[sustran] Re: (fwd) [UTSG] transport strategy transfer

[Brendan Finn]

Jonathon,

I'd be interested to do a bit of information exchange on this one. I'm
currently doing some work with the UPT sector in Russia and later this year
in Kazakstan. While people in cities such as St. Petersburg generally have
affordability, there are many Russian cities where things are extremely
tight. Premium services have a market everywhere, but as we move down the
food chain we start to hit the financial impossibility of the
'socially-affordable fare' in many places. The burden has to be carried
somewhere - by the taxpayer, the operator, or by the user. In Russia, it has
often been the public-sector operator who gets badly squeezed.

Maybe a few people who are interested in this topic could take it off-line
and exchange ideas. Your research might act as a useful focal point where a
number of people working in the domain could document case studies and
comparable data ?

With best wishes,


Brendan Finn.
_______________________________________________________________________
Contact details are : e-mail : etts at indigo.ie   tel : +353.87.2530286

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jonathan E. D. Richmond" <richmond at alum.mit.edu>
To: "Asia and the Pacific sustainable transport"
<sustran-discuss at list.jca.apc.org>
Sent: Sunday, April 25, 2004 7:49 AM
Subject: [sustran] Re: (fwd) [UTSG] transport strategy transfer


> On Sat, 24 Apr 2004, Brendan Finn wrote:
>
> > Jonathon,
> >
> > Taking Bangkok as an example, is there any practical way to provide bus
> > services on a commercial basis at fares affordable to the poor with
anything
> > other than low-quality, low-cost buses ?
>
> I do not know yet. I expect this to be a subject of my research this
> summer. One of my students is also going to be working on issues of
> transit industry cost structures, so I hope to have some data later in the
> year, although -- given the difficulties of pinning down anything of a
> facual nature in this environment -- I cannot say that I will have
> anything worthy of forming firm conclusions.
>
>
>  If there is, I'd like to hear it,
> > since it seems to be an intractable puzzle in many countries.
> >
> > My experience in the CIS is that you can cover direct operating costs of
old
> > vehicles at low fares. To move to a new vehicle - however basic -
requires a
> > premium fare compared to the "social" fare. In part this reflects the
high
> > cost of capital, linked to low security of tenure on the route, and
hence
> > higher interest both to reflect the risk and the lack of financial
weight of
> > the borrower. In greater part, though, is the relative cost of hard
assets
> > compared to the fares income. In Russia, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, I
have
> > seen no shortage of takers for the premium fare services, which offer a
much
> > higher quality of service in the eyes of the users - a seat, speed,
> > cleanliness, and much less unwanted proximity (especially for women). Of
> > course, this leaves the social travel and the poorest with the low-cost
> > services, leading them inexorably down the sinkhole.
>
> Exactly: and in Bangkok I think you will find that this group accounts for
> a very large share of the population and -- particularly -- of the
> transit-using population.
>