RTD Releases report on outcome of Zero Fare month

Regional Transportation District (RTD) customers didn't have to pay to ride buses and trains for the month of August as part of the Zero Fare for Better Air initiative.

The initiative was part of the Colorado's Ozone Season Free Transit Grant Program, in which many transit organizations throughout Colorado participated. RTD spent $10.3 million on the effort and will be reimbursed for 80% of that cost by the State. This is detailed in RTD's official report to the Colorado Energy Office that was released on Nov. 30.

The report states that ridership increased by 22% from July 2022 to August 2022. The report did not draw conclusions on the program's success based on the one-month pilot project because a number of factors affect changes in ridership.

One of the underlying factors resulting in an increase in ridership is that the community is recovering from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis did not attempt to remove this underlying trend.

The RTD Board of Directors briefing document from the October 2022 meeting provides a graph of ridership for the year. The graph clearly shows that there is an expected increase in ridership from month to month, even without free fares.

Precise ridership numbers were obtained by Colorado Public Radio through a Colorado Open Records Act request and were published. An analysis of those numbers, taking into account the underlying pandemic recovery trend, results in about a 12% increase in ridership over the increase that would have taken place without the Zero Fare program.

Other trends that might have increased ridership without the incentive of Zero Fare are students returning to school, mid-August schedule changes to increase service hours, sporting events and concerts. The report states that much of the increase in ridership was sustained into September even with the resumption of normal fare collection.

The primary cost of this pilot project was $9.2 million in lost fare revenue. Additional costs were $188,231 for marketing and $100,000 to generate the report.

Operationally, there was little impact from the increase in ridership. Only three bus trips in the entire RTD system were over 100% capacity during August 2022. This is compared to 23 bus trips over capacity in August 2019, before the pandemic. There was no impact on the on-time performance of bus trips.

One service area that significantly changed was paratransit trips, for people who are unable to make use of regular buses and trains. Those trips were also provided at no cost. The pilot project revealed the pent-up demand for these services from people who need the service but cannot afford it.

Lynn Gussinger, the RTD Board Director representing most of Niwot, said, "The large increase in use of paratransit services was exciting. I look forward to continued success in repeating the initiative in 2023."

The report concludes with a number of recommendations for future Zero Fare programs. One recommendation is better communication with the public regarding the existence of the program as some riders were unaware that they did not have to pay when they boarded their buses and trains. The report also recommends better planning for parts of the system that would experience higher demand than others during a Zero Fare period.

Finally, there was no effort to gauge the impact the project had on metro area air quality, even though that is the primary driver of the effort to get more drivers off the road and into buses.