Because of a general trend of increasing costs of public transport operations and higher subsidies (in some cases accompanied by falling patronage) the European Conference of Ministers of Transport (ECMT) initiated a study of subsidisation and sought the help of the Transport and Road Research Laboratory. The study, in which eighteen countries took part, was concerned with the aims of subsidy, the sources and conditions attached to subsidy, trends in subsidies and the effect of subsidies on patronage, fares, service levels, costs and productivity.The qualitative information concerning the aims of subsidy was analysed in relation to the likelihood of achieving such aims, taking into account current experience of attempts to switch car drivers to public transport. The quantitative information on trends referred to public transport stage services covering where possible the entire country and relating to the period 1965-77; these data were supplemented by data from 59 cities in different parts of the world collected in the course of a TRRL-sponsored study of travel demand factors. The relationship between p'atronage and service levels, and between subsidies and various operating factors, including costs and productivity, were studied using regression analysis and the general conclusion reached was that although the major part of the subsidy paid was reflected by reduced fares and improved service levels there may well have been some leakage into higher unit costs and manning levels.
This paper presents the main findings of the TRRL-sponsored International Collaborative Study of the Factors Affecting Public Transport Patronage, a study which involved research workers in Australia,
This paper is the last of a series published in Transport Reviews describing the results obtained from Phase 2 of the International Study Group on LandUse/Transport Interaction (ISGLUTI). In this second phase some interactive models were applied to several cities, and some cities examined by several models, to enable a rigorous comparative evaluation of the various models to be carried out. The paper draws together the main findings of the study, commenting on the performance of the models, looks particularly at the impacts of transport and landuse policies on the cities examined, and discusses the lessons learnt. The act of applying the models to completely different areas proved to be a significant test of the models, and further highlighted their particular strengths and weaknesses, taking account of the ease of transferring to different cities. The study identified those policies where the interaction between land use and transport was particularly strong and those where it was surprisingly weak and showed how the interaction over the longer term could modify the initial impacts. The results have shown how the effects of policies depend on the size and characteristics of the city to which they are being applied. The paper concludes that the more exacting tests of Phase 2 have demonstrated more clearly than hitherto how useful the models are for particular tasks and have given important insights into the impacts of the particular policies tested.
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