It’ll encourage the use of public transport over private vehicles (provided there is a good public transit network present). Public transport has got better efficiencies, and if it can supplant individual transit to a good degree, that’s not a bad thing.
As far as ‘overuse’ goes: how many people do you know who just travel on public transport for the fun of it? Even in places where people can travel for a flat monthly fee, very few people spend any more time on public transport than they need to. I doubt that free public transport would substantially change that.
Won’t that encourage overuse of transport, which will actually make it harder to reach emissions targets and similar?
It’ll encourage the use of public transport over private vehicles (provided there is a good public transit network present). Public transport has got better efficiencies, and if it can supplant individual transit to a good degree, that’s not a bad thing.
As far as ‘overuse’ goes: how many people do you know who just travel on public transport for the fun of it? Even in places where people can travel for a flat monthly fee, very few people spend any more time on public transport than they need to. I doubt that free public transport would substantially change that.