Using the New Public Management's instruments to measure the performance of local public transport service in Bucharest

New Public Management has emerged as a reaction to the traditional model of public administration, a bureaucratic, hierarchical, rigid, inefficient model, which led to the distancing of government from citizens. Public organizations which were organized by the traditional, bureaucratic model were increasingly criticized for lack of efficiency and quality of public services. One of these was RATB (Autonomous Administration of Transportation Bucharest), which provided local public transportation services, of whose requirements were not at the demands' levels of citizens from Bucharest. Thus, it needed to be taken a series of measures to improve public transport service, by applying New Public Management, from changing the law in 2007 and the introduction of quantitative performance indicators and to the acquisition of new means of transport and improvement of existing, shorter waiting times, increasing the comfort stations waiting, transport safety and security of passengers. Since the New Public Management is focused on introducing performance standards, testing and comparing results with quantitative performance indicators, the principle of the 3 E: economy of resource use, efficiency and effectiveness, in the present study we conducted a brief analysis of the quality of local public transport service in Bucharest on the basis of eight quantitative and qualitative indicators for public transport services established by legislation. These indicators were: satisfaction of passengers (it has been considered the journey, informing passengers, vehicles' and stations' condition and the distribution system efficiency of ways of transport); medium specific load (at peak and the peak hours); average waiting time (at peak and the peak hours); average travel time (to peak and the peak hours); environment (noise pollution, pollutant emissions); transport safety and security of passengers (accidents, defects and technical incidents); the way the fare reflects the quality of services; quality control system in the vehicle. The analysis was based on a number of surveys that were conducted by RATB since 1999 until the present (2009) based on questionnaires developed by RATB to see the perception of users to public transport service in Bucharest.