Article
citation information:
Dydkowski, G. The application of
just distribution theories to financing integrated systems of regional and
urban public transport. Scientific
Journal of Silesian University of Technology. Series Transport. 2018, 100, 23-33. ISSN: 0209-3324. DOI: https://doi.org/10.20858/sjsutst.2018.100.3.
Grzegorz DYDKOWSKI[1]
THE APPLICATION OF JUST DISTRIBUTION THEORIES TO FINANCING INTEGRATED
SYSTEMS OF REGIONAL AND URBAN PUBLIC TRANSPORT
Summary. The paper presents how
to apply and use principles of the non-market allocation of goods and
distribution in public transport systems. In most countries, regional and local
public transport is a public service, whose availability should be ensured,
with originating deficits financed by the public authorities. In the course of
this service provision, problems can result from financing the deficit by
various entities, e.g., municipalities and municipality groups, as well as
participation by district and voivodeship self-governments in agreements
related to the common organization of public transport and unified
tariff-ticket systems. Based on local justice theory, this paper sets out
principles that can be the foundation of deficit financing system development,
including the analysis of their practical application to financing integrated
public transport systems.
Keywords: financing; public
transport; theories of local justice.
1. INTRODUCTION
As a result of the
expansion of urbanized areas, journeys and public transport lines do not end
within administrative boundaries of cities, but also encroach into suburban
areas. Thus, it becomes impossible to organize and manage public transport
within one municipality. In turn, it is necessary to create appropriate
structures or conclude relevant agreements. The determination of financing
principles for the performed tasks concerns elements, which should be regulated
in the statute of a supramunicipal institution or the concluded agreement.
The issue of
establishing centralized funds for urban public transport financing is
important from the point of view of ensuring effectiveness and economy in
public spending. However, it has not been sufficiently studied so far in the
economic literature, in particular, in relation to urban public transport. This
results partly from financing public transport in certain European countries by
local governments with a larger territorial scope (departments, voivodeships,
regions or government administrations, even state budgets), and partly from the
fact that suburbanization processes and expansion of daily commuting and
servicing by public transport have a short history. This problem is also
omitted because it is situated at the interface between economics, city
management and economics of transport. When considering the practical
importance of the aforementioned issue, it is apparent that research on
principles of financing is necessary in order to ensure the economy of public
funds spent on public transport.
2. ISSUES OF COST AND BENEFIT DISTRIBUTION IN
COMMON PROJECTS
Urban public transport
is financed from funds originating from the tariff revenues and from
municipality budgets. In the case of urban transport integration, where, within
one system, more municipalities are served or tickets are offered, enabling use
of transport services provided by various entities, cash flows originate
between them. Therefore, rules should be determined for the distribution of:
· deficit originating from
urban public transport provision (difference between tariff revenues and costs)
and among entities financing public transport from public funds
· tariff revenues from
integrated (common) tickets between organizers and operators
When carrying out a
review of deficit and tariff revenue distribution between various entities in
the urban transport system, it is possible to state that, in many countries
worldwide, simplified settlement systems are used. This generates a reluctance
to conclude such contracts and hence imposes a barrier on tariff integration.
As a result, tariff integration occurs most often if funds are distributed
between public entities, or if they have the same owner. But, even in such a
case, there is concern about the improper distribution of those funds and
aversion to a specific solution. In other words, this situation represents a
limitation, compared with expansion of ticket types or involved entities. This
is not a system adapted to market liberalization and the existence of various
ownerships; most frequently, operators issue different tickets.
The establishment of entities
responsible for public transport organization and the conclusion of agreements
on entrusting one municipality with tasks of urban public transport
organization require principles to be defined, in terms of financing. In
Poland, organizers are entities established according to the Act on Municipal
Local Government (intermunicipal unions) or operating based on provisions of
the Act on Public Finance (budget establishments or entities). They operate
based on financial plans, while the cities’ contributions depend on
various parameters. Most often, this is the operational work (number of
vehicle-kilometres) or the actual deficit generated by individual transport
lines. In turn, payment for transport service performance is made based on the
size of the operational work; the unit rate is determined as a result of tender
procedures or, in the case of internal operators, in a way specified in the
Regulation (EC) No 1370/2007 of the European Parliament and of the Council of
23 October 2007 on Public Passenger Transport Services by Rail and by Road and
Repealing Council Regulations (EEC) Nos 1191/69 and 1107/70.
