MIT Study: High Fares Limit Low-Income Households’ Mobility

Full and original article posted on Streets Blog

A team of MIT researchers today announced the results of a study that concluded that a discounted transit fare for low-income households could offer significant benefits to those households without necessarily contributing to peak-hour crowding in the MBTA system.

In a new whitepaper, “How Low-income Transit Riders in Boston Respond to Discounted Fares: A Randomized Controlled Evaluation,” researchers Jeffrey Rosenblum, Jinhua Zhao, Mariana Arcaya, Justin Steil and Chris Zegras outline the preliminary results of an experiment in which they recruited Boston-area participants from households in the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and analyzed the effects of discounted fares on their transit use.

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