Overview
Public transport is an indispensable element for passengers in cities and regions, because it helps the mobility of the public in a given area, respecting the environment. It also guarantees the mobility of those groups, who are not able to use alternative modes (e.g. private car). But at the same time the costs of public transport services represent an increasing financial burden for governments mainly because it is not self-financing.
The primary goal of the study is the introduction of the financing tasks related to the regulatory framework of public transport, and the secondary is the definition of the utilisable sources.
- General questions of the regulation of public transport
- Basic principles of service operations
- The real costs of transport and financing
- The EU practice of the financing of public transport
- Possible principles of the regulation and financing of public transport in Hungary
- Organisational questions regarding the operation of public transport
- Future questions of the operation and financing of public transport
- Possible financing basis of the urban and regional public transport
- Summary of the restructuring of the public transport subsidising and financing systems.
Funding
Results
The project after analysing the domestic public transport regulation and comparing it with the planned EU expectations the problem of operation and financing of the Hungarian public transport. There had been pointed out the importance of the knowledge of transport demand and the interrelation between fares, revenues and cost coverage to prepare good contracts. The real costs of transport, the internal and external costs had been discussed, because the comparison of public transport and individual transport provide sufficient arguments for co-financing of public transport.
After analysing the European practice in financing public transport principles for regulation and financing of domestic public transport had been carried out including:
- clarification of servicing provision responsibilities in local and interurban transport,
- justifiable operation costs of public transport and handing the loss compensation in the contracts,
- aspects of normative support justification and method of distribution,
- proposal for a coordinating authority arranging public transport in the region
- proposal for the transition procedure of the regulation of road (bus) public transport,
- special issues of rail passenger transport and financing,
- financing sources of urban and regional public transport.
Policy implications
The main finding of the study had been considered at the new act for bus passenger transport and for the “normative support system” of the government towards the municipal governments.