The adopted principles
for defining the shares in the common activity costs and the amount of
financing should meet requirements related to public financing use, as an
instrument to control public transport, as well as enable the preparation of
forecasts and long-term development plans and the making of investment
decisions. It is also necessary to ensure the explicitness and transparency of
settlements between supramunicipal organizers and municipalities. Issues of a
general nature overlap with expectations of justice, municipality solidarity as
well as the necessity to pursue improvements in the public spending
effectiveness. The issues of cost or benefit distribution related to common
projects are not complex; as they frequently occur in practical activities, it
is necessary to develop and apply specific rules of conduct.
Cities establishing a
supramunicipal entity or concluding an agreement to organize urban public
transport in order to obtain benefits related to the transport integration. In
particular, tariff and transport offer management integration should be
mentioned here. Tariff integration facilitates the use of urban public
transport, which strengthens its competitive position with respect to travel by
private car. It also enables transfers between various lines and means of
transport, which in turn allows for transport to be facilitated in such a way
as to eliminate substitutive transport lines and prevent an oversupplied offer
on certain sections of routes, as well as reduce passengers’ aspirations
for direct connections. The transport offer is concerned with integration,
expansion of the area and, in particular, the involvement of many transport
entities, which leads to benefit resulting from timetable coordination on
various lines and means of transport. This includes the market verification of
bus transport service provision, a reduction in substitutive lines, and the
division of transport tasks in a way reflecting the transport capability and
other parameters, so that the expected transport service can be delivered.
Moreover, it is possible to achieve economies of scale related to transport
organization in a larger area [4,5].
However, identifying
benefits itself, of which a part is immeasurable or difficult to measure in
terms of money, is not enough. Decision-making about solutions most often
requires the consideration of costs and benefits [8], including external costs
and benefits. The economic effect is significant from the solution durability
point of view as well.
Provisions in the Act of
29 August 2009 on Public Finance apply to municipalities [1]. Pursuant to
Article 44, Paragraph 3, public expenditure shall be carried out in a purposeful
and economical way, maintaining the principle of obtaining the best effects
from specific outlays and of the optimal selection of methods and measures used
to achieve the intended goals (Subparagraph 1). Hence, the establishment of a
supramunicipal public transport organizer shall provide benefits to all
participants. This can result from obtaining additional effects, e.g., from
integration, but also from the reduction in unit costs [20]. A good solution
can consist of calculating, for each municipality, the difference between the
expenditure (costs) for the operational work and the ticket revenue. However, a
given municipality shall have the opportunity to affect the amount of
operational work and the level of service, and in turn the amount of contributed
financing. This is not always possible; for example, in a situation where
there is a high share of intermunicipal lines and decisions about changes to
operational work, arrangements with a few municipalities are necessary (on this
matter, there are frequently differing opinions related to timetable changes).
Methods assuming averaging (the same subsidy per resident, per
vehicle-kilometre) are not good, because they result in demands to increase the
transport offer in such places, where this is unjustified. At the same time,
the municipality pays the subsidy at an average amount, while, due to small demand, the line requires a higher
subsidy. In this situation, contributions to the subsidy are made by other municipalities
in the form of an increased average subsidy to urban public transport in the
area of a supramunicipal structure operation. Hence, in this case, no solution
stimulating effectiveness in relation to the common organization of public
transport is obtained. Urban public transport is financed from public funds.
However, this does not mean simplifications in settlements nor assumes that
this service is to be provided in a way where there is no identification of
subsidies to lines, to places of their origination, municipalities or to
certain social groups, e.g., people who enjoy concessions and free travel.
Concerning funds, which are spent on the community in a specific municipality,
it is necessary to adopt a settlement model with costs and benefits from the
given municipality perspective.
Public financing is an
additional challenge when seeking solutions aimed at the effective provision of
such goods. Subsidy identification, broken down into lines and municipalities,
enables making decisions about the transport offer size and also allows for the
place of subsidies to be identified. In turn, this reduces the mechanism of
transferring the burden of subsidies between municipalities, which is
favourable for the application of the ‘user pays’ rule. This rule
refers not only to passengers, but also to municipalities, which define the
transport offer size in their area.
Pursuing the
determination of rules for municipality participation in financing the
operation of a supramunicipal public transport organizer, as well as the
division of deficit originating out of the comparison of tariff revenues and
costs, it is most frequently possible to encounter the pursuit of solutions
accepted by participants, which have just features. This requires criteria to
be determined and adopted, while divisions should later on be made in
accordance with the adopted criteria. The issues related to justness in the
allocation of goods, rights, burdens and costs over many years have been the
subject of immense consideration. Even in primaeval communities, there were
rules of distribution, e.g., the division of meat from the hunted animal.
