USA: why are increasing public transport tickets?

In recent months, there were several companies which manage public transport Americans who have increased their rates, from Boston to San Francisco or Los Angeles. Almost every week there is a carrier to increase the prices of their tickets in the United States.

The real reason for these increases seems to reside in the inability of these companies making inadequate management between the cost of a trip and the cost of providing this same trip to the client.

The latest data from the US Administration may understand this discrepancy. Analyzing travel fares per kilometre, between 2000 and 2010, transport companies of the ten largest cities in the United States, one realizes, unlike what is reported, that there was no major change in prices of the trips. In 2000, the average price of a trip per kilometre was €2,63. In 2010, the same trip would cost an average of €2,90, which represents an increase of 10% over a decade, says the Atlantic Cities.

Comparing the average cost of travel with the average cost of operating services, also per kilometre and for the same period, notes that in 2000 this cost was €6,58 and in 2010 was $ €7,87. The difference represents an increase of 19% in annual terms, is almost twice the value of increased rates.

In this way, the difference between profits and operating costs are increasing. In 2000, the major transport companies recovered only 40% of operating costs through the tickets, a percentage that has declined over the years.

And why is this discrepancy is increasing? There is not a single answer to this question, but the difference is due mainly to the increase in operating costs since 2000. This increase is not based mainly on increasing salaries for employees â€" which increased only 4%. Are labour benefits, like health insurance, which increased about 45 percent throughout the Decade.

In General, the carriers maintain low fares on purpose to provide public transport accessible, depending on Government funds and grants to finance. In other words, these companies do not expect to eliminate the difference. But until they can do a better job at the management level of these cost differences, it is likely that the ticket prices continue to increase.

Foto: Dhanan Sekhar Edathara/Creative Commons

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