IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/tpe/jtecpo/v42y2008i2p349-359.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Subsidisation of Urban Public Transport and the Mohring Effect

Author

Listed:
  • Peran van Reeven

Abstract

Mohring (1972) argues that urban public transport exhibits considerable economies of scale if users' waiting time is included in the cost function. The implication is that without subsidisation, frequencies will be lower than socially optimal. This paper analyses this argument and shows that economies of scale do not constitute a justification for general subsidisation of urban public transport. If an operator is allowed to take the demand effect of their pricing and frequency decisions into account, then the profit-maximising frequency is shown to be at least as high as the welfare-maximising frequency. © 2008 LSE and the University of Bath

Suggested Citation

  • Peran van Reeven, 2008. "Subsidisation of Urban Public Transport and the Mohring Effect," Journal of Transport Economics and Policy, University of Bath, vol. 42(2), pages 349-359, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:tpe:jtecpo:v:42:y:2008:i:2:p:349-359
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.catchword.com/cgi-bin/cgi?ini=bc&body=linker&reqidx=0022-5258(20080501)42:2L.349;1-
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nilsson, Jan-Eric & Ahlberg , Joakim & Pyddoke, Roger, 2014. "Optimal supply of public transport: subsidising production or consumption or both?," Working papers in Transport Economics 2014:27, CTS - Centre for Transport Studies Stockholm (KTH and VTI).
    2. Gordan Stojić & Dušan Mladenović & Olegas Prentkovskis & Slavko Vesković, 2018. "A Novel Model for Determining Public Service Compensation in Integrated Public Transport Systems," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(9), pages 1-20, August.
    3. Anna Černá, 2012. "Economic and Social Harmonization of Sustainable Public Transport," Prague Economic Papers, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2012(1), pages 83-100.
    4. Börjesson, Maria & Fung, Chau Man & Proost, Stef & Yan, Zifei, 2018. "Do small cities need more public transport subsidies than big cities?," Working papers in Transport Economics 2018:5, CTS - Centre for Transport Studies Stockholm (KTH and VTI), revised 11 Dec 2018.
    5. K. Obeng, 2011. "Indirect production function and the output effect of public transit subsidies," Transportation, Springer, vol. 38(2), pages 191-214, March.
    6. Angela Stefania Bergantino & Billette de Villemeur, Etienne & Vinella, Annalisa, 2012. "Targeted policy design in transportation: the case of the ferry market," Working Papers 1205, SIET Società Italiana di Economia dei Trasporti e della Logistica, revised 2012.
    7. Bar-Yosef, Asaf & Martens, Karel & Benenson, Itzhak, 2013. "A model of the vicious cycle of a bus line," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 37-50.
    8. Rojo, Marta & dell’Olio, Luigi & Gonzalo-Orden, Hernán & Ibeas, Ángel, 2015. "Inclusion of quality criteria in public bus service contracts in metropolitan areas," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 52-63.
    9. Albalate, Daniel & Bel, Germà, 2010. "What shapes local public transportation in Europe? Economics, mobility, institutions, and geography," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(5), pages 775-790, September.
    10. Espinoza Vásquez, Lourdes, 2016. "Estimación del Efecto Mohring en el Sistema de Transporte Masivo Pumakatari de la Ciudad de La Paz," Documentos de trabajo 5/2016, Instituto de Investigaciones Socio-Económicas (IISEC), Universidad Católica Boliviana.
    11. Sun, Yanshuo & Guo, Qianwen & Schonfeld, Paul & Li, Zhongfei, 2016. "Implications of the cost of public funds in public transit subsidization and regulation," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 236-250.
    12. Noto, Claudio, 2020. "Airport slots, secondary trading, and congestion pricing at an airport with a dominant network airline," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    13. Angela Stefania Bergantino & Billette de Villemeur, Etienne & Vinella, Annalisa, 2012. "Targeted policy design in transportation: the case of the ferry market," Working Papers 12_5, SIET Società Italiana di Economia dei Trasporti e della Logistica, revised 2012.
    14. Vladimir A. Karamychev & Peran van Reeven, 2009. "A Monopolist in Public Transport: Undersupply or Oversupply?," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 09-077/1, Tinbergen Institute.
    15. Sergio Jara-Díaz & Antonio Gschwender & Meisy Ortega, 2014. "The impact of a financial constraint on the spatial structure of public transport services," Transportation, Springer, vol. 41(1), pages 21-36, January.
    16. Ljungberg, Anders, 2016. "Marginal cost-pricing in the Swedish transport sector – An efficient and sustainable way of funding local and regional public transport in the future?," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 159-166.
    17. Andrés Gómez-Lobo, 2011. "Monopoly, subsidies and the Mohring effect: A synthesis and an extension," Working Papers wp336, University of Chile, Department of Economics.
    18. Moccia, Luigi & Giallombardo, Giovanni & Laporte, Gilbert, 2017. "Models for technology choice in a transit corridor with elastic demand," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 733-756.
    19. Joana Cavadas & António Pais Antunes, 2019. "An optimization model for integrated transit-parking policy planning," Transportation, Springer, vol. 46(5), pages 1867-1891, October.
    20. Zhang, Fangni & Yang, Hai & Liu, Wei, 2014. "The Downs–Thomson Paradox with responsive transit service," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 244-263.
    21. Zhang, Junlin & Lindsey, Robin & Yang, Hai, 2018. "Public transit service frequency and fares with heterogeneous users under monopoly and alternative regulatory policies," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 117(PA), pages 190-208.
    22. Sepúlveda, Juan Pablo & Galilea, Patricia, 2020. "How do different payment schemes to operators affect public transport concessions? A microeconomic model," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 27-35.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:tpe:jtecpo:v:42:y:2008:i:2:p:349-359. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Christopher F. Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.bath.ac.uk/e-journals/jtep .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.