Pricing public transport services

This chapter aims at outlining pricing policy for public transport that maximizes the social surplus, that is, the sum of the producer surplus and the consumer surplus, while internalizing possible system-external costs. It starts by presenting the door-to-door transport cost as a key concept in price theory for public transport, and then first principles of optimal pricing valid for all modes of public transport are laid down. These principles are applied to urban (short-distance) public transport in sections 13.2–13.5 and to inter-urban (long-distance) public transport in section 13.6. Section 13.7 summarizes the methodological conclusions