Collecting transit fares costs a lot of money, funds that could be better spent adding service. That’s the conclusion of this interesting report at TheTyee.ca.

The report considers Vancouver and several transit systems in the Northwest and around the country. For King County Metro, the costs of fare collection in 2006 were about 10 percent of revenue — equal to about $8 million or 18 new buses per year, it says.

Yet fares are hardly the biggest problem facing bus service. There must be more efficient ways to collect money (issuing annual passes, rounding the cost to the nearest dollar, etc.). But charging something probably gives people at least some sense of ownership, or a feeling that they should be getting a service in return.