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Governments are looking for ways to help Australians cope with the soaring cost of fuel, from encouraging public servants to work more from home to Monday’s announcement of a three-month halving of the fuel tax.

One way we can save on petrol and ease demand for fuel is by not driving when we are out and about.

With that in mind, Victoria’s government on Sunday announced public transport would be free until the end of April.

Tasmanians will also travel for free on buses and Derwent River ferries from until 1 July.

NSW’s government is wary of committing to a similar plan, with the state’s treasury department estimating it would cost $140m a month in lost Opal revenue. That’s about twice as much as it’s expected to cost in Victoria.

So is it worth it? Two transport professors weighed in on the pros and cons of temporary free public transport as a policy to address the fuel crisis.

The arguments in favour of free public transport

Prof Graham Currie from Monash University is a leading world expert on public transport.

He says making bus, tram and train travel free is a relatively easy measure for state governments to implement, and one which will make a difference to Australians’ lives.

Unleaded petrol has jumped by about $1 a litre since February to about $2.60, and diesel is up by more like $1.50 to $3.20 a litre over the past six weeks. Households were already suffering from the high cost of living, and free public transport can make a difference to those struggling to pay the weekly fuel bill.

“It is quick and that is part of the motivation for governments,” Currie says. “We are in a bit of an unusual situation, and this is quite a nice thing to do.”

Prof Mark Hickman, a professor of transport engineering at the University of Queensland, said in a pool of limited options, free public transport was “one of the better ones”.

“It certainly provides a more economical way of getting around. But a lot of people who use their cars for a variety of different purposes, including commuting, are actually not very sensitive to fuel prices and probably will not switch to public transport that frequently,” Hickman said.

This is all sounding like a case of a policy being damned with faint praise, so let’s turn to the other side of the ledger.

The arguments against free public transport

Both professors agree that the main drawback of the policy is that the beneficiaries of free public transport tend to be higher-income households in the inner city.

“Only about half of urban Australia has access to public transport of any quality, so for those guys it will make things easier,” Currie said.

“The issue is that a high share of people who have got public transport are quite wealthy and are in inner city areas; Toorak has great public transport.

“It doesn’t help those who haven’t got any access in the fringe of cities. This is not helping the bush, and not helping regional towns.”

Hickman has studied the impact of Queensland’s 50-cent fare policy, which began 18 months ago. “What we have seen is that it does get people to take more travel with public transport, but the number of people who are switching from motor vehicles to public transport is actually a very small percentage of it,” he said.

“The increase has been from people who used to bicycle or walk, or [who used] to not travel at all.”

Hickman noted that the analysis is based on cheaper fares, and that we have very little experience of how fuel shortages drive use of public transport.

Currie said he was glad Victoria’s policy was limited to just one month, at least for now.

He also raised the question of whether $71m could have been put to better use, although the advantages were not as immediate.

“You could probably put the same money into different areas to get wider benefits. You could put that into increasing services in areas that don’t have any public transport.

“That would also increase ridership, but it is a long-term question of using this money. We should be electrifying the bus fleet and using renewable energy to fuel that fleet.”

Hickman said the ultimate goal was to lift public transport use and get people out of petrol-fueled vehicles. He said state measures to make public transport free may work at cross purposes to the federal government’s newly announced fuel subsidies.

“That seems to be an odd combination of policies from my perspective; why not stick to one or the other?”