Protection of disadvantaged groups

Fares policy can also be used to further societal objectives, such as protection of disadvantaged groups including the poor, elderly and those with impaired mobility. This can take the form either of concessionary fares for the targeted group, or the authorization of their free travel. In many cases, students are also included in the concessions on the basis of their lack of income.

Where provision is made for concessionary travel, considerable care needs to be taken with regard to limiting the authorization only to those targeted and then in ensuring their proper identification so that this is not open to abuse. In most cases the value of the concession is sufficient to attract fraudulent attacks on the system, and some of these may prove hard to detect.

Free-travel concessions are likely to result in high levels of additional travel demand, and these can strain the capacity of the urban transport system and place a significant burden on both its operating and investment costs. Under these circumstances, one effective practice is to limit the concession to off-peak hours when there tends to be surplus operating capacity and the cost impacts are low in consequence.

Clearly the revenue losses for the urban transport system arising from these concessions must be recovered in some manner. Ideally this should be in the form of direct payments from the body authorizing the concession, but this is rarely made. A less satisfactory but more common practice is for the shortfall to be recovered from higher fares charged on those not covered.