This report reviews the experiences of transit agencies across the country with Deep Discount fares, a new public transit pricing strategy, between 1988 and 1993. Based on new market research findings, Deep Discounting has shown that it is possible to raise transit ridership and revenues simultaneously with a combination of higher cash fares and deeply discounted tickets or tokens. Deep Discounting remains an innovative and experimental technique, which is both a fare structure and a marketing program. It has gained rapid acceptance in the transit industry, having been applied in more than 20 large, medium and small cities since 1987. This report presents an overview of the Deep Discount concept, reviews its market research basis, documents the experience of 17 cities in implementing the strategy, provides cross-cutting findings on the market segments that appear to have responded best to Deep Discounting, and makes recommendations for optimizing the benefits of implementing the program. Most, but not all, Deep Discounting experiences have been positive. Although the pitfalls of Deep Discounting are not yet fully understood, the transit industry has found the Deep Discount idea an appealing alternative to conventional fare plans. More formal evaluations of the concept are warranted.
This report evaluates the success of a fare pricing strategy known as deep discounting, that entails the bulk sale of transit tickets or tokens to cus...
This report describes the evaluation results of the Atlanta Integrated Fare Collection Demonstration. One of the main purposes of the demonstration, w...
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