of research on this and they show repeatedly that its changing bear doesnt change much in habits actually that to get people out of their car is the public transport option it needs to be. Comfortable and has to be reliable and used to be safe and also we need to start thinking about ways to make choosing the car a little less palatable than it currently is right ok will you let your lets bring in the government in the studio here at your Research Transfer systems right around the world what do you think we have there from constant change in fed does not necessarily encourage a change in practice whats your thought right i think thats thats true i mean i think you know if you make public transport free it can be a part of an overall solution but you need many more aspects and that solution in order to incentivize people to take public transport instead of getting in their car and that includes some of the things that constance mentioned having it be reliable safe punctual you know also you need to have a broader system that that takes into account that you know people people feel more comfortable in their cars in many cases in many cases even with a good public transport system like in stockholm armed. You have very good system but it takes maybe twice the amount of time to get somewhere as as it would in your car so you know you have to also penalize people who are in their cars you need to raise if you dont have a congestion charge a need to have one and you need to maybe in some cases even raise it theres theres lots of ways to do this i think in general in principle i like the idea of free public transport youve seen examples where its been successful but especially in larger cities you need to really rethink the whole fabric of urban mobility which many cities havent done thing is we call it free but theres no such thing as a free lunch is thats right yeah i mean in many cases you would have to say for example have a higher tax to pay for theres a municipal tax maybe to pay for your free public transport which you know in every city thats going to be a different situation you could maybe make the case for that and there are also potential cost savings if you if you reduce the need for controlling fares right now they have hundreds of Police Officers in new york city going after people who are evading fares and how much is the cost to have those police right for example you can speed up transit times because people dont have to pay when they get onto the bus there are other tangential benefits to consider and some of those include saving saving money actually right were going to move on to me in just a 2nd but just one final question to you wouldnt tax on fuel for cars be a better idea because then it negates that the loss of an income stream from making public transport free and youre gaining revenue from doing that to make it more expensive for people to use their calls yeah i think it could be you know depending on the situation again or you could do it in combination you know make it more expensive to use the car and lower fares for certain people or or reduce fares to 0 across the board and use the revenues from the from the cars to offset right ok lets bring in sorry. Theres other aspects to this of course not just because of congestion or because of our mental concerns delhi brought in this 0 fees system for women to improve their safety explain that for us if you would and does it work. To mark position to see is what evidence do you good to offer all to me seems yet improving there really is this 101 point as im close only one if us and 2 in a date. Come back to india that the city across florida is the one for luck we have created there is no rule it already the fuck up because it was 8 so if you see that right is happy because only just for 15 percent lets focus it out women will focus of us and to. Actually be the worlds 4th largest cause going for any of them from your being. Back. To let it all 70. 70 but if you see my in baby it is less than the national the census it did us was destroyed and it didnt get put in focus and bus and also for men traveling for things was well it is Lady Betty Ford and. See if you arent making that i think are breaking free of a Software System performance so we have seen this thing has been lost in september and in 1 month and we have seen that. The who meant participation of the month travelling in the public will test in just a few but. Then you have a sort of domain the judges will just want to jump in because i read that the former managing director of delhi metro wrote to the Prime Minister before this happened also him not to approve the idea because he felt that it would set an alarming precedent for other metro projects around the country so theres not universal support is that. Well you will not ever go man one pink thank you and you got a gun he is. Bribing bankrolled you thought it is not polite it. Is not but well like you know this is one thing if some do know it all in all i feel like being a 4 bit well. You know what. And who will say if more validity then you are a ding woman what for and that is i think we ought to keep y. So that is one thing i thought about what you and your. Yet that is giving are good of you morkie the one who cannot get woman but what is the law ok constance this question of cost and luxemburg ticket revenue amounts to 41000000 euros from public transport not deficit apparently we will not be met by the treasury but as we were discussing with gabriel if someone somewhere is dumping up the cost how is that being dealt with and in luxemburg well it will be put on the taxpayer of course. And one can of course talk about heroin tax as a means of redistributing wealth this is of course a very important mechanism in the case unless im really in a number 2 that again its a cross border situation and a lot of labor is living in the Border Regions and theyre paying taxes well and is the question of how much will they be paying taxes in addition to paying the for them ability to get to the border before they get the 3 transport option inside of the country so theres a its not this is not a magic bullet lets say right now we talked about how this is also be rolled out in can in tallinn the stone the. Passenger