José A. Gómez-Ibáñez

Autos, transit, and cities

The authors recommend that future urban transportation must not only be produced by improvement of public transit within clear guidelines but also must give a prominent, although refined, role to the automobile. Following a brief review of the way in which urban travel patterns and systems have evolved, the authors continue by describing how government policies were misdirected as they aimed at increasing the effectiveness of mass transportation. They discuss not only buses, commuter trains and rapid transit, but the less traditional modes such as vanpooling and dial-a-ride, indicating where public policy went wrong and how to make future public transportation more effective. The authors then turn to the automobiles impact on land use, energy, air pollution and aesthetics. They discuss small-car safety and transportation of the disadvantaged, offering suggestions for dealing with these problems. It is concluded that many transportation problems can be solved only by adapting the automobile to meet the increasingly stringent requirements of urban life.

Big-City Transit Rider snip, Deficits, and Politics: Avoiding Reality in Boston

Abstract Boston is typical of many metropolitan areas struggling to maintain or increase their transit ridership while keeping their transit deficits—defined here as the shortfall between passenger revenues and transit agency costs— under control. In Boston, transit rider-ship has increased over the last twenty years because the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) has offset the effects of suburbanization and income growth by extending rail lines into the suburbs and by keeping fare increases below the rate of inflation. The service extensions and fare reductions have been a major factor, however, in the explosion of the MBTA deficit from

A Dark Side to Light Rail? The Experience of Three New Transit Systems

21 million in 1965 to

PRIVATIZING AND DEREGULATING LOCAL PUBLIC SERVICES: LESSONS FROM BRITAIN'S BUSES

575 million in 1991. There has been little political will or incentive to date to adopt measures-such as tolling autos or contracting out transit services with the private sector—that might help control the deficit without greatly reducing ridership. Although these measures are not long-term remedies, without them cities like Boston ...

Alternatives for urban bus services: an international perspective on the British reforms

Abstract Many medium-size cities are planning or building new light rail transit (LRT) systems, the modern equivalents of streetcars or trolleys. Proponents argue not only that light rail is far less expensive to build than heavy rail, or subway, systems but also that it costs no more to operate than conventional bus transit and offers much improved service. Although it is too early to draw definitive conclusions, the first several years of experience of the new light rail systems in San Diego, Calgary, and Edmonton suggests that proponents have oversold LRT. In all three cities the LRT costs more than the conventional bus service it replaced. Public transit ridership increased modestly in two of the three cities, but the costs per added rider were high.

Competition in the Railway Industry

Abstract The British Transport Act of 1985 ordered one of the most radical efforts to privatize and deregulate local public services in a developed country. With the exception only of companies serving the Greater London metropolitan area, all public bus companies in Great Britain were ordered reorganized as for-profit corporations; any bus company could offer any unsubsidized (commercial) bus services simply by giving local authorities notice; and local authorities could supplement the commercial services with subsidized ones, but only through competitive bidding among the newly privatized carriers. This article examines the experience of the first two years of the new British policy and argues that it offers important, and generally hopeful, lessons about the potential for privatizing and deregulating local buses and other services in the United States and elsewhere.

Estimating Whether Transport Users Pay Their Way: The State of the Art

Around the world, a variety of methods have been employed for providing urban bus services ranging from public monopolies at one extreme to unregulated private firms at the other extreme; the intermediate alternatives usually involve private firms with some degree of public regulation over fares and entry. Public monopoly is common in the developed world while private provision with some form of regulation is the norm among developing countries. The British reforms of 1986 pioneered two schemes for bus provision. First, outside of the London metropolitan area the government created one of the few largely unregulated private regimes in the world (the most notable other recent examples being in Sri Lanka and Chile); second, within London it allowed local public authorities to retain control of the design of the route network and fares but forced them to tender all services to private firms (a scale of tendering heretofore unknown). The most obvious conclusion from the experience of Britain and elsewhere is ...

AIRLINE DEREGULATION : WHAT'S BEHIND THE RECENT LOSSES?

Numerous countries have attempted to improve the performance of their railways by introducing more competition, but there is fierce debate and no consensus on how this is best achieved. This book reveals how railways were an obvious target for reform because they were often losing traffic and money, and because the government was typically deeply involved as either owner or regulator.

Chapter 46 Urban transportation

This paper examines some of the problems in estimating whether transportation users pay their way using five recent and widely cited studies in urban passenger transportation costs as illustrations. All studies cited find that automobile users do not pay their way, and the three of the five that consider public transit in detail find that its passengers also fail to pay their costs. While the broad conclusions of the studies are similar, the details are quite dissimilar. The paper provides an overview of the studies to help understand why the details differ.

Restraining auto imports: Does anyone win?

The recent disastrous financial performance of the airline industry is probably thought by many to indicate that deregulation is not workable. But simulations suggest that the current recession and the 1979 fuel price increase are primarily to blame. Deregulation has caused transitional losses for some segments of the industry; but the new freedoms accorded to the airlines probably have helped rather than hurt the profitability of the industry.