United States Department of Transportation
i
Evidence on Time-of-Day Transit Pricing in the United States: Volume 1: Final Report
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1984-05-01
[PDF-9.33 MB]
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Alternative Title:Evidence on Time-of-Day Pricing in the United States
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Abstract:This report examines the evidence on time-of-day transit pricing in the U.S., particularly in terms of ridership, fiscal, and equity impacts as well as with respect to various implementation issues. Thirty-two time-of-day transit fare programs have been initiated in the U.S. since the early 1970, of which twenty-two currently exist. These are about evenly split between off-peak discounts, peak-period surcharges, and programs involving differential rates of fare increases between peak and off-peak periods. Most fare differentials have been fairly modest to date (i.e., around 10-15 cent), though there have been several cases where peak charges exceed off-peak ones by 35 cent. Regarding the duration of the designated peak period, the most common time span chosen was 6 hours. From interviews and site visits, it was also found that the most prevalent reason for adopting time-of-day pricing was to encourage ridership shifts to the off-peak. Unfortunately, however, there was little empirical evidence to suggest that time-of-day fare programs to date have accomplish just that, although in most cases the proportion of total ridership during off-peak periods rose. Statistical analysis revealed off-peak users to be more sensitive to fare changes than their peak period counterparts, with midday discount programs demonstrating the most prolific ridership impacts. Before-and-after analysis generally showed that the time-of-day fare programs had fairly inconsequential effects on farebox recovery, operating performance, or the composition of ridership, ostensibly due to the nominal size of most differentials. The most successful programs were those which collect fares on the basis of run direction (rather than exact time) and which aggressively marketed their programs.
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