Sorry I haven’t posted in over a month. I’ve been busy with work, family, vacation, and stuff. Here’s a Dispatch article that caught my eye and gave me an idea. Let me know what you think.
COTA upgrade: No more free bus rides for OSU alumni
By Robert Vitale
The Columbus Dispatch Monday September 19, 2011 4:42 AMOne of the perks of an Ohio State University diploma — free bus rides as long as the driver doesn’t notice that your student ID has expired — is coming to an end.
Technology upgrades by Ohio State and the Central Ohio Transit Authority mean students will have to swipe their BuckID at the fare box as they board COTA buses.
COTA isn’t imposing the requirement as a reaction to freeloading former students, spokeswoman Beth Berkemer said. “That’s just such a minute amount.”
The reason, she said, is that “when we created this contract, there was an understanding we both would make an investment to upgrade our systems.”
…OSU students have logged more than 1.7 million rides on COTA buses over the past year, and students have paid more than $1.6 million for the service. That comes out to about 94 cents per ride, compared with COTA’s one-way fare of $1.75.
What interested me most about this article was the data in the last paragraph. Students as a whole paid $1.6 million for COTA service and rode 1.7 million times for an average fare of $0.94 cents. This is substantially less than the one-way local fare of $1.75 as the Dispatch noted, but it’s much higher than the average price per trip for the COTA system as a whole.
In 2009, COTA took in $13,817,908 in fare revenues and served 17,446,736 trips, for an average fare collected per trip of $0.79. The reason the price per trip is so much lower than one-way fares is due to several factors. First is transfers, which count as an “unlinked trip,” but are free between local routes and $0.75 to transfer from a local to express. Monthly, weekly, and one-day passes can also offer riders a deep discount and reduce the cost per ride. If you have a monthly local pass for $55 and ride every day to and from work (roughly 42 trips per month on average), then you only spend $1.31 per trip instead of $1.75. Lastly, some riders such as seniors, children, and those with disabilities qualify for reduced fares.
There’s no doubt that some students utilize COTA much more than others, so some will get a great deal while others pay a nominal fee with little benefit. On the whole, the OSU-COTA partnership look like a great deal for COTA by increasing their revenue and ridership. Even the students who don’t ride COTA often though are probably not too upset about spending $27 a year (if attending for three quarters) for unlimited transit. It’s negligible in comparison to all the other costs associated with tuition, room, board, and fees. It’s a hell of a lot less than a parking pass.
This makes me wonder if implementing a similar system on a city-wide or sub-regional level would be a huge win-win. Why not get rid of fares (or maybe just most fares) and add a small fee to every household’s property tax bill? The 2005-2009 American Community Survey showed 453,580 households in Franklin County. Again, the annual fare revenue collected by COTA was $13,817,908. To balance the current revenue, those households would need to pay $30.46 per year on average. The fee could be weighted based on the level of service in a community (it’s not really fair for someone in Canal Winchester or New Albany to pay the same fee as someone in Downtown). Regardless though, I think the fees would be pretty small compared to a typical property tax bill of several thousand dollars. They might even be small compared to the cost of a monthly pass ($55). But now everyone can ride the bus as much as they want without the hassle of buying tickets, monthly passes, or having exact change. Just get on and get off, which is exactly how CABS works at OSU. I think ridership would increase quite a bit just due to the simplicity of the system and the cheaper cost of riding.
An additional benefit would be faster service due to the lack of dwell time at stops. There would be no more waiting for people to drop change into the machine, no more lines at the door waiting to board. Just get on and sit down. Lastly, I think this could be a more stable source of revenue for COTA, but there could be issues in making sure it’s easy to raise revenue as necessary.
In summary, COTA wins with higher ridership and lower costs (due to the smaller dwell times and less fare collection costs), transit riders win with cheaper and faster service, and non-transit riders win because the higher ridership would reduce congestion. I’m sure many non-transit riders will say that COTA service isn’t worth even $30 a year to them, but I think a system like this has serious merits that should be discussed.
I never use COTA because I don’t have exact change. I don’t carry cash. Ever. If they would simply implement a Chicago-style, pay-as-you-go, near field communication (NFC) card, I would be MUCH more willing to take the bus.
I live downtown, and I drive everywhere. I wish COTA would get with the times and start a NFC card program.
CTA is actually phasing out the Chicago Cards in favor of contactless credit cards. I suggested that idea several years ago too.
Contactless credit cards, phones or fare cards, whatever. They need to do something. Anything.
It’s just ridiculous that they only take exact cash.
I think contactless credit cards with NFC are going to boom pretty soon in the states, once the phone companies implement that tech into their devices, which I think is coming within the next couple of years to the States.
