Public transport timetable

Trams are railborn vehicles that run in city streets or dedicated tracks. They have higher capacity than buses, but must follow dedicated infrastructure with rails and overhead wires, limiting their flexibility. Light rail is a modern development of the tram, with dedicated right-of-way not shared with other traffic, step-free access and increased speed. A rapid transit system is an electric passenger railway in an urban area with high capacity and frequency, and grade separation from other traffic. Rapid transit systems are typically either in tunnels or elevated above street level. Outside urban centres rapid transit lines sometimes run grade separated at ground level.

Service on rapid transit systems is provided on designated lines between stations using electric multiple units on rails, although some systems use magnetic levitation or monorails. Rapid transit is faster and has a higher capacity than trams or light rail, but is not as fast or as far-reaching as commuter rail. It is unchallenged in its ability to transport large amounts of people quickly over short distances with little land use. Variations of rapid transit include people movers, small-scale light metro and the commuter rail hybrid S-Bahn. The first rapid transit system was the London Underground, which opened in 1863. The technology quickly spread to other cities in Europe and then to the United States, where a number of elevated systems were built. Since then the largest growth has been in Asia and with driverless systems.More than 160 cities have rapid transit systems, totalling more than 8,000 km (4,900 miles) of track and 7,000 stations. Twenty-five cities have systems under construction.

Commuter rail is part of an urban area's public transport; it provides faster services to outer suburbs and neighboring towns and villages. Trains stop at all stations, that are located to serve a smaller suburban or town center. The stations often being combined with shuttle bus or park and ride systems at each station. Frequency may be up to several times per hour, and commuter rail systems may either be part of the national railway, or operated by local transit agencies. Intercity rail is long-haul passenger services that connect multiple urban areas. They have few stops, and aim at high average speeds, typically only making one of a few stops per city. These services may also be international.

Financing

Intercity transport between cities is dominated by rail, coaches and airlines. Long journeys give air travel a large time advantage over all other modes of transport. On distances up to 1,000 kilometres (620 mi) high-speed rail can compete time wise with airlines, while conventional rail and coaches only can offer time-competitive services on shorter distances. Comfort is a much more important part of long-haul than short-haul transport.

A travel class is a quality of accommodation on public transport. Higher travel classes are more comfortable and more expensive. Not all modes and operators offer class differentiation. In the era when long distance trips took several days, sleeping accommodations were an essential part of transportation. Today, most airlines, inter-city trains and coaches offer reclining seats and many provide pillows and blankets for overnight travelers. Better sleeping arrangements are commonly offered for a premium fare and include sleeping cars on overnight trains, larger private cabins on ships and airplane seats that convert into beds. Budget-conscious tourists sometimes plan their trips using overnight train or bus trips in lieu of paying for a hotel. The ability to get additional sleep on the way to work is attractive to many commuters using public transport.

Fare and ticketing

Because night trains or coaches can be cheaper than motels, homeless use these for a shelter during night. Occasionally, a local transit route with a long overnight segment and which accepts inexpensive multi-use passes will acquire a reputation as a "moving hotel" for people with limited funds. Most transportation agencies actively discourage this. For this and other reasons passengers are often required to exit the vehicle at the end of the line; they can board again in the same or another vehicle, after some waiting. Also, even a low fare often deters the poorest individuals, including homeless people.

All public transport must either operate after a predefined schedule, or operate at a sufficient frequency that travelers do not need to use a schedule to correspond with the services. Operators will publish timetables, often supplemented with maps and fare schemes to help travelers coordinate their travel. Public transport route planner online, sometimes combined with pre-sold tickets, help make planning task more user-friendly. To further aid travelers, operators often run at fixed times of the hour, so passengers only need to memorize the minutes past the hour the service leaves, and can apply that to any hour of the day.

Coordination between services at intersections is important to reduce the total travel time for passengers. This can be done by coordinating shuttle services with main routes, or by creating a fixed time (for instance twice per hour) when all bus and rail routes meet at a station and exchange passengers.

The tickets

All public transport runs on infrastructure, either on roads, rail, airways or seaways; all consists of interchanges and way. The infrastructure can be shared with other modes of transport, freight and private transport, or it can be dedicated to public transport. The latter is especially true in cases where there are capacity problems for private transport. Investments in infrastructure are high, and make up a substantial part of the total costs in systems that are expanding. Once built, the infrastructure will further require operating and maintenance costs, adding to the total costs of public transport. Sometimes governments subsidize infrastructure by providing it free of charge, just like is common with roads for automobiles.The main sources of financing are ticket revenue, government subsidies and advertisement. The percentage of revenue from passenger charges is known as the farebox recovery ratio. A limited amount of income may come from land development and rental income from stores and vendors, parking fees, and leasing tunnels and rights-of-way to carry fiber optic communication lines.

