It's interesting to realize that the entire purpose of the fare is to keep people off the bus, since fares account for only 3% of CapMetro's revenue. I've read that in 1989 CapMetro tried making the bus free, but it was flooded with undesirable people.
Oh, I see where I got confused. If you check out this budget, it seems that passenger fares are about 3% and "third-party" fares (like UT or major employers paying for bus passes) is 7%. So that's where the 3% vs 10% discrepancy comes from.
Still, that seems kind of odd, because it means that the bus wouldn't be profitable from fares alone until it charged roughly 10 times what it is charging now, which makes it $5 per ride, or $10 if you want a day pass. That's still less than a taxi, but not a whole lot. I was under the impression that the bus was a little bit more efficient than that.
Well, private cars and taxis are also not "profitable by fares alone" in the sense that they use tax-supported infrastructure in the form of roads.
A private bus company could probably be much more efficient, by concentrating service only on corridors that make a profit. But making a profit and being efficient are presumably not the goals of a public bus system. The goal is to make sure that everybody has transportation options.
This is quite reasonable. On average, an Austin bus doesn't have that many people riding it. And it chugs, what, a gallon every 2-3 miles? Plus maintenance, plus driver and staff wages, plus facilities upkeep - that stuff adds up.
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A private bus company could probably be much more efficient, by concentrating service only on corridors that make a profit. But making a profit and being efficient are presumably not the goals of a public bus system. The goal is to make sure that everybody has transportation options.
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