Also, the phaseout of the CTA fare cards article was from two years ago. They’re still using it. Maybe it’ll be around until they make the switch to accepting NFC credit cards.
CTA did have a request for proposals this year to implement the system, but I don’t know the current status. Regardless, I totally agree with you. Some kind of improvement in the fare payment system is long past due.
There’s a slowly, but surely growing presence of downtown young professionals, many of which are ready and willing to start using COTA daily to get to the Short North, German Village, Arena District or beyond and would love nothing more than to just take COTA to get there.
It’s just beyond me that COTA isn’t trying to take advantage of an influx of new, near-downtown residents, who can potentially be a new market for the company.
I think their best, long-term bet would be to introduce a Marshrutka system, like the one I took in Moscow. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshrutka).
Those things are simply amazing.
COTA isn’t moving fast enough or smart enough to keep Columbus competitive. I’m going to continue to look for jobs in the New York and Chicago areas unless they can help me live without a car in Columbus.
Speaking of which…
http://www.google.com/wallet/
Steve S – I agree that COTA could be more technologically advanced, and that such an improvement like credit card readers would make using the system more pleasurable. With that being said, anyone who actually wanted their transit system to improve (and that simultaneously speaks for the “growing presence” of downtown residents of the demographic you mentioned) should make their statement with the action of riding the bus. Instead of being too bothered to carry $4 in your pocket on the occasion.
Actions speak louder than blog comments.
Of course, you are expressing yourself through the market, through inaction. But the message that COTA gets is apathy, not the concern you actually have for the system. This translates to Central Ohio being a place where people like you won’t ride the bus, as opposed to your message of “I might ride the bus if there are capital infrastructure improvements to the system.”
The only reason whatsoever for me to carry cash is to use COTA. I’m not going to go to the ATM and find someone to give me change just so I ride the bus. (Even the vending machines at work, and the parking meters downtown take credit card).
This is the exact attitude that COTA employs. Throw capital investment in infrastructure away, and let those that only NEED to use the bus find a way to use it. Forget about all of the extra revenue we can create by capturing every possible market available.
It’s more than just some minor inconvenience. It’s a major structural flaw.
I’m well travelled, and I’m not some lazy idiot that is complaining about COTAs operational flaws just to complain. I’m complaining for the sake of Columbus. It’s these complaints, even if they are on a blog, that need to be heard or we’re never going to get anywhere, as has been the case with COTA for the last twenty years.
And I’m not sure why you took so much offense to my comment? If it’s a cash v. Card thing, you should know that a majority of transactions are completed with cards in the States today, and have been for a while.
Steve:
I re-read my post and it came off as antagonistic, which I apologize for. Not my intention, but I don’t blame you for reading it that way.
This is a Chicken vs. Egg problem. On the one hand, COTA lags behind on card-readers, and putting them in would improve the experience of taking COTA. On the other hand though, their ridership numbers do not compare well with other comparable cities. I’m not well-enough read on this issue to offer anything but an my intuition here, but it seems like demand is the thing that is going to propel the agency to institute something like such meters. I can’t begin to guess how much it would cost to do a system-wide retrofit to get at the changes you mention, but it must be a whole heck of a lot. Especially in these times.
With that being said, I think that ridership will have to precede gadgetry on busses that make transactions paperless. There is the option to buy a month-pass with a credit card at Giant Eagle.
As an aside, it’s completely irregular to walk into a pizza shop in Columbus and see a cash-only sign. In New York City or Pittsburgh though, having to make cash-transactions is just a fact of life, which makes this less of a problem in such places.
Ellis,
You’re right. Ridership will have to precede a switch in payments method. I guess my point was that it would help things move more smoothly for COTA if they updated certain aspects of their operations management (i.e. the NFC cards/phones, et al).
Unfortunately, none of this is happening fast enough, and as I stated in a previous comment, I (as two of my siblings before me) will be leaving Columbus (my hometown for the vast majority of my life) for cities that already have bearable mass transit systems in place. This of course is not the only reason I’m leaving, but it a MAJOR factor. I desire to live in a city where I can live, work, play without the necessity of a car.
I lived in Moscow for a short while and cash (as in New York and Pittsburgh) is the predominant payment method. I just yearn for a Tokyo-style, NFC mobile phone payment system.
I like the original idea. As for the contact-less pay (like tap and go), these systems will become more widespread in the US soon. They probably aren’t in the plans for COTA anytime soon though. One advantage other regions have is that going to an integrated system for all their transit systems increases ridership, makes transfers between systems easier. BUT here we only have 1 system, COTA. I’m not counting OSU since OSU does not charge per ride.
Also, while monthly passes start at $55, they can be cheaper if your work subsidizes it. There is a tax credit for the employer, so some offer it.
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