Occupied territories, wealth acquired collectively, legacies, benefits
resulting from common business projects, the number of mandates in collegial
authorities at various levels and the allocation of votes to political parties
in elections were all subject to division. Most often, division refers to goods
allocation, but this is not limited to costs or burdens, because their
reduction is also certain good [3,7,10,11,12].
Equality, justice and poverty
occupy an important place in the considerations of two Nobel Prize winners in
the field of economy, i.e., Joseph Stiglitz [13,14] and Amartya Sen. In
particular, Amartya Sen represents a rare trend in the humanistic economics by
referring to ethical, political and strictly economic argumentation. He
considers the social foundations of prosperity, and in particular to what
extent the economic system provides equal life opportunities to participants
[2].
Justice and just
distributions are applied to an increasingly great extent, and not only on a
macro scale, but also in the context of numerous current matters occurring at
regional and local levels, in local governments or economic operators
themselves, as well as in various types of communities. This is partly related
to the increase in the scope of tasks performed by the public sector, hence to
the amount of gathered funds, with regard to which the principles of their
distribution and goals, on which they are spent, are not decided by consumers,
but by various representative bodies. In addition, disproportions and
inequalities grow on various scales, in terms of individual wealth and poverty,
economic operators’ resources, individual regions and states.
Globalization and the ease of movement and communication reveal those
differences, as well as questions including about the principles of
manufactured goods distribution and the scope of aid between states or other
entities.
In the practice of
public transport management on a regional and local level, justice theory
issues become important in solutions related to the common performance of
tasks, for example, common transport organizations and common tariff-ticket
solutions. The adoption of a settlement model based on stable and widely
accepted foundations ensures the durability of those solutions, which is very
important. IT systems, allowing many data to be acquired for settlements, do
not necessarily resolve the problem, because frequently a wider perspective is
expected, along with the elimination of existing differences.
3. THEORIES OF JUST DISTRIBUTION
It should be noticed that justice is a more
philosophical and social notion, and not strictly economic or even
mathematical. Thus, historical and social processes decide what is just or not,
and not exclusively objective truth. Science can only help here, rather than
resolve this issue [9]. It is assumed that, when something is unjust, society
does not accept it as a matter of principle. From this point of view, the
notion of justice, including with regard to division relations, has been
historically evolving. Things that, in the past, were considered just are today
treated as expressions of injustice. Meanwhile, what contemporary communities
are prone to consider as comprising acceptable standards of justice would have
entirely rejected by society in the past [9].
There are many theories
of so-called just distribution, which are founded on various assumptions and
expectations. For the needs of this study, three general theories of justice
can be indicated, the oldest and best known being that of Aristotle, according
to which goods should be divided proportionally to each individual’s
contribution. Although this idea can seem convincing, it has two significant
limitations. Firstly, it is necessary to have a method to measure each
individual’s contribution on a cardinal measurable scale. Sometimes, the
indication of such a measure does not present difficulties, for instance, it
could be concerned with the time of work devoted by individual employees to perform
a common task. In other situations, the measure of contribution is not that
clear. Secondly, to be capable of applying the proportionality rule, the goods
must be divisible. If they are not, they can be made divisible, distributing
opportunities of receiving the specific good, but then the rule is no longer
convincing [17].
The second theory of
justice is classical utilitarianism, according to which goods shall be
distributed in such a way as to maximize the general level of well-being among
interested persons entitled to a specific benefit (the greatest good for the
largest number of people). To give a sense to this notion, the utility must be
treated as a measure of satisfaction or of feeling well, which can be assessed
on a cardinal measurable scale, and values for individuals can be summed up
[17].
The third approach is
based on the central distributive principle, known as the principle of maximin
or difference, which can be formulated as follows: the worst-off group in
society shall do as well as possible [17]. Thus, this requires us to look at
who is doing worse as a result of distribution (e.g., incurs the greatest
burdens or gains the least).
Difficulties related to
the second and third principles have encouraged some economists to adopt an entirely
different approach to distributive justice. In particular, we can refer to the
absence of envy [17]. A specific distribution is referred to as not increasing
envy if nobody covets someone’s other share more than their own. This is
applied during distribution cases, e.g., according to the rule, ‘I
distribute, you choose’.
