Free Public Transport — Luxembourg's Nationwide Fare-Abolition Experiment

On 29 February/1 March 2020, Luxembourg abolished fares on its entire public transport network — national rail, buses (RGTR, TICE, AVL) and the Luxembourg City tram — becoming the first country in the world to do so nationwide. The move built on transport already 90–94% publicly subsidised, and formed part of the 2018 coalition government's platform to curb some of Europe's worst car-commuting congestion and cut emissions.

Evaluation is complicated by timing: COVID-19 lockdowns began roughly three weeks after fare abolition, suppressing ridership data nationwide. A peer-reviewed econometric analysis isolating the fare effect on specific bus routes found real but modest gains — a 12.8% ridership rise on route 215/711 and 17.7% on route 290/111 attributable to the policy — but concluded that the effect on overall system-wide patronage "is not measurable" given the COVID confound and concurrent infrastructure investments (a December 2020 tram extension alone drove a 450% ridership jump on that segment, unrelated to fares).

Fiscally the policy has proven inexpensive relative to the transport budget: foregone ticket revenue was about €41 million a year, roughly 8% of total transport operating costs at the time. The overall transport budget has since grown substantially (from €590M in 2020 to roughly €1.1B in 2025), though this reflects network expansion and service upgrades rather than the fare policy itself. Six years on, the policy remains in force and the government continues to expand rail and tram capacity alongside it.

Multiple independent sources caution that removing fares alone did not produce a clear, measurable nationwide shift away from car use — frequency, reliability and coverage, not price, are repeatedly cited as the dominant factors in mode choice for Luxembourg's car-dominated commuter base, much of which crosses in daily from France, Belgium and Germany. It is best read as a high-profile, low-cost pilot with contested rather than proven impact.

Read the full analysis: https://transports.public.lu/en/plus/faq/gratuite-transports-publics.html