Free public transport
Machinery installed within a building or shopping centre can be seen as 'zero-fare transport': elevators, escalators and moving sidewalks are often provided by property owners and funded through the sales of goods and services.
The university also funds two late night bus routes to serve the downtown free of charge with a goal of cutting down drunk driving.
Disneyland in Anaheim, California, runs a tram from its entrance, across the parking lot, and across the street to its hotel as well as the bus stop for Orange County and Los Angeles local transit buses.
In July 2017, Dubai announced it would offer free bus services for a short period of time on selected days.
[17][18] Some agencies, including the Central Ohio Transit Authority and King County Metro, offer free public transport during snow emergencies to reduce the number of vehicles on the street.
[19][20] During the COVID-19 pandemic, several agencies paused the collection of fares to alleviate concerns that the virus could be transmitted on surfaces, to keep travelers from coming into close contact with employees, or to allow rear door boarding on their vehicles.
These agencies are mostly located in smaller cities where the farebox recovery ratio is low as they could afford to implement this policy without a major hit to revenue.
Geographically, the alleviation of fares was common around urban centers like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, New York City, etc and less obvious in northwestern states.
Although some of these benefits can be achieved in other ways, such as off-vehicle ticket sales and modern types of electronic fare collection, zero-fare transport avoids equipment and personnel costs.
Employers often operate free shuttles as a benefit to their employees, or as part of a congestion mitigation agreement with a local government.
A 2002 National Center for Transportation Research report suggests that, while transit ridership does tend to increase, there are also some disadvantages:[25] This U.S. report suggests that, while ridership does increase overall, the goal of enticing drivers to take transit instead of driving is not necessarily met: because fare-free systems tend to attract a certain number of "problem riders", zero-fare systems may have the unintended effect of convincing some 'premium' riders to go back to driving their cars.
[130] In the United States, mass transit systems that collect fares are only expected to generate about 10% of the annual revenue themselves, with the remainder covered by either public or private investment and advertisements.
[113] Therefore, politicians and social-justice advocacy groups, such as the Swedish network Planka.nu, see zero-fare public transport as a low-cost, high-impact approach to reducing economic inequality.
