CRITICAL APPRAISAL AND ANALYSIS OF PRIVATISATION IN URBAN BUS TRANSPORT SYSTEM

Abstract

Urbanisation in India is taking place at a rapid rate. India's fast rate of urbanisation and industrialisation does not seem to be matched with the supply levels of public transport system because of financial constraints. In India, urban public transport is mainly road-based system except Mumbai (Bombay), Calcutta and Chennai (Madras) where track based system exist. Though the share of the buses is hardly 1.5 percent of the total motor-vehicle population of India, still 80 percent of the road based trips are performed by buses only. As per motor-vehicle statistics of India, out of 0.33 million buses at all India level, only about 4 percent buses are being operated for intra-urban movement. Phenomena of privatisation is assuming the role of a strong alternative to the present urban public transport systems, in developed, as well as, in developing countries. The mechanism of privatisation and deregulation has been tried abroad to reduce subsidy in urban public transport. In this research study, Delhi which is a major metropolitan city and Capital of India, has been taken as a case study. This is the only major metropolitan city, where the maximum commuters depend upon bus transport system, as the share of railways is almost negligible. At present the bus transport system of Delhi is a mixed combination of publicly owned DTC buses and privately-owned-cum-operated buses running under State Transport Authority (STA) permit. These privately operated buses are running under various colour coded schemes. In the first part of the thesis, nine important urban public bus transport systems of India have been compared in terms of performance indicators i.e. physical, financial and quality of service, in order to generate basic scenario and policy guidelines and to know why the need of privatisation was felt. Seven physical performance indicators have been taken i.e. percent occupation ratio, percent fleet utilisation, vehicle utilisation, staff per bus ratio, crew productivity, passengers carried per bus on road and average distance travelled per passenger. Four financial performance indicators have been taken for comparison i.e. cost per effective km, average salary per employee per clay, percent operating ratio and cost per bus on road per day. Also three quality of service indicators have been taken i.e. accidents per million effective km, breakdowns per 10,000 effective kms and regularity in percentage. Then Combined Index (C.I.) for all the nine bus undertakings have been calculated and compared. Various field studies were planned for this research work i.e. Bus Commuters Survey, Private Bus Operator Survey, Selection of routes and field study for Fare Structure. In the second part of the thesis, cost structure of public buses, as well as, privately operated buses has been compared first at the system level and statistical cost models have been prepared at the system level. Models have been statistically validated by applying T-test, F-test and R^-test (coefficient of determination). Then operating cost allocation models have been developed for DTC buses, as well as, privately operated buses by taking unit cost factors in terms of vehicle-hours, vehicle-kms and peak vehicle needs. For the development of cost models at route level, 10 routes have been selected for Public (DTC) buses and 18 routes have been selected for privately operated buses. Data for public buses has been calculated from the administrative reports of DTC. But for privately operated buses no data was available. So data has been collected by field survey. Three important parameters have been taken for the preparation of cost models on route basis i.e. parameters depending upon number of peak vehicles, parameters depending upon vehicle-kilometres and parameters depending upon vehicle schedule. Models have been statistically validated by applying T-test, F-test and R^-test (coefficient of determination). xx In the third part of the thesis, fare structure of buses have been taken into account. Because fare structure of public and privately operated buses is same, so fare structure of only public buses has been analysed due to more available data. Alternate fare structures have been tried so that at least working expenditure (operating cost excluding depreciation and interest) of bus is covered. For the common fare structure, revenue and operating cost of privately operated buses have been compared with the public buses. Ultimately rationalisation of fare structure has been suggested. In the fourth part of the thesis, analysis of the attitudinal study for both public, as well as, privately operated buses has been done. About 1000 samples have been analysed for this study. Personal information, household information and trip information of bus commuters have been analysed. Then travel attributes of the bus commuters have been analysed. Nineteen elemental attributes have been identified and these have been recategorised into seven abstract attributes. Psychometric scaling technique has been used to convert qualitative values into quantitative values. Then Weighted Attributinal Rating (W.A.R.) of elemental attributes, as well as, abstract attributes have been calculated and analysed. Seven abstract attributes which has been analysed are : Extent of service, accessibility, journey time, comfort and convenience, reliability, safety and service information. In the end, average W.A.R. (calculated) and observed W.A.R. have been compared. Last part of the thesis, comprises of structural behaviour of urban public buses and privately operated buses, in which expenditure and revenue have been projected for 2001 AD from the present trends. Passenger carried by public buses are also projected for 2001 AD from the present trend. Lastly, the behaviour pattern of average fleet size, as well as, on-road fleet size for publicly owned buses i.e. DTC buses and privately operated buses have been projected for 2001 AD. XXX