Development of freeway service patrol program in china: a new Perspective from funds and institutional management

This paper analyzed institutional issues especially on funding sources and institutional management that are very critical to successful building up and operating freeway service patrols (FSPs) Programs. The goal of this research was to determine the suitable funding sources and institutional management structures for FSPs considering the real institutional situation in different provinces. To achieve this objective, we first classified the freeway financial and investment institutional structures (FFIIS) into four types i.e., DOT centralized management structure (DOTCMS), state-owned enterprise centralized management structure (SOECMS), Hybrid of DOT and state-owned enterprise management structure (HMS), and Decentralized management structure (DMS). Based on the FFIIS, the most suitable tollway fees structures and the FSPs institutional management structures were identified. In order to deal with the drawbacks of other structures which already adopted in provinces, the authors suggested establishing the Provincial Freeway Cooperation Commission (PFCC). PFCC intensively managed the tollway fees revenues and expense, and set coordinators for multi-agencies cooperation. In this way, the drawbacks of institutional management of freeway would be significantly reduced and incident management system and FSPs would be successfully implemented. This paper provided a new perspective to fully understanding the FSPs institutional issues which are critical to FSPs program successful implementation. The research could be also directly aid policy-makers from different provinces in China and also be useful to other countries.