totals have soared in dunkirk and i think its been successful in telling to this new tell us about that a converse and what the impact on the numbers of cars on the roads has been right i think you see that in general if you if you make public transport free then ridership goes up thats. Seems to be a pretty constant especially in the smaller cities that have tried it it tends to work well in terms of raising the number of people using it but it doesnt necessarily take cars off the road in tallinn as i understand it has by some degree not a huge amount Something Like 10 percent but look if the goal is to take cars out of the city center or whatever the urban core might be then you need other policies like i mentioned its not going to be enough to just make free public transport right its all the horses for courses in that because one city is very different from the next what you can do in tallinn or in dung coke or indeed in luxembourg you can certainly do in new york or london right these larger cities obviously its a much bigger challenge you also have the fact that with smaller public transport systems made for smaller cities you know the cost of collecting fares and forcing fares can be much higher relative to what you lose so in other words. The math might make more sense for them in terms of revenue loss versus cost efficiencies gained whereas in new york thats a much more complicated situation billions of dollars a year in ticket revenue goes towards the m. T. A. So yeah its its very complex especially in large cities very difficult clearly because otherwise we would see more of them doing it in the right converse lee we have kansas where theyre offering a Free Bus Service to as a 2022 to build up a kind of culture of bus riding because of course in the fiftys the transport infrastructure public transport instruction was ripped out way for the call yes and thats true i mean especially in places like in the us where you have people have been pushed out of the car for years and now were trying to get them back into public transport you need that cultural shift to happen you need ravishing to go up obviously with lower ridership theres lower investment the bus is worse and worse as less people ride it and vice versa right so you need you need to get more people riding and i think thats great if you if you begin trialing Certain Services certain bus lines making them for getting people on its and showing that it works that people will take it and that you know you can put on more services and therefore increase the ridership right. Horses for courses sirica when we talk about india its a different ballgame again isnt it when youre dealing with a country with a population of more than a 1000000000 and cities with millions and millions of people and not a great deal of wealth around in many parts of them how do you take on tackling the transport infrastructure of the future in india so if you want to. Basically get the full face to live more and the other stuff the system is mostly before us week activity well actually well it was in each of them what the inside the stand what we. Saw if you keep it. Then media can be a problem in the holidays and times more and more public up what system in all of us is used in cities because as you know as you well i like i said you have to differ secondly if we have a fight in my as adults but who if the voters well we see that its you know that also somehow we need to hope. And the only solution is to finish it up the concourses and it probably blocking them 2nd just. Because the other see did more than that its that it might be many other many see that image and to do them made is that the sort of many you can see is that make disapproving the right not to give the right of you out of it given assistance in ghosts and it is not because if you eat beef was really gone so move off it or you can force just opportunities and the only defense insurance of fact is provided being assertive. And united will. In constant things are going to change in a big way as we move into the latter half of this century and were talking ideally about a 0 carbon world what might transport Solutions Look Like as we enter the brave new era. Well i would certainly be and i would certainly prefer indoors you know more investment in the Public Infrastructure absolutely but i want to drive im going to have to show that it works and there is that kind of a metaphor circulating and thats about right now that the public really trying to the cherry on the cake but the congress did not is that which it needs to be bait 1st and so we right now did the transport options you know are very rich and you know we were times are more investment worse yeah. We were talking about earlier before the program started and you looked at helsinki didnt you which is challenging the kind of widely accepted views of how mobility should be and kind of organizing the priorities tell us about that yeah i mean theyre finding ways to you know not only work with private companies and in the Public Infrastructure but also to sort of build you know rebuild and build new parts of the city to in order to again disincentive eyes cars theyre putting no parking on the street for example so if someone wants to build a parking garage in their building they can but their their take is that well they will probably be you know valuable enough real estate that they wont do that and so people it is especially if you have good public transport theyre making that really really important you know and theyre also trying to get people to to walk in cycle thats thats another really actually relatively low cost way to get people away from cars and to have People Living in a more you know healthy life in the public realm right so you put in cycle lanes that that can take you where a need to go you you show people that its safe to do that you know thats that can be another way to go about this and there are kind of pioneering that right and thats how the focus is as its going from walking is the priority then biking then public transport and then cargo shifting calgary around and brought to the bar of the lists cause right i mean naturally there will be you know the need to deliver goods there will be some cars around you know as we h