Paper short abstract:

Public transport is one of the urban public goods. Various calls have been made for it to be free across the world. What potential or limitations does public transport have with regard to its inclusive and social dimensions if it is a free public good?

Paper long abstract:

The paper discusses questions of justice and rights to the city using practices of fare-free public transport (FFPT) as an entry point. Fare is a principal factor that affects access to public transport, and fare control is a way to police internal spaces of public transport including the marginalisation of migrants. Attending to the publicness permits the exploration on how the different characteristics of public transport affect its publicness, not only in terms of physical and material aspects, but also as regards the practices and habits of public transport users. Arguably, by making public transport free, it becomes a truly accessible public good able to provide equal service to all urban residents despite their financial capacities. The paper draws from the research insights of HERA-funded project "Public transport as public space in European cities: Narrating, experiencing, contesting" to understand how the abolition of fares could affect the way in which different social groups experience and appropriate public transport as potential and actual public space. Tallinn—the capital city of Estonia—is the principal case here, having FFPT (although only for residents) at work since 2013. This case is brought together with sites such as Brussels with no general free public transport but with free tickets provided on different social basis — such as for the poor, the unemployed, and pensioners — but excluding others such as migrants. The paper draws from ethnographic and geographical research on these two cities as well as insights from other fieldwork sites the project engages with.