Since the COVID-19 pandemic, transit agencies have faced many challenges, including a need to grow their decreased ridership despite heavily reduced operating budgets. Meanwhile, they’re serving a ridership base that continues to be plagued by increasingly diminished financial security. Policymakers, advocates, and the public have pushed for changes to fare structures and fare collection policies to tackle a number of these hardships all at once.
In particular, transit agencies and local governments have turned toward income-based, discounted fare programs. These programs reduce travel costs for people who earn below a specified income limit. Over the past five years, the number of these programs offered among the largest 50 transit agencies by ridership has more than doubled, with 17 such programs currently available for riders with low incomes. Unfortunately, most of these programs have struggled to attract participants, with fewer than 1 in 3 eligible people enrolled. However, some programs—namely Philadelphia’s Zero Fare program—have managed notably higher take-up.
We reviewed each of these 17 programs to find out just how widely participation rates vary—an underresearched measure—and learn what providers can do to increase enrollment. From our analysis, we find that investment in targeted outreach and advertising, extensive partnership with community-based organizations, and substantially streamlined enrollment processes can help local policymakers and transit leadership better realize the benefits of income-based, discounted fare programs.
Income-based, discounted fare programs provide a wealth of benefits
Of the 17 income-based, discounted fare programs in operation in April 2025, most offered a fare discount of 50 percent, though discounts ranged from 20 to 100 percent of the standard single-trip fare. Generally, these programs set an income eligibility limit between 80 and 200 percent of the federal poverty level. Although the exact details can vary, research shows these programs have significant, positive outcomes:
- They contribute to improved health: An evaluation of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s program found that a 50 percent fare discount improved health care appointment attendance and increased booking of nonurgent care appointments among riders with low incomes. As a result, health outcomes improved, and fewer expensive urgent care services were needed.
- They decrease car use and advance safety: Discounted fares encourage travelers with low incomes to choose non-car modes of transportation (PDF), which reduces emissions and congestion. Additionally, this mode shift suggests direct safety improvement effects: a study by the American Public Transportation Association found that people can reduce their chance of being in an accident by more than 90 percent by taking public transit instead of driving.
- They induce demand for transit: Allegheny County, served by Pittsburgh Regional Transit, found that low-income, discounted fare recipients took more than three times as many transit trips per week as riders with low incomes who did not receive a discounted fare. This finding demonstrates that these programs would help transit agencies retain and regain riders. It also suggests that even at a discounted rate, these programs can positively contribute to the volume of fare revenue collected by transit providers.
- They support economic growth and strengthen collective well-being:An evaluation of ORCA LIFT—a low-income, discounted fare program serving the Seattle area—found that errands, shopping, and social trips increased more than all other trip types among riders with low incomes once they received a discounted fare.
Too few eligible riders are receiving the benefits of discounted fares
Unfortunately, for most of the 17 programs, participation rates sit below 30 percent. However, some standouts exist. TriMet’s Honored Citizen (Portland, Oregon), New York City’s Fair Fare, and the ORCA LIFT programs each have participation rates between 30 and 55 percent.
We found that these programs with higher participation rates have successfully achieved the following:
- Created high visibility: These programs advertise throughout their service areas in a range of public-facing places where eligible residents are likely to receive information, both within transit spaces and across social services access points. New York, for one, recently announced a plan to launch a $2 million targeted advertising campaign to increase program awareness among likely eligible city residents.
- Increased accessibility by partnering with community: Though several of the low-income, discounted fare programs we reviewed work with community-based organizations to connect eligible residents with discounted fares, the extent of that partnership varies widely. For example, TriMet’s Honored Citizen program collaborates with more than 160 organizations in their benefit dissemination efforts, whereas we found that programs with participation rates lower than 30 percent partner with only 4 organizations on average. These partnerships can help benefit programs better reach people who face particularly acute challenges when accessing support, such as immigrant communities, undocumented residents, those facing language barriers, and those with histories of incarceration, among others.
Philadelphia’s Zero Fare program sets the bar for income-based, discounted fare programs
Though our analysis primarily centered long-term, permanent programs, we also explored pilot programs across the 50 largest agencies. Here, Philadelphia’s Zero Fare program fell into a class all its own. Its participation rate stood out at 63 percent, more than three times higher than the average among our cohort of 17. The high participation rate could partially be attributed to the comparatively small group of eligible participants in the pilot’s first year—25,000 explicitly invited residents, about 15,700 of whom are actively participating.
Much like Portland, New York, and the Puget Sound, Philly’s program has focused on outreach, visibility, and community partnerships. But Philadelphia’s Zero Fare program is distinct from the other programs in one key way: its enrollment process. Philly’s Zero Fare program uses automatic enrollment, which entails a designated administrative agency identifying and enrolling people in a program after confirming their eligibility using available (i.e., preexisting, previously collected) data. Recipients do not have to file an application and are notified of their enrollment automatically. In Philadelphia, recipients are even directly connected to their benefit without an additional accessing process.
This approach dramatically diverges from typical public benefit enrollment, which includes six steps. Completing these steps can require applicants to provide extensive documentation, navigate cumbersome bureaucratic processes, decipher confusing eligibility criteria, take time off from work or away from care-giving responsibilities, wait in long lines, and do so again and again to prove their continued eligibility.
Traditional Process for Accessing Public Benefits
Source: Authors’ analysis of public benefit programs and associated literature.
By using autoenrollment, the City of Philadelphia—which administers this program—has removed the first two steps for the Zero Fare program, instead beginning their process at step 3 using eligibility and contact information already on file via other benefit programs. Additionally, the city has combined steps 4 and 5 into a single step where recipients receive their transit pass either in the mail or in person from one of seven partnered community-based organizations spread across the city.
Curious about how this one-of-a-kind program is perceived by residents, we rode buses throughout Philadelphia for a week during morning peak and early afternoon off-peak times. On our rides, we spoke to riders, asking if they had heard of the Zero Fare program or were participants. We were consistently met with nodding and smiles, suggesting that familiarity with the program was high and widespread after only two years of operation.
We also heard stories from Philadelphians that suggest the city’s autoenrollment approach is allowing participants to sidestep some of the barriers commonly associated with benefit programs and may be contributing to increased trust in government:
“I got the card in the mail. Tried it. It worked! I didn’t pay anything and the payment box lit up green [fare acknowledged as accepted]. Then I asked all my friends about it to see if it was just me. Some others got it but they didn’t try it yet. After talking to me they tried the card. Now they love it.”
– Cheryl T., rider of the T2 Trolley
“I needed this. I have been telling my council rep how hard it is to get around this place. It is still hard. But this is one big worry off of my chest. And I like how I didn’t have to go begging for it [fare card]. It showed up at my door. I didn’t have to sit on the phone for ages or fill out forms or nothing. I guess he must have been listening, finally.”
– Michelle S., rider of Route 48
Ultimately, as transit agencies, local governments, and Metropolitan Planning Organizations continue to innovate and find ways to better serve current and would-be riders, they should learn from the successes of high take-up programs like Philadelphia’s Zero Fare.
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