Concept of development of public transport

Improvement of tariff policy

The problem of public transport enterprises is that they cannot become profitable in modern conditions at the expense of more efficient work, and not at the expense of raising tariffs. And today, in general, they remain unprofitable.

The peculiarity of the functioning of public transport is the need to harmonize the economic interests of transport enterprises and public interests, taking into account the needs of all segments of the population and presupposes a strictly weighted approach to the formation of tariffs for the use of public transport services.

Today, to meet the requirements of the population for transport services in terms of quantitative, qualitative and economic parameters and simultaneous provision of profitability of public transport enterprises, it is necessary to restrain the growth of tariffs on public transport,

The main ways to reduce tariff growth are government regulation and the creation of a market economy, the implementation of which should take into account the following main points:

• state regulation is often too stringent, which leads to a weakening of market incentives and an outflow of capital from the industry;
• The abolition of tariff regulation is associated with a risk of a sharp increase in fares, and the preservation of regulation to worsen transport services for the population. When regulating tariffs, a uniform package of transport services is observed and carriers lack incentives to introduce innovations in transport services;
• The mechanism of market competition also has its drawbacks, as competition often turns out to be insufficient, unscrupulous and, as a result, leads to a decrease in the quality of transport services for the population;
• in the presence of competition, attraction of private carriers can reduce the budget load and improve the quality of transport services provided, and in its absence, deteriorate the quality of transport services for the population, and cause an increase in the cost of travel;
• contracting for transport services on a competitive basis is a sufficiently effective means of creating competition. The system of contests allows to achieve more efficient and higher indicators of the level of transport services. To do this, it is necessary to create a thoughtful and balanced system of competitions based on objective assessments of the level of applicants and making private decisions with the maximum elimination of subjective approaches. At the same time, one of the options for ensuring the overall level of profitability of passenger transportation can be the formation of lots that combine low-profitable and unprofitable socially important routes with profitable ones;
• Conclusion of contracts with carriers for a long period of time (from 3 to 5 years) can serve as an incentive for investing in the sphere of passenger transportation of financial resources and attract new carriers;
• provision of subsidies for transport services to compensate the carrier for losses incurred as a result of tariff regulation and transportation of privileged categories of citizens, should involve the use of mechanisms to mobilize on-farm reserves of transport enterprises, optimize their production, etc.

In modern conditions, the improvement of the tariff policy is to create an effective mechanism based on the use of various combinations of market and state regulation of the transport services market, taking into account their social significance.

The main tasks of improving the tariff policy are:

• monitoring of tariffs in order to limit their inflationary impact;
• restriction of tariffs for ensuring the availability of transport services and preventing their provision below cost (dumping) or long-term use of understated prices that do not allow ensuring the safety of the transport process;
• ensuring price transparency of the market by expanding the practice of applying the “announced tariff” principle;
• ensuring stability and unification of tariffs in the interests of users of transport services.

Types of public transport, the tariff policy will be characterized by the following.

In the field of automobile and electric public transport, tariff regulation implies an increase in the affordability of public transport services for the less well-off segments of the population.

Tariff regulation is carried out by gradually equalizing the level of transport security of urban and suburban routes and creating conditions for improving the quality of services.

Pricing for commercial transport should be based on market conditions and the quality of transport services.

Creation of information and analytical system of public transport management

The creation of an information and analytical system for managing public transport is conditioned by the need to improve the efficiency of public transport management and monitoring of its functioning.