Transport Subsidies Research Articles

Subsidies for public passenger transport in Brazil - a sustainable mobility issue

The present paper analyses how the public transport fare is calculated in Brazil. The choice of the research theme is related to the impact that tariff price has on the access to urban public transportation, especially since the people who most use this mode of transportation are the least favoured ones, and therefore, those most in need of public policies that help establish fair tariff prices. The first part of the article contains an analysis on the tariff calculation in the Brazilian public transport system. From this definition, it was concluded that extra-tariff funds in Brazil are very small, so it was necessary to research different forms of subsidies used in other countries, as well as legal innovations found in Brazil, to suggest new ways of operation, which can increase the demand for the system, and consequently, increase the injection of funds in the sector. With the increase in revenue, public transport can gain in technological innovations for the sake of sustainability, contributing to lower carbon emissions to the atmosphere.

Subsidies for public passenger transport in Brazil - a sustainable mobility issue

Subsidies for public passenger transport in Brazil - a sustainable mobility issue

Anonymity or Distance? Job Search and Labour Market Exclusion in a Growing African City

AbstractWe show that helping young job seekers signal their skills to employers generates large and persistent improvements in their labour market outcomes. We do this by comparing an intervention that improves the ability to signal skills (the “job application workshop”) to a transport subsidy treatment designed to reduce the cost of job search. In the short run, both interventions have large positive effects on the probability of finding a formal job. The workshop also increases the probability of having a stable job with an open-ended contract. Four years later, the workshop significantly increases earnings, job satisfaction, and employment duration, but the effects of the transport subsidy have dissipated. Gains are concentrated on individuals who generally have worse labour market outcomes. Overall, our findings highlight that young people possess valuable skills that are unobservable to employers. Making these skills observable generates earnings gains that are far greater than the cost of the intervention.

Способы развития пассажирской транспортной логистики в городе

Problems were identified for the development of urban passenger transport logistics and the organization of safe passenger transport in the city in the event of an pandemic of COVID-19, saving passenger time, ensuring its operation without subsidies and subsidies for urban passenger transport, and their solutions were analyzed. Internal opportunities for the development of transport logistics were identified, and proposals and recommendations were developed.

ПОЛІТИКА РОЗБУДОВИ ФАРМАЦЕВТИЧНОЇ ІНДУСТРІЇ В НІМЕЧЧИНІ: УРОКИ ДЛЯ УКРАЇНИ

Показано еволюцію розбудови хіміко-фармацевтичної індустрії Німеччини від запозичення технологій до ендогенних інновацій та перетворення на глобального лідера. Обґрунтовано, що уряд країни сприяв розвитку нової галузі через нарощування бюджетних асигнувань на підготовку наукових і виробничих кадрів; субсидування дослідницьких робіт; дотування транспортних перевезень та сировини. Показано, що формування великих компаній забезпечило економію на масштабі та прискорило розвиток; створення спеціалізованих дослідницьких інститутів під патронатом влади започаткувало державно-приватне партнерство у фінансуванні досліджень, галузеві асоціації сприяли мобілізації громадськості на підтримку галузі, а компетентні менеджери компаній та участь представників індустрії у політиці разом з видатними державними діячами забезпечили узгоджені дії з посилення її інноваційного потенціалу. Культивування національної свідомості, що придбання німецьких товарів є запорукою добробуту держави, визначило споживчі уподобання й стало потужним стимулом для розширення поставок на внутрішній ринок. Запровадження високих митних тарифів на готові лікарські засоби забезпечило захист нової індустрії на етапі становлення. Тісна співпраця банків з фармацевтичними компаніями сприяла реалізації інвестиційно-інноваційних проєктів та зовнішній експансії. Створення картелів хімічними та фармацевтичними компаніями стало інституційною відповіддю на безпрецедентний феномен індустріалізації та наздоганяючого розвитку Німеччини. Виявлено, що на сучасному етапі Уряд Німеччини через національні та регіональні програми продовжує сприяти розвитку технологічного та інноваційного потенціалу фармацевтики. Обґрунтовано доцільність запровадження в Україні механізмів ендогенізації розвитку виробництва лікарських засобів і медичних виробів, а також розширення продажів на внутрішньому ринку через запровадження преференцій при публічних закупівлях у контексті захисту суттєвих інтересів безпеки та здоров’я нації.

