That makes sense, thanks for sharing. We tried fully free buses here for a while but scrapped it because it was super expensive (the way it worked was that the government paid the bus company for all the tickets - and they chose to write a new app you could use to claim these free bus tickets)

I didn’t hear anything about crime or vandalism rising in this case. I wonder if the registration process was a deterrant; passengers still had to scan their tickets as they boarded, and getting one required identifying yourself.