Economic developments, particularly in recent years, have led to a revived interest in the efficacy of government expenditures. One area of government interest where discussions are particularly lively is public transport. Public transport is a service to the public of a country or region which seldom seems able to pay its own costs. Politicians argue that the purpose of public transport is not to make money but to contribute with improved accessibility to the social well‐being of society. In the following pages we will try to make operational the concept of social well‐being so as to help find practical solutions for the subsidization of public transport. One such solution is the optimum allocation of funds to public transport in urban areas.

    The concept of social well‐being has two unpleasant features, namely, that it is complex and that it is vague. They are probably to blame for the fact that discussions of social well‐being are either so general that no meaningful conclusion can be drawn from them, or that they do not go beyond giving highly specific, often almost trivial examples of (the lack of) social well‐being, leaving entirely open the question how such examples fit in a general concept of social well‐being.

    Without pretending to an operational definition of social well‐being, we will at least try to substitute a notion that can be meaningfully operated in certain cases. We shall see, however, that the substitution cannot be carried through without the loss of a feature essential to social well‐being.

    After the more or less philosophical introduction to the problem a general model for public transport will be presented in which both the level of service and the fare are introduced as instruments to increase the contribution of public transport to social well‐being. It will be shown that, although in principle the marginal benefit‐cost approach has to be considered as the best approach to problems of public transport, financial constraints could become so severe that a monopolistic approach is used instead.

    After this theoretical part of the paper it is shown how the model could be estimated and prepared for use in a system of optimum allocation of funds for public transport.


    Zugriff

    Zugriff prüfen

    Verfügbarkeit in meiner Bibliothek prüfen

    Bestellung bei Subito €


    Exportieren, teilen und zitieren



    Titel :

    Allocating subsidies to public transport: some theoretical and practical considerations


    Beteiligte:
    Klaassen, Leo H. (Autor:in) / Vogelaar, Hans (Autor:in) / Wagenaar, Sjoerd (Autor:in)

    Erschienen in:

    Transport Reviews ; 4 , 1 ; 43-72


    Erscheinungsdatum :

    01.01.1984




    Medientyp :

    Aufsatz (Zeitschrift)


    Format :

    Elektronische Ressource


    Sprache :

    Unbekannt




    Assessment of State Procedures for Allocating Section 5311 Subsidies to Rural Public Transit Operators

    Marshment, R. S. / National Research Council; Transportation Research Board | British Library Conference Proceedings | 1998



    Effects of subsidies on urban public transport

    Bly, P. H. / Webster, F. V. / Pounds, Susan | Online Contents | 1980


    Evaluation of investment subsidies in public transport

    Van Engelberg, B. / Stemerding, M. / Goudappel Coffeng, B. V. et al. | British Library Conference Proceedings | 2000