The increase in TEC fares is neither a scandal nor a social setback: it marks the end of a policy of artificially low prices, financed on credit by Walloon taxpayers. The aim is to put public transport back on a responsible track and bring its fares closer to those charged by other public operators, notably De Lijn.
Under the guise of generosity, the policy pursued in recent years has weakened the finances of TEC and Wallonia, multiplied windfall effects, and failed to produce the expected impact on network use and the shift away from cars. It was time to intervene and restore a trajectory enabling TEC to invest again in the real challenges it must address: decarbonising its fleet, the reliability and punctuality of its service, and the safety of its passengers and drivers.
1. Background
The TEC bus ticket in Wallonia has changed very little over recent decades and is sometimes even lower today than it was 20 years ago (e.g. monthly pass for 12-17 year-olds: €52.50 in 2006 compared with €27 today).
This situation is no accident: it results from successive non-indexations (since 2014) and the near-free fares introduced between 2020 and 2022. Today, BIM beneficiaries, 18-24 year-olds and over-65s can benefit from an annual pass of €12. Behind the rhetoric of generosity, the choice was clear: turn price into a political symbol, without demonstrating that this public spending actually improved the mobility of disadvantaged people or caused a significant modal shift.
The artificially low fares reduced the OTW's (Opérateur de Transport de Wallonie = TEC) own revenues and increased its dependence on regional funding. This situation limits the scope available to invest in service quality. Yet when frequency, punctuality, safety or coverage are insufficient, a price cut alone is not enough to durably attract new users. The responsible choice is therefore to combine targeted social fares with sufficient funding of the service.
This policy of (near-)free fares did not have the hoped-for effect, and a study commissioned by the OTW (2024) to assess whether the modal-shift objective had been achieved found no significant effect of the fare reduction on network usage intensity, nor any substantial shift away from cars, based on data provided by the OTW for the period 2019-2023.
A European benchmark carried out as part of this study confirms this reality: fare reductions / free travel result in very little shift from cars to public transport. In other words, the BDO study finds a practically negligible relationship between prices and validations (coefficients between –0.06 and +0.05). While the near-free fares led to a sharp rise in the number of subscriptions, this finding alone does not establish that the social objective was met. The BDO study shows that this rise was accompanied by a decline in average use per subscriber and did not produce a proportional increase in validations. Absent evidence of an actual improvement in the mobility of disadvantaged groups, the achievement of the social objective cannot be considered established.
User preferences thus appear to be influenced more by the quality of the service than by its price. Indeed, several studies have shown that, while value for money is often a source of dissatisfaction, the price of public transport ranks, among users' priorities, well behind reliability, punctuality, frequency, comfort, safety and geographic coverage.
The conclusion is therefore stark: the non-indexations and near-free fares reduced the OTW's revenues and increased the regional financial burden, without any significant, proportional effect on network use being established for the period studied. The priority must now be to fund a more reliable, more frequent and safer service.
2. The obligations of the new public service contract
A new public service contract (in reality an almost complete amendment) was signed last June between the OTW and the Walloon Government. It provides for the OTW's revenue coverage rate to rise from 10% to 14%.
In concrete terms, this means that, out of every €100 in revenue linked to the internal-operator remit, the share coming from passengers must rise from €10 to €14. This target corresponds to the level used as a reference at De Lijn.
Moreover, the financial trajectory agreed in this new public service contract provides for a rebalancing between the regional subsidy and user contributions, and the return of indexation (3.41%) to be applied to the new fares.
The note submitted to the Board of Directors targets traffic revenue of €109.78 million in 2028, compared with €68.6 million in 2025, in order to reach the 14% coverage rate. A decree adopted last September by the Walloon Parliament gives the OTW (and thus its Board of Directors) the autonomy to take this decision, within the framework of the public service contract.
To achieve this objective, the OTW has 4 levers at its disposal:
1. Making savings
Savings are already built into the budget trajectory of the new public service contract: €20 million in savings are planned on TEC's operating costs.
2. Fighting fare evasion
The aim is to reach 1% of all passengers checked in each Business Unit. We are currently well below that level. Yet this target will help track down fraud, while also giving a sense of security and fairness to compliant passengers. The visibility of these checks will also discourage fare evasion, and penalties will be increased.
3. Increasing ridership
The TEC network will need to be optimised with this goal in mind, though it generally takes two years, once the new network is operational (new buses, new lines, etc.), to measure the impact of an improved network on ridership.
4. Raising fares
Finally, and logically, a fare increase will also need to contribute to these budgetary objectives, while restoring value to public transport. As a reminder, and as noted above, it is not the price but the quality of service (reliability, punctuality, comfort, safety, geographic coverage) that is the main driver of public transport ridership.
3. A new fare structure closer to some of De Lijn's rates
The fare changes proposed by the OTW first involve a return to annual fare indexation, and thus an annual adjustment to the price of TEC tickets in line with the change in the consumer price index (index 3.41%).
While certain free-travel entitlements are being scrapped (BIM / 65+ combined, free travel for journalists, board members, MPs, etc.), the main changes consist of a new, clarified fare structure.
A general increase is indeed being introduced (unavoidable given the obligations of the new public service contract), but it remains reasonable, aligned with comparable services observed at De Lijn, and prices often remain lower than they would have been had Wallonia simply allowed automatic fare indexation to run its course in recent years (cumulative revenue shortfall between 2020 and 2026 from free, near-free and non-indexation measures = €283.077 million…).
Moreover, these increases apply exclusively to subscription fares; the “single ticket” remains at €2.80, compared with €2.90 at STIB and €3 at De Lijn.
Far from being a scandalous increase or a social setback, this newly proposed fare structure simply allows a move away from an abnormal situation (free travel, near-free travel, windfall effects, etc.) towards a return to normality. It also restores a form of value to public transport and introduces fares comparable to (and often monthly lower than) those charged by the Flemish operator. They remain well below those charged by STIB or SNCB, which admittedly have different technical and network realities.
Some features of this new fare structure:
- The current fare structure is too complex for users. The new structure must make the categories, eligibility conditions and amounts immediately understandable;
- Entry into force on 1 February 2027;
- In the OTW's proposal, the single ticket remains at €2.80; the increase mainly concerns subscriptions and a few technical adjustments;
- Concrete examples:
- Youth pass:
- today: 12-17 year-olds at €150/year in Classic or €324/year in Express, and 18-24 year-olds at €12/year
- New fares for 12-25 year-olds: €180/year in Classic and €384/year in Express. For comparison, De Lijn applies, among other things, an annual fare of €165 for 18-24 year-olds;
- BIM pass:
- today: €12/year
- new fare: €60/year (€5/month…)1;
- 65+ pass:
- Today: €12/year
- new fare: €120/year (€10/month…).
- 26-64 year-old pass (legal obligation for employers to cover at least 71.8%):
- today: €420/year
- new fare: €525/year2 (De Lijn: €499/year).
- Mobib card (valid for 5 years): from €5 to €10.
- Youth pass:
1 TEC BIM pass before 2019: €400/year… De Lijn BIM pass: €68/year, STIB BIM pass: €96/year.
2 De Lijn: €499/year