Ferry fare integration experiment diversifies ridership, turbocharges recovery

When WETA - the Bay Area’s largest ferry agency - brought back service in July 2021 after pandemic cuts, it changed its fares and  service hours to better serve more diverse commutes and recreational trips. Before the pandemic, WETA had largely served white collar commuters at peak commute times, and its fares were higher than other transit options. 

Starting in July 2021, WETA reduced its fares by 7 – 30 percent, depending on the trip. Ticket prices were simplified into zones so that riders pay based on how far they go across the region, similar to the models used by BART and Caltrain.  Service was changed to provide more mid-day and late night service to meet the needs of students, non-office workers, and other kinds of trips.

In October, WETA conducted a rider survey to measure how these changes affected riders. The survey found that the share of ferry riders making less than $50,000 increased from 6% to 19% from 2017 to 2021.  The survey also revealed that 30 percent of respondents were new riders who had started riding the ferry since March 2020. About half of riders said that if they didn’t take the ferry, they would use BART or a bus to cross the Bay.   

Together, these numbers tell a clear story: WETA’s 2021 fare and schedule changes have enabled significant numbers of new riders - including lower income riders - to use the ferry, and to be able to choose a ferry when it’s the right mode for a particular trip. 

These changes have also had a clear impact on overall ridership. Since implementation of the new fares and schedules, weekday ridership has grown to 38 percent of pre-pandemic levels, compared to about 30 percent for BART , and weekend ridership has consistently exceeded pre-pandemic levels. Golden Gate Ferry, which has not made similar changes, has only seen ridership return to about 20 percent of pre-pandemic levels. 

The agency’s pandemic recovery program was guided by a set of principles adopted by the WETA Board of Directors in February of 2021: focus on transit equity — providing trips to riders that depend on public transit; make fares competitive and improve ride quality — incentivizing greater ridership; support fare integration across Bay Area transit providers  — making travel easier and intraregional collaboration more effective (The full list of adopted principles can be found on WETA’s website.). 

When asked recently about fare changes, public information staffer Thomas Hall stressed that “[WETA] deliberately made adjustments to align the fares with other transit modes. Pre-pandemic, riders paid a premium to ride ferries. We didn’t want price to be a factor when riders are deciding what transit mode to take. Instead, we just want them to choose the mode that works best for them.” 

The pandemic recovery program was put in place for a year.  As for what’s next, WETA’s public information officer, Thomas Hall noted that “potential future action [on fares] by the WETA Board will be informed by on-going work to develop WETA's 2050 Service Vision and Business Plan.” 

As a small agency, WETA was able to test out a strategy aiming to restore ridership by serving a greater diversity of riders and types of trips, including better coordination with other transit.  Now that evidence is showing the success of this strategy, we hope that these are strategies that WETA and other Bay Area agencies will consider adopting or expanding on.

In particular, with regard to aligning fares, this is something that WETA did on its own. As an outcome of the regional fare study, there is likely to be a pilot “all agency” transit pass for organizations that will allow riders to use ferry, BART, and bus based on their needs. And the next step in the Fare Policy Vision proposes standardizing the regional fares - BART, Caltrain, regional bus and ferries - to align the fares across the system. This will require some sort of network management structure in order to align the fares and keep them aligned over time. We’ll keep you posted on opportunities to encourage WETA and the region to take these next steps toward a more seamless system.