The Hidden Costs of Removing the Option to Pay for Transit With Cash?

Apr 15, 2020

Image by Luije/iStock

Authored by Aaron Golub Director and Associate Professor, Nohad A. Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning at Portland State University. Join Aaron and John MacArthur on May 22nd for a PSU Friday Transportation Seminar sharing early results from the research presented here.

With many transit agencies across the country1 eliminating cash handling at ticket counters and on-board vehicles for obvious health and virus transmission reasons, one may wonder: who will be negatively impacted by this? 

Some riders can still use cash at ticket vending machines or at certain retail outlets, but for many, depending on where they live and which parts of the transit system they ride, this will be inconvenient. National data2 show clear disparities3 in access to alternatives to cash (credit and debit accounts) as well as the other tools needed to pay for things electronically (smartphones, cell data plans and internet at home and work). What these national data don't capture are the specific issues...

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Jan 02, 2020

Friday Transportation Seminars at Portland State University have been a tradition since 2000. You can join us in person at 11:30 AM, or you can also watch online.

PRESENTATION ARCHIVE

THE TOPIC

This seminar will include two papers that will be presented earlier in the week at the Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board in Washington, DC. 

Adaptive Bikeshare: Expanding Bikeshare to People with Disabilities and Older Adults

John MacArthur, Portland State University
Nathan McNeil, Portland State University
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Benchmarking Social Equity in Transit Performance: Economic Justice in Practice

Sep 11, 2019
Photo by jferrer

Torrey Lyons, University of Utah

Transit agencies often focus on ridership as a primary measure of performance: If enough people are riding transit, then the system is a success. But who are those riders, and why is volume the benchmark?

This viewpoint can skip over an important aspect of a transit agency’s function; that is, providing opportunity to...

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Sep 11, 2019
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Amy Lubitow and Julius McGee, Portland State University;  Raoul Liévanos, University of Oregon

What is the quality of travel data for underrepresented, marginalized populations? The issues go deeper than creating slicker algorithms: In a world with...

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Photo credit: Ian Sane
John MacArthur and Nathan McNeil, Portland State University

This article was authored by Stefani Cox of the Better Bike Share Partnership (BBSP), and cross-posted from BBSP News.

This week, Portland State University’s Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) releases a new research report comparing equity-oriented programs across several U.S. bike share systems. The research finds a variety of methods in place, ranging from affordability to internal hiring practices and beyond. The report is assisted by Toole Design...

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Principal Investigator: Aaron Golub, Portland State University
This Pooled Fund project will begin in 2019, with an anticipated completion in 2020.
THE NEW PROJECT

As transit agencies modernize their fare payment systems, opportunities to pay with cash diminish. This speeds boarding and lowers the cost of operations, while also creating new sources of ridership data. Arguably, service is improved for riders as well, where payment systems work across modes, and in some cases different transit providers, creating a more seamless and simplified experience. Still, about 15% of adults in the United States are without a bank account or credit card, and many rely on restrictive cell-phone data plans or don’t have access to a smartphone. These shares are even higher for public transit users. As transit fare technologies move further from cash, these digitally-excluded riders will find it more difficult to conveniently pay their transit fares.

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