Most—but not all—public transport required the purchase of a ticket to generate revenue for the operators. Tickets may either be bought in advance, at the time of the ride, or the carrier may allow both methods. Passengers may be issued with a paper ticket, metal or plastic token, or an electronic card. Tickets may be valid for a single (or return) trip, or valid within a certain area for a period of time. The fare is based on the travel class, either as a function of the traveled distance, or based on a zone pricing.

Safety and security

The tickets may have to be shown or checked automatically at the station platform or when boarding, or during the ride by a conductor. Operators may choose to control all riders, allowing sale of the ticket at the time of ride. Alternatively, a proof-of-payment system allows riders to enter the vehicles without showing the ticket, but riders may or may not be controlled by a ticket controller; if the rider fails to show proof of payment, the operator may fine the rider at the magnitude of the fare.

Multi-use tickets allow travel more than once. In addition to return tickets, this includes period cards allowing travel within a certain area (for instance month cards), or during a given number of days that can be chosen within a longer period of time (for instance eight days within a month). Passes aimed at tourists, allowing free or discounted entry at many tourist attractions, typically include free public transport within the city. Period tickets may be for a particular route (in both directions), or for a whole network. A free travel pass allowing free and unlimited travel within a system is sometimes granted to groups including students, elderly, children, employees (job ticket) and the physical or mentally disabled.

Free or zero-fare public transport services are funded in full by means other than collecting a fare from passengers, normally through heavy subsidies or commercial sponsorship by businesses. Several mid-size European cities and many smaller towns around the world have converted their entire bus networks to zero-fare. Local zero-fare shuttles or inner-city loops are far more common than city-wide systems. This article may contain original research or unverified claims. Please improve the article by adding references. See the talk page for details.

Food and drink

Both local and national government may opt to subsidize public transport, of social, environmental or economical reasons. Key motivations are the need to provide transport to people those who cannot afford or are physically or legally incapable of using an automobile,and to reduce congestion, land use and emissions of local air pollution and greenhouse gases. Other motives may be related to promote business and economic growth, or urban renewal in formerly deprived areas of the city. Some systems are owned and operated by a government agency; other transportation services may be commercial, but receive greater benefits from the government compared to a normal company.

Subsidies may take the form of direct payments to unprofitable services, but also indirect subsidies are used. This may include allowing use of state-owned infrastructure without payment or for less than cost-price (may apply for railways and roads), to stimulate public transport's economic competitiveness over private transport, that normally also has free infrastructure. Other subsidies include tax advantages (for instance aviation fuel is typically not taxed), bailouts if companies that are likely to collapse (often applied to airlines) and reduction of competition through licensing schemes (often applied to taxis and airlines). Private transport is normally subsidized indirectly through free roads and infrastructure.

Land development schemes may be initialized, where operators are given the rights to use lands near stations, depots, or tracks for property development. For instance, in Hong Kong, MTR Corporation Limited and KCR Corporation generate profits from land development to cover the partial cost of construction, but not operation, of the urban rail systems.

Smoking

Private transport is normally subsidized indirectly through free roads and infrastructure.Land development schemes may be initialized, where operators are given the rights to use lands near stations, depots, or tracks for property development. For instance, in Hong Kong, MTR Corporation Limited and KCR Corporation generate profits from land development to cover the partial cost of construction, but not operation, of the urban rail systems.Some government officials believe that use of taxpayer capital to fund mass transit will ultimately save taxpayer money in other ways, and therefore, state-funded mass transit is a benefit to the taxpayer. Since lack of mass transit results in more traffic, pollution, and road construction to accommodate more vehicles, all costly to taxpayers, providing mass transit will therefore alleviate these costs.

Despite the occasional highly publicized incident, the vast majority of modern public transport systems are well designed and patrolled and generally have low crime rates. Good lighting, CCTV, mirrors to see round blind corners and ensuring that there are always a good number of other people around can be used to increase safety and create a feeling of safety. Most transit operators have developed methods to discourage people from using their facilities for overnight shelter.