POLL: Incentive fares to further encourage 'out of core peak' travel

[ozbob]

More services all modes before and after the core peak periods is a given.  

[Golliwog]

I would prefer then to just upgrade the frequency to spread the peaks. Although I do see a benefit of having an off-peak in the morning before the morning peak as many just don't want to get up so early but a financial incentive would help.

[Jonno]

I would prefer then to just upgrade the frequency to spread the peaks. Although I do see a benefit of having an off-peak in the morning before the morning peak as many just don't want to get up so early but a financial incentive would help.

Agree

[somebody]

Priority is better services.  As someone said, we need to focus on services rather than fares.  Although I do agree with the idea of a higher off peak discount.

[#Metro]

I voted no. I don't think it would do much as boosting services.
And you might be able to get away with charging the low discount AND increase off peak patronage.
Certainly, all the increases on BUZ happened without having to coax them with bigger discounts.

I think the reason why price isn't such a big influence is that we are ignoring total cost: the value of time a person spends waiting at the bus stop.
This doesn't appear printed on the ticket price, but it matters.

If a person spends 30 minutes waiting at the bus stop or train station, how much is that in monetary terms? $10 perhaps? If the cost of a ticket is, I don't know, $5 and the discount for the off peak is 30%, then that is 0.3 x $5 = $1.50 which is 1.50/ ($10 + $5) X 100 = 10% of the cost, a minuscule amount compared to the bulk of the cost which is waiting time.

If TransLink wants to get business, it needs to provide a product that customers are willing to pay for.
Discounts for rotten apple services is a poor ridership growth strategy. Much better to charge full price for and only offer top quality.