Method of Analysing the Competitiveness of Interurban Passenger Transport

This paper describing a method of analyzing the competitiveness of interurban passenger transport is part of the research carried out by the Institute for Transport Studies, Hungary, in 2006. The authors report on the efforts of the transport administration in Hungary as they reorganized the interurban passenger transportation sector in order to eliminate parallelisms and reduce budgetary expenditures. They stress that the rail and bus sectors must ensure the conservation and development of their competitive transport services in relation to each other, but also in consideration of private (passenger car) transportation as well. The authors report on their method of analyzing the relevant factors for the estimation and measurement of the competitiveness of passenger transportation. This methodology, by performing a line-by-line analysis, is able to establish to what extent a competitive alternative can be offered, in space as well as in time, by the railway passenger transport, bus transport and individual transport. Factors considered include quality (travel time, comfort, frequency) and in terms of economic features (price, cost). They describe how this methodology can be used by operators to improve competitiveness of the lines.