The quest for a fairer formula. How re-institutionalisation begins with neo-illegal transport communities at the fringe of social innovation in Brussels

Abstract

This article examines how the re-institutionalisation of transport policies starts with the everyday insurgency of fare evasion practices which exist at the fringe of social innovation. In the case of Brussels, fare evaders organised themselves at the heart of the digital world, as virtual communities to claim their rights to mobility and to re-common the public transport infrastructure by mobilising offline evasion actions. This perspective allows to understand fare evasion not as an illegal or criminal practice but as a symptom that embodies how transport policies fail under marketisation. The article concludes that fare evaders have the potential to be bottom-up actors, yet they are limited by socio-economic cleavages and the predominant transport policies.