The allocation rules
encountered in practice usually refer to one of three main ideas of justice
[17]:
· Equality of rights -
this means that individuals shall be treated equally, either because they are
indeed equal or because there are no clear criteria allowing inter alia to
differentiate between them.
· Proportionality - this
means that differences between individuals are recognized and a specific
good is divided pro rata according to those differences.
· Priority - this means
that a specific good shall be received by the person who is most entitled to
it.
Various distribution
principles are presented and no single theory have been developed in order to
resolve various issues in goods allocation. Furthermore, none of the presented
principles has a universal application or leads to unambiguous results.
However, the very reduction of the problem to a few principles and the
indication of their limitations and application possibilities give signals and
guidelines concerning situations in which they should be used. In addition,
attention should be drawn to the fact that the basic principles of justice can
turn out to be useless in situations in which alternative costs can determine
the number of individual shares, that is, costs that would be incurred if a
given problem is resolved independently. It is also necessary to be aware that,
despite the problem’s origins in antiquity, this is a new research area,
which is interdisciplinary and part of a changing reference system, in which
numerous issues are not clearly defined.
In the field of
financing the activity of supramunicipal public transport organizers, there are
various opinions, which can also be key factors when deciding on the establishment
of a given entity or concluding an agreement. Hence, the application of
various measures for settlements was analysed [6]. However, the influence on
organizational effectiveness does not come down to the formulation of financing
principles. Growing GDP, increasing demand and expectations for public services
and increasing importance of urban public transport as a factor reducing
external costs, in particular, in the field of resources and city environment
protection, can result in the reduced importance of settlement procedures. The
adopted principle of financing derives from city policy in the field of public
transport as well. It is possible to notice that this problem grows out of the
situation of limiting market decisions, in favour of transferring them to the
public administration. This highlights the importance of an economic element,
whereby it is expected that this rule will compel urban transport to be
effective, as well as ensure the element of justice, in that it will at least
not be openly unjust, so that participants in an intermunicipal union will
accept it.
4. CRITERIA FOR MUNICIPALITIES’ PARTICIPATION IN COMMON
PROJECTS AND DEFICIT DIVISION
The adopted
measures, according to which the subsidy is calculated, are not necessarily
directly connected with cost carriers in individual municipalities. In the case
of public tasks, the number of residents is frequently the basic reference. In
many situations, it is possible to encounter the adoption of this criterion,
which ensures a uniform subsidy calculated per resident, but the missing
relationship with the costs is the problem. In the case of this missing
relationship, there could be a situation where the municipality expects the
offer to be improved, in terms of quantity and quality of services provided in
its area, which does not affect the amount of funds assigned by the
municipality to urban public transport financing. The level of subsidies
required from municipalities is also important. The increase in service amounts
is related to a growth in the total subsidy amount (the amount of operational
work increases, the number of vehicle-kilometres), as well as to a greater
subsidy converted into a unit of operational work.
The criterion of
municipality revenues is another element; as a result, municipalities with
higher revenues pay more. Such an approach can be justified by the
argumentation used for progressive tax scales in the case of corporate or
personal income tax. An easier absorption of liabilities is the argumentation
here. The justification of the progression rule is simple: those who have a
higher income should pay higher tax, because they find it easier to absorb the
incurred expenditure [17]. A traditional justification of progressive taxation
is its role in equalizing differences in income and well-being, side effects of
market system functioning. In accordance with this justification, progressive
income tax is a corrective mechanism needed by society to reduce inequalities.
Whether the above argument is convincing or not depends obviously on the extent
to which the tax system actually contributes to a reduction in inequalities
[17]. However, in the case of supramunicipal organizers, the application of
such a rule is doubtful, because it results in crossflows of funds. But cities
frequently emphasize the need for municipal solidarity and the common financing
of projects.
When common projects are
implemented by cities in the field of public transport, it is difficult to
assume an equal division of costs. Although partners are separate entities, in
practice, they are equal partners albeit only as legal entities. But, most
often, they differ in many respects: various opportunities resulting from
possessed natural resources or entities situated, the number of residents,
revenues. Hence, in the case of the equal division of costs between partners,
the division between cities of various populations means that the burdens per
resident can be very much diversified. Thus, it is possible to equally assume
per resident or be willing to consider diverse saturation with the transport
offer, while, at the same time, relate the settlement with costs, which are
equally converted into units of operational work (e.g., vehicle-kilometres).
