Do you know the country which offers Public Transport Completely Free?
Yeah… I guess you will be surprised to hear. But it’s real
Luxembourg, a small wealthy nation in European Union offers Public
Transport FREE…
Small and Rich European Nation made Public Transportation FREE
Luxembourg is a small nation in European Union. It’s a landlocked country surrounded by France, Belgium and Germany. A very small population enjoy their prosperous rich economy.
Nearly 7 hundred thousand people live in this small nation. Other nearly 2 hundred thousand cross-border workforce visits the country on daily basis.
Some 1.2 million tourists visit this country annually. If you got a chance to drive through
this nation, it would take just 2 hours scenic ride to finish your journey along the vineyards
majestic castles and old-fashioned farmhouses.
On 1st of March 2020, the country announced their new policy over public
transportation by declaring completely free access. So, anyone visiting the country will be allowed
to use Trains, Buses and Trams are completely free.
This story hit the international headlines and many experts came out with their theories.
Some tried to explain the reasons behind it and others tried to balance the pros and cons.
Why did this happen? As you know, many countries struggle with their
public transportation and people struggle with their finance as the transportation cost came in
huge just after rent. Somehow this country has tried to cut off that cost.
According to the news reports, there were two major reasons behind
this decision.
The first one is a social benefit. By doing this, the country is expected to
narrow down the gap between
rich and poor. People can use their transportation costs to upgrade
their life while enjoying the same
quality service.
Especially the bottom 10% of society would enjoy this benefit the most.
Students, Pensioners and homeless
people were suffering from cold winters and day to day high cost of
public transportation.
Now it is free to use as much as they want.
Further, the country is expecting more employment opportunities to
their citizens by making more affordable ways to
travel. It means, citizens can travel far for their daily jobs, even
if the workplace might little far from home.
In addition, there are some couple of hundred thousand people who
travel by crossing the borders. This will help
to them. They have a big contribution to the country’s workforce.
The second reason is Traffic. As it is a small piece of land and high
in commercial activities, the traffic hits the country
very hard.
Luxembourg is one of the top commercial and financial hubs in the region.
So, it is an extremely high-traffic area.
Free public transportation policy is trying to discourage private
vehicles on weekday work schedules.
It will encourage people to use Trains, buses or tramps as much as they can.
It will save money, save the plant and it might save time if everyone gets used to it.
As you know 40 people can easily fit into a coach instead of 40 cars.
One coach and save 40 car traffic time and space.
Luxembourg is one of the wealthy countries and they can afford this cost.
But they have planned to recover some small amount
of cost by taxation. Even before this, they had only 10% of the total cost
of public transportation from fares.
So it isn’t making any big impact. Whatever on the taxation policy,
they will make sure that it won’t harm
their target to narrow the rich vs poor gap.
The moral of this story is not to introduce free public transportation in
third-world countries or any other
place on Earth. The message is, Encouraging Public transportation is
always beneficial.
Try it out
Comfort your citizens
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