Is it expensive to be poor? Public transport in Sweden

One of the reasons to subsidise public transport is to improve the mobility of low-income groups by providing affordable public transport; however, the literature describes a situation whereby those with a low income are unable to afford the cheapest tickets per trip, i.e. travelcards, as they usually require a considerable up-front cost. In this study, we use a large dataset from the Swedish National Travel Survey to investigate whether, and if so how, income explains monthly travelcard possession among individuals for whom this would have been the least expensive option. We find a robust positive relationship between income and travelcard possession among low-income earners, indicating that those with a low income pay more to use public transport than more affluent individuals. As the accessibility of low-income groups is an important motivation for public transport subsidies, the findings from this study have important policy implications.

Optimizing the co-digestion supply chain of sewage sludge and food waste by the demand oriented biogas supplying mechanism.

Co-digestion of sewage sludge with food waste is a beneficial pathway for sewage plants to enhance their biogas yield. This paper employs hybrid programming with system dynamics simulation to optimize such a co-digestion system from the perspective of demand-oriented biogas supply chain, thus to improve the efficiency of the biogas utilization. The optimum operational parameters of the co-digestion system are derived from the simulation model. It is demonstrated that the demand-oriented biogas supply mechanism can be effectively driven under market-oriented incentive policy. For better compensation of the external cost to assist the operations of the co-digestion supply chain, it is suggested that the substrate collection and transportation subsidy should be combined with the renewables portfolio standard to be implemented as the optimum incentives. The limitations of the study are discussed to lay the foundation for future improvements.

How public transport subsidy policies in China affect the average passenger load factor of a bus line

This study applies inventory theory to illustrate the internal relationship between the average passenger load factor and choice of public transport subsidy policy by the government. Subsidy policies are broadly classified into four types: fixed amount subsidy, passenger volume subsidy, vehicle trip subsidy, and incentive mechanism subsidy. A bus supply model with the objective of minimizing expected loss is formulated with demand considered to be a continuous random variable. We then analyse, using numerical examples, how the four subsidy policies affect the model-related parameters and the average passenger load factor. Results show that, in terms of reducing the average passenger load factor, the fixed-amount subsidy has no effect while the passenger volume subsidy and vehicle trip subsidy have limited effects, although the latter is more effective than the former. Further, the incentive mechanism subsidy requires an appropriate unit penalty value to reach the appropriate average passenger load factor. A combination of the vehicle trip subsidy and an appropriate incentive mechanism subsidy is the most effective method to improve the average passenger load factor. However, the effectiveness is constrained by the bus supply capacity.

Evolutionary game analysis on the implementation of subsidy policy for sustainable transportation development

The priority development of public transport cannot be achieved without the support of the government’s fiscal and taxation policies, while the implementation of the subsidy policy is the joint effect of multiple stakeholders. This paper analyzes the implementation mechanism of public transport subsidy policy from the perspective of carbon emission to discuss the evolutionary stability strategy of tripartite game under different situations, thereby clarifying the key factors affecting the evolutionary path of the stability strategy through simulation. The main conclusions achieved are as follows: (1) When the subsidy and sunk cost are greater than the improper profit brought by the false report, and the travel cost (time and economy) of public transport is greater than that of the individual motorized travel combined, the three will eventually arrive at the state in which government chooses no-audit, the enterprise chooses true report, and the resident choose public transport; (2) More government supervision can help reduce the false reporting behavior of public transport enterprises in the implementation of public transport subsidy policy; (3) The punishment and the improper profit brought by the false report are also the key factors that influence the behavior decision-making of the government and the enterprises; (4) The economic cost of travel plays an important role in the evolution path of residents’ stabilization strategy, yet is of little significance on the behavior decision of enterprises and governments. From the perspective of sustainable transportation development, it is necessary for the government to control or even reduce the ticket price of public transport, and to increase the economic cost of individual motorized travel.

Targeted industrial poverty alleviation in China’s Rural Areas: Evidence From Yulin Township

The main topic of this paper is to briefly introduce the history of poverty alleviation programmes in China and focus on investigating targeted industrial poverty alleviation programme in Yulin Township (Mingshui County) as well as assessing the effectiveness of its methods. The data in this paper comes primarily from the poverty alleviation office in Yulin Township and contains both individual-level and aggregated variables. The aim of this paper is to present a detailed description of the targeted industrial poverty alleviation programme and explain how it differs from other similar programmes. The main findings are: first, the programme is successful in reducing poverty and increasing incomes; second, among the individual measures that comprise the programme, reward for working and transportation subsidy seems to achieve the highest success in increasing incomes for a large number of households; third, the other measures may be better-suited for various segments of the population.

