Research On The Dilemma Of Urban Public Transport Privatization Reform From The Perspective Of New Institutional Economics

As one of the representatives of urban public utilities, urban public transport industry play an important role in meeting the travel needs of the public, and enhancing the productivity of urban life. With the social and economic development, urban public transport industry has also accelerated the pace of development. Its operational route has been extending, mileage has been increasing, and the vehicle continuously updated. However, with the increasing development of urban public transport industry, some issues have been exposed, such as the demand for high quality of passengers, obsolete vehicle, and poor operational efficiency. There’re growing calls to make market-oriented reform about urban public transport industry. From the 1990s, all over the country has started the reform of the privatization of the city bus. Reform has experienced several stages, including the contract lease management, social capital entering, and returning to nationalization. The reform has made certain achievements, but it doesn’t provide good solutions to financial subsidies, regulation management, service quality and other issues. The wave of "return to nationalization" of urban public transport has been occurred in localities.This article analyzes the motives as well as processes of urban public bus system’s privatization reform in China from the perspective of New Institutional Economics. Based on the good cooperation between the public and private sectors, the author discusses the relevant policies, laws and regulations which aim for promoting public bus system’s privatization reform. In addition, the paper talks about the characteristics of bus privatization reform by analyzing existing models--beginning with Contract and Lease, developing as Franchise, supplemented with joint-stock system reform. Some problems about bus privatization reform are demonstrated in this thesis, such as the chaotic agency relationship, unclear property relations and high cost of transaction, which have severely obstructed the development of public bus privatization.At the same time, combined with the actual situation of Changsha bus privatization reform, under the framework of the overall analysis of the text, the paper make a concrete analysis about its reform dilemma. And on this basis, the paper explores the policy and legal measures to solving relevant problems. If we want to make privatization reform play a better role in the development of urban public transport industry, and promote the sustainable development of urban social economy, We should clear dominance of the government in the process of privatization reform, improve the government’s ability to manage public-private partnership mechanism, and establish a good system of rights and responsibilities between the public and private sectors.