Unfortunately, the cost division according to the number of residents or to the
number of vehicle-kilometres does not consider alternative costs; hence, the
situation when cities should provide a service on their own. The division
principles should be, as much as possible just; but, in the case of common
projects, they should motivate participants to cooperate. In such a situation,
it is also necessary to focus on how much individual parties would save by
participating in a common project. If each of them was to compare the cost of
independent task performance with the cost when the task is carried out
together and savings are visible, only then will it be possible to talk about
the motivation for cooperation.
However, it is necessary
to assume that any of the municipalities participating in a supramunicipal
institution, which is organizing public transport, would not pay more if it
were to perform the task on its own. The amount spent on independent
organization could be assumed as the maximum level of financing. Organizing
public transport together, apart from benefits related to integration (common
ticketing, transport offer coordination), also results in economies of scale as
well as the benefit of market selection for service providers. This results in
the reduction of unit costs related to transport service provision, but also of
other services, including transport organization. At the same time, there could
be situations where principles of intermunicipal entity operational financing
do not consider differences related to urban public transport in
municipalities. This could be related to:
· equal importance of
common lines in the area of individual municipalities
· location in the
municipality area of an urban public transport depot, which increases the
amount of operational work (however, benefits related to jobs and to the entity
location should be considered)
· expectation of service
provision primarily from the given municipality residents’ point of view
The common satisfaction
of residents’ needs should be cheaper than if this task is implemented
independently. In addition, broader issues should be considered here, apart
from the cost element, which are understood as own costs, because transport
generates significant external effects, especially in cities. Moreover, an
independent organization set up by cities constituting a conurbation, where
residents travel between those cities, is practically unrealistic due to
substantial nuisance (e.g., various tickets).
In the case of an
independent organization providing urban public transport, cities, irrespective
of the adopted subsidy carrier, subsidize the difference between revenue from
tickets and costs. So, in the case of a common organization for urban public
transport, this direction of settlements should be determined, e.g., in the
form of an intermunicipal union or agreement. Benefits of a common public
transport organization are achieved, but, at the same time, the fact that, with
an independent organization, the cost/subsidy amount will not be lower, is
considered. Each of the parties achieves measurable financial benefits
resulting from the developed cooperation.
Attention should also
paid to the intrinsic nature of dynamics in the field of methods for
settlements between municipalities. This results from the changing approach,
over time, to public tasks and principles of their financing, but also from the
development of instruments enabling the measurement of quantities, which, even
a dozen or so years ago, were difficult to measure. These instruments are IT
systems, enabling, on a massive scale, the automatic acquisition and processing
of a lot of information related both to the transport offer and to the
transport behaviour of residents. The development of systems for passenger flow
measurements, vehicle location and fare collection systems based on electronic
cars allows for learning the places for deficit origination and referring them
to residents, transport entities and to specific spatial locations.
5. MEASUREMENT OF
QUANTITIES ADOPTED FOR SETTLEMENTS
An important issue
consists of measuring the revenue for public transport lines, in particular,
the operational work performed on them and the obtained ticket revenues. The
measurement of costs, when the operators are paid for a unit of operational
work, does not raise any issues. They are directly available from the
accounting records, which cover the amount of specific entity expenditures.
The widespread
application of electronics and IT provides possibilities to measure the
revenue, based on the automatic identification of the number of persons getting
on and off or using fare collection systems utilizing electronic cards [15,18].
However, it is necessary to consider the mass nature of urban public transport
and the transport offer changing at a significant pace, which in the case of
big systems will result in a situation where the data will not always be
complete. Moreover, it will not always be possible to include all transported
passengers in e-card systems. Some people are entitled to free travel,
including those who can travel in an unauthorized way, beyond the recording
systems. Settlements in the field of fare collection or counting persons using
urban public transport cannot make the use of such a service more difficult. It
is also necessary to create possibilities to join the system via new entities
(transitional periods, a new carrier, adapting to the standard), while systems
that are less advanced in terms of technology should be considered. Therefore,
especially in the case of big urban transport systems, it is necessary to
develop models to estimate the data and forecast the basic quantities as well
as settlement models related to common ticket sales.
It is necessary to
emphasize that the settlement system can apply to various ticket types, both
single journeys and season tickets. In the case of season tickets, there is
some repeatability between completed journeys and longer single-travel tickets,
which need to consider entitlements to travel by all or by partial means of
transport offered by entities participating in the common ticket system. In
practice, this means easier recording of a larger scope of data characterizing
the mode of travel based on season tickets (in particular, monthly tickets or
for longer periods of time).
