I wonder if "the same money" just means the fares themselves? Because there are all the other major costs mentioned in the article: police enforcement, legal costs to prosecute, and further junk prosecutions over fare jumpers (and others) missing court dates because they can't afford to get to them. There's also the reduction in driver assaults by people desperate to get on the bus without fare, which surely carry a cost to the city (in addition to how terrible it is). And, we can probably assume, there's a cost savings in maintenance of payment systems and equipment on every bus. When you factor all that money in, plus as you say, the benefits as a social policy, I wonder how free fares really stack up against routes and frequencies—but in a perfectly world we'd want both!

I see a lot of places with great mass transit only use token fares, in Georgia its like 5 cents, in China for many cities its 15-30.

Essentially free, but you maintain ticket infrastructure so you can track which routes need to be expanded and where you can run fewer buses.

It probably depends, but in my city (Tampa FL US) the frequency is by far the biggest problem. We live within easy walking distance of 5 different bus routes (on purpose) including one that goes directly to the uni my penultimate kid went to, the community college my youngest attends, my job, both jobs my youngest works, and my husband's previous office. Without transfers. One bus. So basically we are the best served family in the whole city, right?

Two of those routes run hourly. The other three only every half hour. So it's useless for work & school, if you have to be there on time.

This is a degradation of service, too - when I went to the same university, I lived by a bus route that went directly there, and ran every 15 minutes. Buses need to run every 15 minutes to be useful, even if the routes are good.

Paying is not so bad now with the tap to pay but free would streamline the whole affair for sure.