> That means, 5/6th of the budget is subsidized by the taxpayers of SF. There is no reason why Muni can't be free.
You'd still want to charge for congestion. Ie when a particular bus (or rather bus route) is reliably full at a particular time of the day, gradually raise prices until it's just below capacity.
Basically, you want to transport the maximum number of passengers while making it so that any single person who wants to get on the bus (at prevailing prices) still can.
Instead of a bespoke dynamic system that adjust prices dynamically, you might want to keep it simple and just have a simple peak / off-peak distinction.
If you add so many buses that there's no congestion at all during the worst rush hour, you'll have enormous extra capacity just uselessly sitting around the rest of the day.
Obviously you'd want both: charge for congestion, and use the price signals you get to help you decide where (and when) to add capacity.
Resources are limited, and buying yet another bus and hiring an extra bus driver just to shave the last tiny bit of congestion off Monday morning might be a noble ideal, but you might be better off using those funds to pay for another free school meal (or whatever other do-goodery is the best use of the marginal dollar).
You'd still want to charge for congestion. Ie when a particular bus (or rather bus route) is reliably full at a particular time of the day, gradually raise prices until it's just below capacity.
Basically, you want to transport the maximum number of passengers while making it so that any single person who wants to get on the bus (at prevailing prices) still can.
Instead of a bespoke dynamic system that adjust prices dynamically, you might want to keep it simple and just have a simple peak / off-peak distinction.