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Making public transport free may win public support, but new research suggests it may not be enough to persuade motorists to leave their cars at home. 

The effectiveness of fare-free travel has become more than an academic question in a state like Tasmania, where passengers will continue to ride free until July 1, a policy that has drawn calls from the Greens to be made permanent.

Victoria has also introduced free public transport until the end of May (followed by half-price fares for the rest of the year) in response to surging fuel costs, with both states recording an increase in public transport usage.

The case for free fares has intuitive appeal — if travel costs nothing, more people will use it and more fuel will be available for industries and regions that need it most — but the evidence is more complicated, according to Associate Professor Milad Haghani.

"They are rational economic decision makers; you make something cheaper, they use more of it," Associate Professor Haghani, who studies transport behaviour at the University of Melbourne, said.

"But there is more to it than the price itself."

Associate Professor Haghani, along with Associate Professor Neema Nassir and Iman Taheri Sarteshnizi, examined whether free or heavily discounted public transport does more than lift patronage. Does it persuade motorists to leave their cars at home?

The researchers surveyed about 2,000 people across Victoria, Queensland and New South Wales in early April over the high fuel prices.

Each state has a different fare model, with Victoria offering free travel until the end of May, Queensland offering a 50-cent flat-fare statewide, and New South Wales remaining full-fare.

What the researchers found was that while many people — around 40 per cent — reported driving less during a period of high fuel prices, a much smaller share said they had shifted from cars to public transport.

In Victoria, where public transport was free, 26.3 per cent of respondents said they had recently shifted some commuting trips from car to public transport.

In New South Wales, where passengers were still paying full fare, the figure was 23.7 per cent.

For the research team, that small gap was telling. 

It suggests that the public transport fares have not been a decisive factor in pushing people to shift from car to public transport, Associate Professor Haghani said.

His argument isn't that free public transport has no benefits.

It modestly increases usage, and as a temporary measure during a cost-of-living or fuel-price shock it may provide some relief and produce a modest boost in public transport uptake, he said.

But he also argues the policy has clear limits as a long-term answer if the aim is to get more motorists to choose public transport.

More than price, he said, access, coverage, reliability, and travel time matter more to change driving habits.

"It takes a lot more than just announcing sometimes free public transport to shift people."

Price matters less than design

The bigger lesson the research team took from the survey is that cheaper transport can't compensate for weak coverage.

That point has particular force in Tasmania, where the network is limited, buses are often unreliable, and many regional or outer-suburban residents have little meaningful access to public transport at all.

In such places, the benefit of fare-free travel tends to flow disproportionately to people who already live in areas with relatively good service.

Separate research from the University of Sydney has reached a similar conclusion.

Professor Matthew Beck, along with Dr Andrea Pellegrini and Professor John Rose, have been studying Queensland's 50-cent transport fares.

Fare-free and low-fare policies do deliver the biggest equity gains for low-income households, students and older people who rely on public transport most, according to Professor Beck.

But despite that benefit, it mostly only boosted travel among existing passengers rather than bringing in many new ones, he said.

Professor Rose said a fast, frequent, and reliable transport network would have more impact on attracting users than the price of using it.

When petrol prices surge, he said, most people reduce travel, and cheaper fares increase ridership mostly by getting existing users to travel more, rather than convincing drivers to switch.

Professor Rose said instead of blanket fare-reductions, targeted discounts could deliver similar equity benefits at a much lower cost to governments.

And the cost of free or cheaper public transport can be significant — it was enough to dissuade the New South Wales government from adopting Victoria's fare-free approach.

New South Wales experienced a slight bump in public transport use this year as fuel prices surged, compared to the same time last year, despite not discounting the cost of travel.

Victoria also recorded a 10 per cent increase in patronage in the first fortnight of fare-free travel, according to the Department of Transport and Planning.

On Sunday, the Victorian government announced it would introduce half-priced fares statewide from June 1 until the end of the year, at a price of about $432 million.

The larger issue for the researchers is whether increased use covers the cost of discounted travel.

In Queensland, the 50-cent fare reduced revenue from about $38.5 million to around $7-10 million per month, leaving roughly a $29.7 million monthly gap to be covered, Dr Pellegrini said.

"Even major fuel price shocks do not fully offset that loss through increased public transport use," he said.

But public transport fares are less about profit, and more about helping to fund day-to-day operations like staff and maintenance, meaning when fares are reduced or removed, governments need to make up the rest through taxes or subsidies.

Governments, Dr Pellegrini said, would have to make up the shortfall elsewhere.

In Tasmania, the Greens said Treasury has costed free public transport at about $17 million a year.

The government there has been trying to introduce a smart ticketing system, like Sydney's Opal card, since 2018, but the proposal has been weighed down by rising costs and uncertainty over when it will be delivered.

With petrol prices remaining high amid conflict in the Middle East, the Greens have argued the $65 million ticketing system would be better spent subsidising permanent free transport.

In other states, the price tag for permanently free public transport would be far higher, with Victoria's single month of fare-free public transport estimated to cost at least $71 million.

Associate Professor Haghani said money spent on free transport could instead be spent on improving the size and reliability of existing public transport networks in each respective jurisdiction.

This free transport experiment could even be a moment for people to explore their public transport options around them, he said.

"They might even stay with the services, regardless of whether you make them free."