Comparative Research On The Governance Mode Of Urban Public Transport Service

With the rapid development of the urbanization and economy in our country, traffic congestion has become the most important "urban disease" in many cities. Along with traffic congestion, resource shortage and environmental pollution and other problems are getting more serious. To ease the growing traffic congestion in the city, the priority to develop public transport has become the consensus of the government and the people. Therefore, the reforms on public transportation service have launched in many cities. These reforms aim at improving the operational-technical efficiency and the service level of public transport services in a context of severe public budget constraints by changing the governance mode of public transport services. However, a variety of problems appeared in the process of the reforms. Therefore, it is necessary to study the governance mode of public transport service, which is suitable for the social and economic development and explore the road to reform public transport service.Under the practical background, in the light of the practical difficulties of urban public transport service system reform and the deficiency of the existing research, from the public transport service internal benefit, external benefit and comprehensive benefit, this paper provides a comparative study and discussion on the governance mode with 13 urban’ public transport service system. From the institutional perspective, this paper has studied what public transport service governance mode can effectively improve the city public transport service, and change the situation of the lagging development of urban public transport service, and meet the needs of social and economic development and people’s travel. It also provides the theoretical basis and decision-making basis for the reforms of urban public transport services.From the different research levels, mainly with the literature mining method, the case analysis method, the econometric model, the qualitative and quantitative research methods and so on, this paper comes to the following conclusions:(1) The construction of the comparison framework for the governance mode of public transport service. Firstly, from the ownership structure and regulatory mechanisms, we have defined the governance mode categories of public transport service. Next, from the external macro environment and the internal micro environment, we have further defined the attributes of the governance mode of public transport service. Finally, from the internal benefits, the external benefits and the comprehensive benefits of public transport service governance mode, we have built a comparison framework, which provides a theoretical framework for the following research.(2) Comparative study on the governance mode of public transport service from the perspective of the operational-technical efficiency. The interests of transport operators are considered. Under the perspective of the internal benefits of public transport service, the operational-technical efficiency is chosen as the evaluation criteria. We firstly estimate the operational-technical efficiency based on the stochastic frontier approach in a time-varying form of the trans-log production function, and then consider a propensity score matching approach to assess the causal effect between them. An original panel data set covering 47 operators over the period 2008-2013 is used. The empirical analysis is used to discuss the causal effect of the ownership structure and the contractual practices on the operational-technical efficiency. According to our estimates, the mixed operators outperform public ones and private ones, and exhibit the highest level of operational-technical efficiency. The public operators exhibit the lowest level of operational-technical efficiency. The operators under gross cost contracts outperform operators under net cost contracts and ones under management contracts, and the operators under management contracts exhibit the lowest level of operational-technical efficiency. This suggests that, if we only improve the operational-technical efficiency, the phenomenon of the resurgence of the current "nationalization" is debatable. In this type of contract, both production and revenue risk are borne by the government, and the operators do not need to bear any risk. This type of contract is not the best choice.(3) Comparative study on the governance mode of public transport service from the perspective of passenger satisfaction. Concerning the interests of the public transport passengers, from the perspective of the external benefits of the public transport service, passenger satisfaction is chosen as the evaluation criteria. We firstly calculate passenger satisfaction index based on customer satisfaction theory and PLS-SEM, and then we establish a correlation model between the public transport service governance mode and passenger satisfaction. Taking the survey in 13 cities as research object, with the empirical analysis, we have evaluated the effect of the governance mode on satisfaction. The findings show that, a single public transport service provider outperforms many public transport service providers, and exhibits higher level of passenger satisfaction. Passenger satisfaction is a significant positive correlation with the supervision level. The higher the level of government supervision, the higher passenger satisfaction. This suggests that, if we only improve passenger satisfaction, the phenomenon of the resurgence of the current "nationalization" has a certain significance. The government supervision mechanism for public transport service is established and strengthened to improve the quality of public transport services.(4) Comparative study on the governance mode of public transport service from the perspective of comprehensive efficiency. Concerning the interests of the public transport service stakeholder, from the perspective of public transport service comprehensive benefits, the comprehensive efficiency considering the operational efficiency and passenger satisfaction is taken as the evaluation criteria. We firstly measure the comprehensive efficiency based on the comprehensive evaluation method consisting of information entropy and DEA model. Then, we have established the correlation model between the governance mode and the comprehensive efficiency based on truncated model. The relationships between them are explored by the empirical research. The research results show that, in the light of improving the comprehensive efficiency as the goal, the public operators outperform the mixed ones and the private ones, and exhibit the highest level of the comprehensive efficiency. The private operators have the lowest level of the comprehensive efficiency. The operators under g ross net contracts outperform operators under net cost contracts and ones under management contracts, and the operators under net cost contracts exhibit the lowest level of the comprehensive efficiency. This suggests that, the phenomenon of the resurgence of the current "nationalization" has the certain significance. Both production and revenue risk are borne by the operators. It is not conducive to the healthy and orderly development of public transport services.This paper comprehensively analyzes the comparative study on governance mode, and has an important theoretical and practical significance for the exploration of public transport service reform. Compared with the previous studies, the innovation of this paper is mainly reflected in the followings:(1) The comparison framework of public transport service governance mode is constructed. Different from the previous studies, from the internal benefit, the external benefit and the comprehensive benefit of public transport service, this paper has systematically established the comparison framework of public transport service governance mode. From the perspective of theoretical modeling and empirical analysis, this paper has also constructed a correlation model of the governance mode and the internal benefits, the external benefit and the comprehensive benefit, comparatively analyzed the differences between governance modes of public transport service.(2) The correlation model between the governance mode of public transport service and operational-technical efficiency is constructed. Propensity score matching method is firstly taken in this study, which has changed the previous methods of only using stochastic frontier model on analysis of the correlation between them, effectively controlled the influence of other control variables on the operational-technical efficiency. The net effect between public transport service governance mode and operational-technical efficiency is obtained.(3) The correlation model between the governance mode of public transport service and passenger satisfaction is constructed. In this paper, the passenger satisfaction is chosen as the evaluation criteria, and used to comparative analysis of the governance mode. This makes up the lack of the association studies between the governance mode of public transport service and passenger satisfaction. The broader perspective is provided to analyze the difference of the governance mode of public transport service.(4) A combined evaluation method consisting of information entropy theory and data envelopment analysis model for evaluation the comprehensive efficiency of public transport services is proposed. This paper has captured concurrently the multiple perspectives(e.g. the government sector, the transit operator’s and the passenger’s perspectives). We construct an evaluation indicator system based on satisfaction and efficiency. The combined evaluation method consisting of information entropy theory and data envelopment analysis model is used to measure the comprehensive efficiency, which is a new and efficient evaluation method.The main research contents, research methods and research conclusions in this paper are the exploration and complement for the comparative research on the governance mode of public transport service. This paper can provide a theoretical reference for the further study on this content. At the same time, it can provide the theoretical basis and decision basis for the reform of urban public transport service.