Review of Time-Based Public Transport Fare Pricing

Urban public transport (PT) system especially urban passenger rail is very capital intensive and can take decades to build and expand. Once implemented, urban rail is relatively inflexible in terms of capacity expansion or route adjustment. With rapidly growing peak hour travel demand, more and more cities are experiencing congestion on urban rail and are increasingly relying on time-based fare pricing strategies to spread the travel demand - as an interim measure while they enhance their PT carrying capacity and a means to manage peak hour ridership growth in the longer term. This paper reviews the two extremes of time-based PT fare pricing strategies – peak pricing and fare-free services – and the lessons that can be learnt from the cities that have implemented them.