I see what you’re saying here, but how does someone throw away a free train ride or use too many transit trips they don’t need? I get sometimes homeless people will sometimes try to use transit as a place to sleep, but decent security and staff could easily handle that if it becomes problematic. I think the freedom of movement and environmental benefits are worth dealing with a couple of hiccups in free transit.
This is a thing in several municipalities in Europe.
Although I like this in principle, I have reservations based on the story I’m sharing below.
The story:
There was a system where women could come and get clothes for free in special women’s shelters.
However, they would just either discard clothes, as being thrash, or not good enough, or grab way more than they needed.
So the fix was to put each bit of clothing at .15 or .50€. And suddenly, people fell back to an actual value for each item.
And the interesting thing is that free things are always worthless.
To give worth to (most of) people, you have to add a price (which can be tiny).
There have been many studies about this. It’s a strange thing
I see what you’re saying here, but how does someone throw away a free train ride or use too many transit trips they don’t need? I get sometimes homeless people will sometimes try to use transit as a place to sleep, but decent security and staff could easily handle that if it becomes problematic. I think the freedom of movement and environmental benefits are worth dealing with a couple of hiccups in free transit.