Impact of a free public transportation service for rural households

The transportation service subsidy is intended to ease the burden of students from low-income families by helping with their need for mobility. The local government provides a transportation service expenditure budget annually to pay for the transportation services they require. Theoretically, the subsidy benefits the poor, although a study on the evaluation of the transportation service subsidy program is still needed to ascertain whether the program beneficiaries benefit from the program. This study used a survey method, and it deepened by the in-depth interviews conducted with 98 respondents. It used to obtain supporting information to pair with the survey results. The critical findings from this study are that the subsidy program has increased the rate of savings in terms of transportation service spending, and it has also reduced the burden of food expenditure among the poor. Better access to education services among the program recipient students reduced traffic congestion, and the enthusiasm for learning within low-income family students are also benefits. Another benefit is that the public transport drivers involved in the program get sustainable income certainty. The income of the recipient community groups has increased moderately compared to the non-recipient groups. However, saving on transportation spending does not contribute significantly to the burden of food expenditure for low-income families. The reason for this is that the free transportation subsidies received by the poor are minimal in terms of the frequency of coupon use. This study concludes that free transport subsidies in the short term can alleviate the burden on the poor, and in the long run, they can improve the welfare of the poor.

The Role of Transportation in Sustaining and Reintegrating Formerly Homeless Clients

ABSTRACT This study analyzes spontaneous qualitative interviews with formerly homeless individuals living alone, on the importance of transportation in meeting everyday needs. Some participants identified that transportation subsidies were often haphazard, sometimes requiring tremendous effort to obtain, and discouraging use. Those who had access to transportation note the importance of access to healthcare, personal fitness needs, reduced food insecurity, increased access to health-care needs, and increased quality of life. This paper argues that piecemeal approaches to transportation denies the inherent needs of people living in extreme poverty, thereby increasing the chances of reentry into homelessness using principles of social exclusion.

Distributional effects of public transport subsidies

We analyze the distribution of transit subsidies across population groups in Stockholm. We develop a novel methodology that takes into account that the subsidy per passenger varies across transit links, since production costs and load factors vary. With this, we calculate the subsidy per trip in the transit network and analyze the distribution of subsidies across population groups. The average subsidy rate in Stockholm is 44%, but the variation across trips turns out to be large: while 34% of the trips are not subsidized at all but generates a profit, 16% of the trips have a subsidy rate higher than 2/3. We calculate the concentration index to explore the distribution of subsidies across income groups. The average subsidy per person is similar for all income groups, except for the top income quintile. This holds not only for the current flat-fare system, but also for distance-based fares and fares with a constant subsidy rate. Transit subsidies is hence not effective as a redistribution policy in Stockholm. The largest systematic variation we find is across residential areas: the average subsidy per person is five times higher in the peripheral areas of the region compared to the regional core, and the subsidy per trip is ten times higher.

Bike-sharing systems’ impact on modal shift: A case study in Delft, the Netherlands

Bike-sharing systems have witnessed rapid growth in the last decades. Bike-sharing has been found to influence modal shift from car, public transit, and active transportation modes. However, the impacts on modal shift by considering different kinds of bike-sharing systems are rarely discussed. This study examines the modal shift dynamics and the influential factors on modal shift in response to various bike-sharing systems. Data are obtained by an online survey targeting both non-bike-sharing users and bike-sharing users in a Dutch context. Binary logit models are developed to investigate the relationship between modal shift to bike-sharing with socio-demographic, commuting trip and motivation factors. The survey results show that dockless bike-sharing (Mobike) users are more likely to be non-Dutch and often have no driving license, whereas the situation is opposite for docked bike-sharing (OV-fiets), bicycle-lease (Swapfiets) and non-bike-sharing users. Except for train use, bike-sharing users reduced walking, the use of private bicycle, bus/tram and car. Swapfiets showed a most significant influence on modal shift for both single and multimodal trips. The regression model results indicate that “No stolen/damage problem” and “Cheaper than other modes” are significant factors promoting dockless bike-sharing and bicycle-lease. “Good quality of bicycles” is a significant factor considered by docked bike-sharing and bicycle-lease users. “Public transport subsidy by employer” encourages commuters to shift to docked bike-sharing, whereas individuals with a government student discount are less likely to shift to Swapfiets. Male and multimodal commuters are more likely to use dockless bike-sharing. Commuters are less likely to shift to docked bike-sharing if the trips are “Short” or suitable for “Private bicycle”. The findings provide a clear understanding of the modal shift and its determinants that can help municipal planning and policy decision-making in terms of bike-sharing systems.

