Experiences With Regulatory Changes Of The Taxi Industry

Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies. Faculty of Economics and Business. The University of Sydne

Performance-based Subsides: An Alternative Subsidy Regime for Passenger Rail Transport

The Norwegian Ministry of Transport’s (MoT) 2002 White Paper on Public Transport paved the way for the introduction of performance-based contracts for rail passenger service obligations (PSO). The rationale was that such contracts provide a better allocation of risk and responsibilities between authorities and the operators, and will give further incentives for cost and market efficient solutions in passenger rail operations. We have used a simulation model for public transport in order to estimate socially optimal subsidies, which encourage Norwegian State Railways (NSB) to increase patronage and to take external costs and benefits into account. By optimal subsidy regime we mean that the arrangement combines the social surplus maximising objectives of the MoT with the NSB's commercial goals, such that net social surplus (NSS) is maximised compared to the present situation. Within the model NSS comprises: (1) change in NSB’s profit (producer surplus); (2) change in passengers benefit (consumer surplus); (3) changes in environmental and congestion costs; and (4) resource cost of public funds. Through a series of model iterations we have designed a combination of subsidies per passenger, per train kilometre and for seat capacity. With these incentives, NSB will, on a commercial basis, strive towards service levels that resemble the social surplus maximising levels of service. The subsidies internalise the benefits to existing and new passengers and the effect on road congestion of rail service improvements into NSB’s decision criteria. They also reflect the fact that rail fares are regulated. The performance-based subsidies will bring about a welfare gain in the region of NOK 8 million (€1 equals about NOK 8). The subsidies received under this regime together with the passenger revenue, may exceed the costs of the operator. To cope with this, we recommend that a fee is charged for the right to operate under this contractual regime. There is a risk that the incentives will motivate the operators to focus their efforts entirely on train kilometre, seat capacity and passenger numbers to the degree that they overlook other important aspects of service quality, like punctuality, cleanliness, information etc. As a safety net, we recommend a set of additional conditions and bonus/malus arrangements. Most important are (1) bonus/malus for train cancellations and delays, based on the principles of internalising passengers’ benefits or costs into NSB’s decision criteria; and (2) the threat of tendering if quality measurements and performance levels fall below certain levels

Norwegian experiences with tendered buss services

Competitive tendering of local public transport services has been allowed in Norway since 1994. By 2005, 28 percent of all route production in Norway was procured on the basis of tendered contracts, covering around 40 percent of all passengers. The majority of the tendered contracts were gross cost contracts, whereas historically, most Norwegian contracts have been net cost contracts. This article analyses the effect of competitive tendering on operating cost and subsidies paid. It is found that competitive tendering reduces costs by 10 percent and that most of the cost reduction has been used to reduce subsidies for public transport by local authorities. The effects of competitive tendering in Norway are smaller compared to other countries. This can be attributed to the fact that the industry had improved efficiency over a long period before competitive tendering was introduced

Lettbaner - Hvorfor har så mange europeiske byer valgt denne formen for kollektivtransport?

Som en del av grunnlaget for fremtidig kollektivbetjening av sentrale deler av København er det samlet en del informasjon og erafring knyttet til eksisterende lettbanesystemer i andre europeiske byer. Systemene er forskjellige og har ulike funskjoner i ulike byer. Satsningen på slike systemer begrunnes ofte med kostnad, bymiljø, attraktivitet, mulighet for redusere bilbruk, økt kollektivandel, bedre tilgjengelighet, stimulere til nye investeringer sentralt i byen mv. I stor grad er målsettingene nådd, men mange virkninger er av langsiktig karakter