Modern fare collection
systems by means of e-cards, which use chip (smart) cards, allow data to be
acquired about journeys and collected fares for public transport
services’ use. They can be applied to the transport offer planning
processes and also settlements related to the public financing of public
transport, as well as identifying the amount of lost revenue resulting from the
application of entitlements in terms of concessions and free travel.
Significant possibilities of electronic cards result from a high capacity of
data storage, data processing capability, robust protection, complicated
algorithms enabling good encryption of transactions, the possibility to enter
data again and usage in multiparty services. Contactless cards are used for
communication with external systems in public transport, which only require
them to be hovered over the reader to facilitate rapid processing. They are
also more convenient and durable and the entire system is cheaper to operate
than in the case of contact cards. E-cards feature a high resistance to
external disturbance and a high durability of the record and of the cards
themselves.
The introduction of fare
collection systems based on electronic cards provides the possibility to
acquire, in digital form, the data related to service use: it is easier to
process the data and use them to control the equipment, e.g., entries to
transfer point areas.
The degree of IT
deployment difficulty in urban public transport depends on the solution scale.
For small systems in urban public transport, there are no major problems with
the implementation of solutions in the field of automatic recording revenue
amounts for individual lines or their sections. The fact that the
implementation cases of fare charging, based on e-cards in entry-exit or
only-entry identification systems, in Poland most frequently in small and
medium cities could be an example. The project becomes more and more costly and
complicated with increasing city size, the number of operators and the
diversification of public transport reach and the transport offer [16,19].
Possibilities offered by IT permanently grow, which results from information
science development in terms of hardware and software, as well as data
transmission.
Looking at
deployment cases in Poland so far, it is possible to state that they do not
always fully utilize possibilities created by e-card technology. In particular,
this applies to the price differentiation, while, in many cases, the number of
journeys is not identified, as well as the distances covered or the performed
operational work. E-cards are also frequently used to only pay for urban public
transport services. In the case of solutions enabling payments for other
services, frequently, this is not carried out from a common pool of funds on
the card; rather, this requires separate prior purchasing of those services.
Situations where full functionality of fare collection systems using e-cards
has not been achieved most often do not result from technological conditions,
but on account of organizational, legal or economic reasons. The use of one
e-card on public transport systems, involving many entities with various tariff
regulations, requires relevant institutional solutions or the use of bank
services for settlement of funds.
6. CONCLUSIONS
The universality
of public financing for urban public transport, as well as the provision of
services on lines whose routes go beyond administrative areas of cities,
requires systems to be set up for centralized financing. This applies primarily
to current public financing, where the obtained revenue from ticket sales is
lower than the expenditure for the operational work. Financing systems can
apply to other assets, while the institutions organizing urban public transport
are or can be owners of transport companies or the infrastructure related to
public transport. Thus, the settlement issues apply to both divisible and
non-divisible elements. The importance of financing principles to urban public
transport results from significant funds allocated to this task for financing
and from possibilities to use public financing as a tool affecting the amount
and spatial location of the transport offer of urban public transport. The
relationship (subsidy amounts and rules vs. public transport services prices)
is crucial. In terms of urban public transport prices, it is possible to influence
the scale of demand for services, while cities frequently implement elements of
social policy in this way. This situation is made more difficult via a
possibility of fund crossflows and as a result of transferring a part of the
costs between municipalities, thus creating a specific supramunicipal structure
or participating in an agreement.
Principles, according to
which public transport is financed from public funds, have a critical impact on
the rationality of fund spending. The connection between financial results
obtained on individual lines and within a municipality with the amount of
public financing provided by the municipality results in a pressure that
matches the transport offer to residents and the financial capacities of the
municipality. However, in the case of a large share of intermunicipal lines,
diversified financial capacities of municipalities and various roles played by
urban public transport in municipality operation strategies, there are
difficulties with the offer optimization from individual municipalities’
point of view. This means that the element of obtained financial results should
not necessarily be the only criterion on which the amount of subsidy depends.
Attention should also be drawn to the fact that public transport is significant
for the spatial development of cities, as it stimulates the development
location and activation of city areas. Hence, the current financial results for
transport lines and routes cannot be the only criterion for decisions related,
e.g., to the line and hence infrastructure liquidation, as is the case for tram
transportation.
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