Seasonal Poverty and Seasonal Migration in Asia

Four in five poor people in the Asia and Pacific region live in rural areas. Crop cycles in agrarian areas create periods of seasonal deprivation, or preharvest “lean seasons,” when work is scarce and skipped meals become frequent. In this paper, we document this phenomenon of seasonal poverty and discuss existing formal mechanisms for coping with it. We then focus on seasonal migration from rural to urban areas as a potential coping strategy and review the evidence on the effects of encouraging seasonal migration through transport subsidies. Over the past 10 years, we have conducted a series of randomized control trials in Bangladesh and Indonesia that provided rural agricultural workers with small migration subsidies to pay for the cost of round-trip travel to nearby areas in search of work. This paper summarizes the lessons learned from this multicountry, multiyear series of seasonal migration trials, the implications of these results for spatial misallocation, urbanization, and growth, and the replicability and relevance of this and other policies encouraging domestic migration more broadly for other areas in the Asia and Pacific region.

Assessing economic instruments to steer urban residential sprawl, using a hedonic pricing simulation modelling approach

Over the past centuries, cities have undergone major transformations that led to global urbanization. One of the phenomena emerging from urbanization is urban sprawl, defined as the uncontrolled spread of cities into undeveloped areas. The decrease in housing prices and commuting costs as well as the failure to internalize the real costs associated with natural land, led to households moving-out into the urban fringe – resulting in fragmented, low-density residential development patterns that has multiple negative impacts. Awareness for this problem has fed the need for the implementation of effective policies against urban residential sprawl – a subject that has received considerable attention in literature, albeit little attention has been given to economic incentive instruments. Hence, the objective of this paper is to assess the effectiveness of different economic instruments in steering urban residential sprawl – assessing property taxes, land taxes and public transport subsidies. To this end, the Sustainable Urbanizing Landscape Development (SULD) model is used and adapted, and a case study is provided for the medium-sized City of Aveiro in central Portugal. Results show that a flat property tax and a public transport subsidy for low and middle-income households are the most efficient instruments, leading to a decrease in urban residential area, living space and housing quantity as well as an increase in real estate values. On the other hand, a land tax results in insignificant changes in urban residential development patterns.

Investigating the effect of carbon tax and carbon quota policy to achieve low carbon logistics operations

Developing a low-carbon economy and reducing carbon dioxide emission have become a consensus for both academics and practitioners. However, the existing literature did not pay enough attention in interrogating the impacts of Carbon Tax (CT) and Carbon Quota (CQ) policy on distribution costs and carbon dioxide emission in the field of vehicle routing problem. Moreover, the investigated subsidies factor is also incomplete. This research stands on the position of the company to study the impact of CT and CQ policy on aforementioned two aspects. A mathematical model is developed to achieve the best low carbon vehicle routing under the optimal policy. The optimization goal of this research is to minimize the total cost that includes vehicle-using, transportation, CT, CQ, and raw material subsidy costs. An improved optimization algorithm, namely Genetic Algorithm-Tabu Search (GA-TS), is proposed to solve a given business case. In the simulation experiments, GA-TS and a traditional GA are compared and the results show the advantage of GA-TS on reducing the total cost and carbon dioxide emission. Furthermore, the experiments also explore the total cost and carbon dioxide emission under three scenarios (Benchmark, CT and CQ), incorporating four policies: CT, Carbon Tax Subsidy (CTS), CQ, and Carbon Quota Subsidy (CQS). It is concluded that CQS is the ideal policy to minimize distribution cost and carbon dioxide emission. In addition, the impact of vehicles’ capacities on the total cost and carbon dioxide emission is also analyzed in this research. This research also aimed at assisting practitioners in better formulating delivery routes, as well as policy makers in developing carbon policies. Finally, the limitations and the future research directions of this research are also discussed.

