EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is an excerpt from “Better Buses, Better Cities: How to Plan, Run, and Win the Fight for Effective Transit,” by Steven Higashide, published by Island Press. In it, Higashide presents real-world stories of reform to urban bus systems, shows how to marshal the public in support of better buses, and how new technologies can keep buses on time and make complex transit systems understandable. In this excerpt, Higashide explains how reforming fare-payment strategies can create greater equity in cities.

Bus service shapes the geography of accessibility, and this means how we plan bus service is deeply intertwined with social equity, whether we admit it or not. Transit agencies are required by federal law to analyze whether fare and service changes disproportionately harm low-income riders and riders of color, but this is often performed as a check-the-box exercise. Planning in ways that intentionally advance social equity requires a deeper commitment from transit leaders.

Because bus riders in the United States are more likely to be low income and nonwhite, some argue that advocating for better buses is, by definition, advocating for more equitable transit. But this syllogism, never wholly true, is even less so if we fail to consider questions about the affordability of transit and who feels welcome on transit.

For example, an increased police presence on buses can make some riders feel safer while discomfiting and endangering others. New fare systems can make transit more intuitive and convenient for many riders while being rolled out in ways that worsen transit access for others.

Buses provide spatial access but are also public spaces themselves. How transit agencies seek to ensure safety for bus riders, how they charge for access, and who the service feels intuitive for affects which riders feel welcome on the bus and which are excluded.

Before we go further, a note on the word equity: When I use it, I mean policies that reduce the burdens and mitigate the structural pains put on marginalized communities. I’m talking about transit policies that particularly improve access for, and reduce harm to, racial and ethnic minorities, non–English speakers, women, people with disabilities, and low-income people, whose needs are not centered in public policy. Equity is often used in other ways in the transportation policy world. Legislators often talk about “regional equity,” or whether they perceive that their jurisdiction gets the service it deserves based on how much tax it pays. But the way I use the term is increasingly common usage in urban policy.

Fair Fare Policies: Promote Capping, End Transfer Fees

More than once I’ve had to go to a convenience store to buy something in order to have exact change for bus fare. One morning in Charlotte I came out of the store just as the bus pulled out—a galling experience in a world where you can summon a taxi or unlock a bike using your smartphone.

Cash is a hassle for both bus operators and riders. Paying in cash tends to take longer than flashing a pass or tapping a card, delaying everyone. Accepting cash requires more complicated farebox equipment, especially if the fareboxes have to give change. On the (now relatively few) buses where operators themselves carry change, theft and robbery are a risk.

Transit operators have been trying to stop riders from using cash almost since the first omnibus plied its trade; in the United States, the transit token, the first fare payment technology, dates to 1831. Today’s transit agencies are upgrading fare collection systems to include smartphone ticketing apps, smartcards with accounts that can be checked and reloaded online, and “open payment” systems that will let riders use contactless bank cards or pay by tapping their phone.

All of these offer more convenience for both agencies and riders. But discussions about fare system technology often sidestep what would be more fruitful discussions about fare policy. New fare payment systems offer big opportunities to make the bus more efficient and equitable.

Transit fares often make arbitrary distinctions between riders, because of technological restrictions or historical inertia. One arbitrary policy that should disappear entirely from bus systems is charging riders to transfer between buses. Consider a grid of frequent bus lines, with a set of routes going north-south intersecting a set of routes traveling east-west. Why should a bus rider who has to go 2 miles in a diagonal line be charged more than someone who has to go 2 miles in a straight line?

And yet some agencies (such as Philadelphia’s SEPTA) maintain transfer fees, even though even a 1990s-era magnetic stripe card is sophisticated enough to encode a free transfer. This is an anachronistic kind of extortion, as if Amazon charged you a “restocking fee” for canceling your order of an online streaming video.

Another inequitable disparity in transit is that lower-income riders often end up paying more than wealthy ones because they can only afford to pay by the ride. Most transit agencies have some type of unlimited pass. An agency where a single-ride bus fare costs $2 might sell a seven-day pass for $20, meaning anyone who takes more than ten rides a week saves money by buying the pass. But the poorest riders may have trouble saving for a $20 pass and end up paying more in single fares.

Transit smartcard technology gives agencies the power to end this unfairness through “fare capping.” A system with fare capping can track how many times the holder uses transit in a week and automatically “cap” the fare at the cost of the weekly pass. Once a person has spent $20 in a week on transit, any additional rides are free. (The same principle can be applied to monthly passes.)