MMPA 6451 Week 4 Transit Policy Tool Comparison Example

Four Ways to Close the Fare Gap, Rated on Salamon's Dimensions: Fare Capping, a Reduced-Fare Program, a Weekly Pass and Bulk Passes Through Social Service Agencies

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Walden University

MMPA 6451: Public Policy Analysis

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

Four Ways to Close the Fare Gap, Rated on Salamon's Dimensions: Fare Capping, a Reduced-Fare Program, a Weekly Pass and Bulk Passes Through Social Service Agencies

The Problem and the Instruments

The Week 3 problem statement found that frequent riders of the Corliss Area Transit Authority who buy single trips spend more for each ride than pass holders, many of them riders with low incomes. This paper compares four instruments that could narrow that gap. Fare capping would track each rider's spending on a stored-value card or account and stop charging once the rider has paid the price of a day or thirty-day pass, so that riders earn a pass as they go. A reduced-fare program would offer half-price fares to riders enrolled in a qualifying benefit program. A weekly pass, at $18, would lower the up-front cost of a period pass. Bulk passes would be sold at a discount to social service agencies, which would distribute them to clients. The authority and its figures are composite.

Salamon's Dimensions

Salamon (2002) argued that the choice of a policy tool shapes a program's results as much as its goals, and proposed four dimensions for comparing tools. Each is defined here in terms that can be applied to the authority.

Directness: whether the authority itself delivers the benefit, or relies on another organization to do so. Automaticity: whether the tool works through machinery that already exists, without new applications, verification or administration. Visibility: whether the tool's cost shows up as a line in the budget, or is hidden as revenue not collected. Coerciveness: how far the tool restricts or requires behavior by riders or others.

Comparison

Table 1

Four Fare Instruments Rated on Salamon's Dimensions

Ratings are judgments from the reasoning below, not measurements.

Commentary by Dimension

Directness separates bulk passes from the rest. Under bulk passes, the authority hands control of the benefit to social service agencies, which know their clients but may distribute passes unevenly and cannot reach riders who are not their clients. The other three are delivered by the authority itself, which can apply them consistently.

Automaticity is where fare capping stands out. It applies to every rider with a card, with no application, no eligibility check and no expiration. A reduced-fare program is the opposite: riders must learn about it, apply, prove enrollment in a benefit program and renew, and each step loses some eligible riders. The weekly pass sits between them; it is automatic in operation but still requires riders to choose and pay for it up front.

Visibility cuts the other way. Fare capping's cost is hidden as revenue the authority does not collect, which makes it easy to adopt and hard to track. A reduced-fare program's cost is visible as a discount the board can see each year. Bulk passes are the most visible, appearing as contracts in two budgets. Low visibility is an advantage for adoption and a risk for accountability.

Coerciveness is low for most instruments. The reduced-fare program imposes the most on riders, who must document their eligibility, and bulk passes place conditions set by agencies rather than the authority.

Combining Instruments

The instruments are not mutually exclusive. Hood (1983) classified government tools by the resource each draws on, such as authority, money or organization, and observed that governments usually combine them. Two combinations are plausible here. Fare capping could be paired with bulk passes for riders who use cash, since capping reaches only riders with cards, while agencies could reach some cash riders directly. A weekly cap, rather than a weekly pass, could also be built into capping itself, which would lower the effective up-front cost without a new product. A reduced-fare program combined with capping, so that low-income riders reach a lower cap, is common in larger agencies but would carry the full administrative load of verification.

Effects Beyond the Dimensions

Salamon's dimensions describe how a tool works, not how much it costs or whom it helps most. Two further considerations will matter later in the term. First, revenue: capping forgoes revenue from every frequent rider who reaches the cap, while a reduced-fare program forgoes revenue only from enrolled riders, so their costs differ in size as well as visibility. Second, reach among the riders identified in Week 3: capping helps every frequent card rider, including those with moderate incomes, while a reduced-fare program targets low-income riders more precisely but reaches only those who enroll. Weeks 7 and 10 take up revenue and equity in turn.

Which Dimensions Matter Most Here

For this authority, automaticity matters most. The problem in Week 3 is concentrated among riders who struggle with up-front costs and may struggle with an application process, and the authority has a small customer service staff with no capacity to verify eligibility. A tool that reaches riders without asking anything of them fits both facts. Directness ranks second, because the authority's goal is consistent treatment of all frequent riders, which an intermediary cannot guarantee. Visibility ranks third, as a concern to manage rather than a reason to choose: whichever tool is chosen, the board should require reporting of revenue forgone. Coerciveness matters least, since all four instruments ask little of riders except the reduced-fare program.

This ranking does not decide the choice by itself. Linder and Peters (1989) noted that how decision makers perceive instruments depends on context, including administrative capacity and political values, so the same tool can look different to different agencies. The readiness assessment in Week 5 tests whether the authority's systems can actually deliver the leading instruments.

References

Hood, C. (1983). The tools of government. Macmillan.

Linder, S. H., & Peters, B. G. (1989). Instruments of government: Perceptions and contexts. Journal of Public Policy, 9(1), 35-58. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0143814X00007960

Salamon, L. M. (2002). The tools of government: A guide to the new governance. Oxford University Press.