No free rides: winners and losers of the TTC U-pass

Alex Butler

doi:10.32920/ryerson.14663544

Abstract

<p>This paper explores the financial gains and losses for students from the U-Pass scheduled to be implemented by the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) at universities in Toronto, Ontario in fall 2019. The U-Pass offers students unlimited travel on the TTC for $70 per month, but students are unable to opt-out. Toronto already has high existing student transit ridership and fares that are not integrated across municipal boundaries, setting a context in which U-Pass impacts different students in different ways. This study uses data from the 2015 StudentMoveTO survey to determine the financial losses and gains from students across different campuses, commute modes, and geographies. Students that benefit live within the City of Toronto and use TTC to get to school, while those expected to experience welfare losses either live outside of Toronto or live close enough to their campus to walk or bike to school.</p>

Highlights

Students make up a significant portion of the traveling public (Khattak et al, 2011) and are a large source of ridership and revenue for transit operators
This paper focuses on each of these elements by evaluating the recently approved Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) U-Pass program in Toronto, Ontario, which will be implemented in fall 2019
Commute Mode When examining the results by typical fall commuting mode, we find that most students that use local transit to get to school and a smaller portion of regional transit users would stand to benefit

Summary

Introduction

Students make up a significant portion of the traveling public (Khattak et al, 2011) and are a large source of ridership and revenue for transit operators. U-Passes offer unlimited transit use for college and university students and are often funded through fees collected from all students, regardless of actual transit use. They are a popular and effective solution to encourage and facilitate the use of public transit throughout the United States and Canada, their funding has broader implications. While a low-cost U-Pass program with high ridership may yield significant benefits for students, a high-cost program with low ridership may offer a large and stable revenue stream to transit operators at the expense of students.

Objectives

Results

Conclusion