Prediction time:
Metrolinx insists that fare integration must be revenue neutral, and transit operators have made it clear that they won't absorb the costs of fare integration. For political reasons, customers must not have an increase to their fares. This means that the changes from the current fare system will either be minimal, or GO Transit will be forced to absorb the costs of integration.
It must be acknowledged that the City of Toronto will not accept diving the City into fare zones or any fare by distance. Anything that has suburban users paying more than users in the core is a political non starter. Metrolinx will have to work around this.
Scenario 1: Minimal Changes
We maintain the zone based structure we have currently (pictured below). Local transit operators will set the fares. GO Transit will be fare-by-distance. There might be a discount for transferring between GO and a local operator, with GO (Metrolinx) subsidizing the discount. There will be free, timed transfer within the zones (IIRC, this will only affect the TTC, since they're the only ones without time based transfers). This is essentially the same fare structure we have today.
Scenario 2: Zone based system
We'll most likely be going with a zone based system. I'd expect the zones to look a lot like the current fare zone system (above), perhaps with Burlington and Oakville being merged into a single zone (with a small provincial subsidy to offset the revenue losses). The price to travel through each zone will be negotiated between the transit operators in the zone and Metrolinx; though I'd expect that operators would have the freedom to set prices at whatever they please, as long as it won't have a significant detrimental effect on GO.
GO Transit (operated by Metrolinx) will adhere to these fare zones, and they (Metrolinx) will be the ones absorbing any costs of fare integration. GO would be a premium service, thus all trips on GO will be subject to a surcharge (perhaps around $3). The purpose of this is to offset GO's losses due to fare integration. Time based transfers would be rolled out across the region.
For revenue sharing:
- Local operators get 100% of the revenue from any zones they serviced on this trip
- GO Transit gets 100% of premium service surcharge
- GO Transit gets 100% of revenue from zones that only they serviced (and 0% from a zone that a local operator also serviced)
The obvious negative to this is that GO (Metrolinx) will be taking a huge financial hit to subsidize this. But because transit operators are will not absorb the costs of integration, GO is the one that will have to do it. The premium surcharge would have to be adjusted to offset revenue losses for GO. The surcharge could be variable, depending on how many zones a customer passes through.
