If you were to put money on a common trait amongst all metropolitans in the world, then it has to be congestion. There are many enablers which give birth to jam-packed roads, mostly pivoting towards poor planning by governing authorities and people pouring in to better their lives. As a countermeasure, cities such as Tallinn (Estonia’s Capital) have experimented with the idea of abolishing fares for public transport altogether. Reason? It would encourage commuters to ditch their vehicles and use trains, trams and buses instead.

Now, we’ve got a country that has implemented the same. The wealthy nation of Luxembourg has scraped travelling tariffs for all public transportation services. That means people using any of them would save at least 440 euros (~Rs 35,000) per annum. Before you wonder, that’s the cost of an annual pass for general/standard class. Those who want to commute using first-class services will still have to shell out 660 euros (~Rs 53,000) a year for a pass.

Try and find Luxembourg on a map and you’ll see that it is a small country in size. Also, it has just over 600,000 residents. To put that into perspective, the Dwarka district in New Delhi is home to nearly twice the number of inhabitants. In other words, the population isn’t a problem for Luxembourg. The primary area of concern is the number of people who travel to work every day from neighbouring countries. From Germany, Belgium and France, an estimated 214,000 commuters use Luxembourg’s road network. Apart from congestion, that influx of travellers also gives rise to another problem – more than half of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions come from transport.

Not charging for public transportation services is a temporary solution. For the long haul, Luxembourg plans to invest 3.9 billion euros (between 2018-2028) in strengthening its railway grid, upgrading the bus network and plant more park-and-ride sites on the border. Despite those initiatives, the country’s government expects 65 per cent of commuters to still travel by their car in 2025. In 2017, that figure was at 73 per cent.

Implementing such an initiative country-wide isn’t possible for every nation. However, enforcing it in congested cities should work well. What do you think?

Source: Reuters