Am 06.02.2012 07:42, schrieb Mike Tomlinson:
About 3.5% of journeys on German public transport are not paid for,

You could turn that round and say that 96.5% of journeys are paid for.
Given the (apparent) low levels of inspection, that seems pretty high to
me.

And please note that the 3.5% is a statistical estimate with some
margin of error, or even a bias resulting from the interest of the
transport companies to increase their income.

A transit organisation will have to find an optimum within the
constraints of maximising the income from fares plus penalty fares on
the one hand and the minimising of the costs of controlling the payment.
A city in Belgium found that to dispense with collecting fares for their
public transit was the optimum. Society through their administrations
have also to consider how the usage and hence cost of alternative modes
of transports change caused by modifying the fares for public transit.

There is no single dimension, and one has to be able to calculate
with more than one single variable.


Cheers,
L.W.