A Study On The Definition And Implementation Mechanism Of Public Service Obligations In Transportation

Public Service Obligations in Transportation (PSOs) has been an important issue which needs to be resolved. It has not been treated seriously, neither in official documents nor in academic research area. As a result, there is no unified statement and implementation mechanism. All of these made a low efficiency supply of PSOs. This paper argues that the basic idea of PSOs is the awareness and protection of civil basic transport needs.We have made great achievements in economic and social development, protecting the basic traffic rights will become unavoidable and must be properly resolved issues. Early in 1982, France has made it clear by proposing the "traffic rights". In 2013, Japan put forward to the concept of "move rights" in the "Basic Law of Transport Policy". In addition, the two countries also formulated relevant policies and plans to build an efficient supply system of PSOs. Both of the countries have set good examples for us.Even so, the study of PSOs is still focused on railways, which is not conducive to the development of integrated transport system. Therefore, we should make a definition of PSOs from the perspective of the whole transport industry. At the same time, how to deal with the PSOs problems only focused on the financial subsidies. Although there have been polices to promote social capital into areas of public facilities. How to resolve the PSOs problems to protect the rights of social capital has been a key factor in attracting qualified social capital.In a word, how to define PSOs and build a more efficient implementation mechanism are great topics. In order to make a study of these issues, this paper uses three methods: literature research method, case studies and comparative analysis method. The main concepts are as follows:Ⅰ. Complete the PSOs theory. There have been several problems in Current researches such as:most of the studies only focused on the railways; the definition of PSOs is not unified and so on. In addition, the implementation mechanism is a single model-based subsidy. As a result, this paper will continue to deepen the research of PSOs. The theories of Transport Economics, Public Economics, Public Goods Theory and Management of Stakeholder Theory have provided theoretical knowledge to the research problems of the paper.Ⅱ. Build a basic implementation mechanism framework of PSOs. In order to improve the efficiency of PSOs supply, this paper build a framework from three perspectives: legislative protection, financial security and benefit compensation. The first idea is the legislative level, by drawing on the basic concept of traffic rights and the legislative experience of foreign countries, proposed the legal protection mechanism; Followed by the funding level, the supply of public service transport needs adequate funding. Proposing an effective safeguard mechanism to attract social capital is important; Finally the interest compensation level, due to the poor profitability of PSOs, in order to protect the legitimate rights and interests of social capital, proposed an efficient use of public resources compensation mechanism.Ⅲ. The quantitative analysis of the government’s support. This paper found the shortcomings of the traditional indicators of financial self-liquidating rate, proposed a new index:Revenue Cover Cost Ratio. It can be used to quantify the support of the government in transportation projects.The conclusions of all above analysis are as follows:Ⅰ. Academic conclusions:(1) The PSOs means that in order to achieve a public purpose, the operating results caused a loss or profit status is difficult, which need the support by government to maintain its normal operation. It has four characteristics: common, non-profit, external and non-voluntary attributes, and also has the characteristics of universal service; (2) In order to improve the efficiency of PSOs supply, a mechanism form legislative, financial, compensation and other aspects can be considered.Ⅱ. Policy conclusions:(1)Formulate relevant laws, state the government responsibility of PSOs clearly, and stated responsibility of the government clearly, corporate in the PSOs; (2) Protect the legitimate rights and interests of social capital, improve their entry and exit mechanism, and establish the risk-sharing mechanism; (3) Establish a third party to make sure that the public resources can be used more transparently and publicly.