Nevidni sovražnik: predstavljanje dela v korporacijski medijski ureditvi

Substantial research documents the central role of the U.S. media in delegitimizing and marginalizing the labour movement. U.S. journalists cover labour only rarely, and then through the prism of a "public" interest frame that submerges class relations, privileges commodities over the workers who produce them, and implicitly supports capital over the workers whose actions threaten to (or do) disrupt the ordinary flow of commerce. This coverage is deeply rooted in the patterns of thinking taught in academic journalism programs. Leading American journalism textbooks rarely suggest seeking information or comment from labour leaders or union members, even for stories in which unions would be deeply involved. When textbooks ask students to writearticles about hiring freezes and lay-offs based solely on press releasesor "notes" from news conferences by corporate officials, students are being taught a clear lesson about whose perspective matters. Journalism textbooks largely ignore the vast majority of the population - those who must work for a living. Workers and their unions exist only on the margins, as a disruptive force that inconveniences the general public. That reporters trained in this way go on to ignore labour concerns and perspectives in their own reporting is hardly surprising.Raziskovanje razkriva pomembno vlogo ameriških medijev v delegitimizaciji in marginalzaciji delavskega gibanja. Ameriški novinarji le redko obravnavajo delavska vprašanja, in tedaj skozi prizmo "javnega" interesa, ki so mu podrejeni razredni odnosi, privilegira blago in ne njegovih proizvajalcev ter implicitno podpira kapital proti delavcem, katerih delovanje ogroža vsakdanji blagovni promet. Taka usmeritev je zakoreninjena v mišljenjskih vzorcih, ki se jih študentje učijo v univerzitetnih novinarskih programih. Vodilni ameriški novinarski učbeniki celo takrat, kadar gre za zgodbe, v katere so sindikati pomembno vpleteni, ne svetujejo iskanja informacij ali komentarjev med delavskimi voditelji ali člani sindikatov. Če učbeniki zahtevajo od študentov, da pišejo članke o omejitvah zaposlovanja ali odpuščanju le na osnovi zapiskov z novinarskih konferenc, ki jih organizirajo predstavniki podjetij, je jasno, katera perspektiva je pomembna. Novinarski učbeniki zanemarjajo večino prebivalstva - tiste, ki živijo od svojega dela. Delavci in sindikati obstajajo le na družbenem obrobju, kot razdiralna sila, ki sproža v splošni javnosti nelagodje. Če novinarji, ki so na tak način izobraževani, pri svojem delu zanemarjajo delavska vprašanja in perspektive, ni presenetljivo

Moderne skogbruks innvirkning på artsrikdom hos fugl: Oppsummering av kunnskap basert på litteraturstudium

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Working-class newspapers, community and consciousness in Chicago, 1880-1930

This dissertation focuses on Chicago working-class and labor newspapers published between 1880 and 1930, documenting an often- neglected part of communications history. The workers' press played a key role in sustaining and promoting U.S. working-class movements. Chicago's working-class press ranged from obscure monthly organs to well-established socialist dailies integrated into the socio-cultural milieu in which they operated. These papers were part of a rich media ecology, including scores of foreign-language, trade and professional dailies, as well as mainstream dailies organized into the Chicago Newspaper Trust.Institutions such as the Socialistic Publishing Society, which issued the German-language Chicagoer Arbeiter-Zeitung, Fackel and Vorbote, illustrate the institutional arrangements workers employed to ensure that their newspaper remained accountable. Immigrant workers' newspapers sustained working-class cultures and encouraged solidarity across language barriers. Lithuanian, Italian and Croatian papers--especially Naujienos, La Parola del Popolo, and Radnicka Straza--illustrate these processes. Foreign-language papers reflected competing visions of class and ethnicity, illustrated in Chicago's Czech (Spravedlnost, Denni Hlasatel, and Svornost), Polish (Dziennik Ludowy, Dziennik Zjednoczenia, Dkiennik Zwiazkowy, and Dziennik Chicagoski) and Yiddish (Jewish Courier, Arbeiter Welt, and Jewish Daily Forward) press, and the ways in which socialist newspapers sought to fuse ethnic and class identities.Through the Chicago Daily Socialist, the Cook County Socialist Party struggled to realize their vision of a newspaper written and controlled by the socialist movement. The Chicago Federation of Labor launched The New Majority in 1919 (renamed the Federation News in 1924) after decades of relying on privately-published organs such as the Union Labor Advocate, to support their expansive political agenda. These newspapers were produced by editors characteristic of, and deeply embedded in, the communities they served.Chicago's working-class press represented an alternative model--one in which ordinary workers were encouraged to participate in shaping and producing their own media. Yet the extent to which this ideal was realized varied widely. Publishers often encountered serious difficulties reconciling the competing pressures of the capitalist marketplace in which they were obliged to operate and the needs of the movements they were established to serve.U of I OnlyETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permissio