Why Extended Time on Newstart is Unsuitable for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians Living with a Disability

ABSTRACTMany Australians living with a disability find themselves recipients of Newstart Allowance when applying for the Disability Support Pension (DSP). Newstart Allowance is designed as a short-term payment for people looking for work, with a lower fortnightly payment and limited medical and transport subsidies compared to the DSP. This paper describes the financial challenges of living with a disability while on Newstart Allowance. With a focus on the experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (Indigenous) Australians from two regional towns, qualitative semistructured interviews and focus groups documented experiences of 39 community members and 21 medical and nonmedical service providers supporting clients living with a disability on Newstart Allowance. Four themes were identified: (i) living with severe financial hardship, (ii) challenges complying with the DSP application, (iii) being financially penalised for not complying with Newstart Allowance conditions, and (iv) supporting community members to manage severe financial stress. Although people living with a disability on Newstart were experiencing severe hardship and poverty, there was limited participation of Centrelink-employed social workers within their described experiences with Centrelink. We argue that social workers can work to humanise human service settings and potentially help to mitigate these financial challenges.IMPLICATIONSIndigenous Australians living with a disability experience severe disadvantage and poverty while living on Newstart Allowance.Social workers must be easily accessible at Centrelink customer service centres and to Newstart Allowance recipients to help coordinate service engagement.Newstart Allowance should be increased to ensure recipients can respond to cost of living pressures.

Coastal transportation system joint taxation-subsidy emission reduction policy optimization problem

Abstract Water transport is an important way to reduce carbon emissions in a coastal transportation system (CTS). With the goal of minimizing government financial expenditures, this paper establishes a CTS joint taxation-subsidy emission reduction policy optimization model. This model is able to optimize the government’s tax and subsidy policy implementation plan for a CTS considering the non-cooperative game among shippers and the Stackelberg game led by the government and followed by carriers and shippers. Based on the active set algorithm, a local optimal solution algorithm for the model is designed. Numerical experiments are performed using the container transportation network of the Bohai Rim region of China. Two sensitivity analysis experiments are conducted on the traffic volume of the CTS and the capacity of waterway links. The results show that the government can reduce the regional carbon emission level with less investment and without significantly increasing the regional freight rate through a reasonable set of highway transportation tax and waterway transportation subsidy plans. As an important way for coastal areas to achieve green transportation, water transport will play an important role in promoting the sustainable development of coastal transport.

Social barriers in accessing care by clients who returned to HIV care after transient loss to follow-up

BackgroundPeople living with HIV (PLHIV) constantly need to address social issues such as the cost of accessing care, stigma, and lack of social support which impacts on their level of adherence to clinic visits or antiretroviral treatment leading to adverse health outcomes. This study examined the social barriers in accessing care by clients who returned to care after transient loss to follow-up.MethodsThis study was a cross-sectional survey of PLHIV from 99 US CDC PEPFAR-supported HIV clinics located in 10 of Nigeria’s 36 states and Federal Capital Territory, who were momentarily lost to follow-up but returned to care after tracking. Demographic and social factors at bivariate and multivariate level were analyzed to determine the predictors of difficulty in accessing HIV clinics.ResultsOf the 7483 clients tracked, 1386 (18.5%) were confirmed to be in care, 2846 (38.2%) were lost to follow-up (LTFU), 562 (7.5%) returned to care, 843 (11.2%) discontinued care, 827 (11.1%) transferred out to other facilities for care, 514 (6.8%) had died while 505 (6.7%) could not be reached by phone or located at their addresses. 438 out of the 562 (78%) returnee PLHIV gave consent and participated in the study. 216 out of the 438 (50%) clients who returned to care were transiently lost to follow-up because they had difficulty accessing their HIV clinic. Also, 126/438 (29%) of returnee PLHIV were previously lost to follow-up. Difficult access to a HIV clinic was significantly influenced by prior LTFU (OR 2.5 [95% CI 1.3–4.8], p = 0.008), history of being stigmatized (OR 2.1 [95% CI 1.1–3.8], p = 0.02), lack of social or financial support (OR 2.8 [95% CI 1.3–6.0], p = 0.01) and perceived in-adequate healthcare workers support (OR 3.8 [95% CI 1.2–11.2], p = 0.02). Age (p = 0.218) and gender (p = 0.771) were not significant determinants of difficult access to an HIV clinic.ConclusionStigma, lack of support and prior loss to follow-up event are essential factors affecting retention in care. Social constructs such as home-based visits, community-based care services, transportation subsidies, and robust strong social systems should be built into HIV service delivery models to improve retention in care of people on HIV treatment. The authors advocate for further studies on how differentiated care models impact on retention of patients in care.