[...] the annual financial requirement is likely to be between €20 million and €25 million.
[...]
The policy is intended to encourage more people to leave their cars at home and use public transport for journeys within Porto and the surrounding urban region.
[Mayor] Duarte has cautioned that abolishing fares will not, by itself, resolve Porto’s congestion problems. He described the programme as part of a broader mobility strategy that must also include faster services, better connections, increased capacity and more reliable journey times.
Porto currently has about 16 kilometres of dedicated bus lanes. The municipality plans to increase this to approximately 22 kilometres by the end of 2026, giving buses greater priority over private vehicles on some of the city’s busiest routes.
The mayor said public transport would need to become more convenient and dependable than travelling by car before a substantial change in daily habits could be expected. The municipality’s objective is for public transport to become the main means of travelling around Porto, with private cars taking a secondary role.
The scheme is unusual because Porto is paying for its residents to travel across the entire metropolitan network rather than offering free journeys only inside the municipality.
The Porto Metropolitan Area comprises 17 municipalities, each of which remains responsible for its own spending decisions. [...]
A city can have both free public transportation and good service and the source of the funds shouldn't matter if it comes from taxes or fares. Fares, however, do impact poor people more, create a need for enforcement and thus criminalizing additional, and a need for a system to collect the fare. In a lot of ways, free public transport is simpler and better for the users.
The system to collect fares is cheap compared to what it gets, unless you're system is so bad only those with no other options use it. In most places even the poor have other options.
Not that we shouldn't think of the poor, but they are a minority and we should think of the wealthy as well, no reason a rich person shouldn't use transit, but if it isn't good they won't.
The poor are a minority? What world are you living in?
A place where the middle class are the vast majority. Portugal where this city is similar.
Most middle class think of themselves as poor, but they have enough. Just not as much as they need to fill every want.