Making public transport financially sustainable
Over the past two decades, Germany has improved the quality of its public transport services and attracted more passengers while increasing productivity, reducing costs, and cutting subsidies. Public transport systems reduced their costs through organizational restructuring and outsourcing to newly founded subsidiaries; cutting employee benefits and freezing salaries; increasing work hours, using part-time employees, expanding job tasks, and encouraging retirement of older employees; cooperation with other agencies to share employees, vehicles, and facilities; cutting underutilized routes and services; and buying new vehicles with lower maintenance costs and greater passenger capacity per driver. Revenues were increased through fare hikes for single tickets while maintaining deep discounts for monthly, semester, and annual tickets; and raising passenger volumes by improved quality of service, and full regional coordination of timetables, fares, and services. Those efforts by public transport agencies were enhanced by the increasing costs and restrictions on car use in German cities. Although the financial performance of German public transport has greatly improved, there are concerns of inequitable burdens on labor, since many of the cost reduction measures involved reducing wages or benefits of workers.
Year of publication: |
2011
|
---|---|
Authors: | Buehler, Ralph ; Pucher, John |
Published in: |
Transport Policy. - Elsevier, ISSN 0967-070X. - Vol. 18.2011, 1, p. 126-138
|
Publisher: |
Elsevier |
Keywords: | Public transport Germany Sustainability Efficiency Productivity Finance |
Saved in:
Online Resource
Saved in favorites
Similar items by person
-
Bicycling renaissance in North America? An update and re-appraisal of cycling trends and policies
Pucher, John, (2011)
-
Cycling to work in 90 large American cities: new evidence on the role of bike paths and lanes
Buehler, Ralph, (2012)
-
Demand for Public Transport in Germany and the USA: An Analysis of Rider Characteristics
Buehler, Ralph, (2012)
- More ...