- Traffic congestion may be reduced;at the same time higher investments are required for increasing the fleet.
- Air pollution is more from public transport in India.
- Overall fuel consumption may marginally be reduced for people may not like to travel in free transport for want of amenities and privacy;possibly private vehicular traffic might increase.
- Where is the justification for taxing people who have private vehicles in the form of parking space fees,road up gradation etc as they are already paying road taxes?
- Cars are also seen as status symbols as well;people who use them shall continue using them and more people would go in for purchasing vehicles.
- Human Nature being what it is, people would like to stamp their individuality in owning cars.You can not quantify human nature and reduce it to mere numbers by imagining to follow ‘greatest good for the greatest numbers’
- Sections of the society shall resent this as this move amounts to penalizing those who have succeeded economically.
- Problem is free sops for election/ vote banks.We have already created a section that does not want to work because of sops.Do we want to be a nation of sloths and useless people who can produce nothing but live off a section of the society who have worked hard and become successful?
- By the same logic shall we offer everything free where losses are insurmountable because of avaricious politicians and bad planning and administration?
- Comparing small cities with hard-working people with our people is a basic fallacy.
Story:
Can Metropolitan Transport Corporation buses be made completely free for everyone to use? The idea might sound utopian, but experts point out that there is sound logic behind offering free public transit.
In light of Transport Minister K.N.Nehru’s announcement in the Assembly recently that the State Transport undertakings are set to incur a loss of Rs.1,000 crore this fiscal, the focus has shifted to defining this ‘loss.’
The Minister was essentially referring to the cash loss that is likely to be incurred, a little over one-third of which is due to the implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations, and the rest due to operational loss. Are there any grounds on which this cash loss can be translated into social profit?
Since the benefits of public transit are broader than are apparent with strict financial book-keeping, is there a rationale for universal free public transport?
Can Metropolitan Transport Corporation buses be made completely free for everyone to use? The idea might sound utopian, but experts point out that there is sound logic behind offering free public transit.
In fact, a number of mid-sized towns and cities across the world already have free public bus, train, or tram systems. The city of Hasselt in Belgium, for example, converted its entire bus networks to zero fare in 1997. Public transport ridership increased by as much as 13 times by 2006, according to a study done by the Belgian government.
Even while making the bus services free, the authorities through a combination of measures have made personalised transport expensive. This includes earmarking certain areas where entry of personal vehicles is by a fee and levy of a green tax.
The free bus service results in various benefits for the residents such as better air quality, lesser congestion and reduction in fuel consumption, a significant shift to public transit, fewer traffic accidents and increased access to work places for the poor.
According to an annual survey of air quality conducted by Simple Interactive Models for better air quality (SIM-air), an NGO based in New Delhi, the health cost of polluted air in Delhi in 2009 was Rs.2,450 crore.
http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Chennai/article1122086.ece
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