Institutional Arrangements in Berlin Public Transport: A Success Story in Innovation

This paper focuses on the thesis that institutional arrangements in Local Public Transport not only vary from city to city and country to country but that they are to a high degree a variable of historical circumstances – therefore being an equivalent to the history of the adaptation of a generalized technology (railway, omnibus) to local opportunities. In order to illustrate this, the author goes back 15 years into the history of the Berliner Verkehrsbestriebe. Re-unification was a big challenge for the Public Transport System in Berlin: economically, politically and technically different Public Transport departments had to be integrated, and public payments were reduced drastically, the latter fact because the political “showcase” role of Public transport was no longer necessary. The institutional reform contained two main elements: the merger and restructuring of both departments into a “legal entity of its own right,” and the application of a “company contract” which brought public payments down to the lowest possible level by giving the owner much more transparency. The paper describes how the results are encouraging: productivity and costs are now comparable with other European operators. But BVG has now ambitious goals and strives for excellence, making further efforts necessary to run the best quality services. In the end, the owner recently gave a guarantee for the existence of BVG, by awarding all transport services for a period until 2020 to BVG as an Inhouse operator in turn for severe wage reductions of BVG’s workforce.

• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/isbn/9780080450957
• Corporate Authors:

  Elsevier

  The Boulevard, Langford Lane
  Kidlington, Oxford  United Kingdom  OX5 1GB
• Authors:
  • Resch, Ralf
  • Dehornoy, Julien
• Conference:
  • Competition and Ownership in Land Passenger Transport. 9th International Conference (Thredbo 9)
  • Location: Lisbon , Portugal
  • Date: 2005-9-4 to 2005-9-8
• Publication Date: 2007

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Print
• Edition: First Edition
• Features: Figures;
• Monograph Title: Competition and Ownership in Land Transport Passenger Transport

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Economic development; Economic policy; Mergers; Passenger service; Productivity; Public transit; Quality of service; Restructuring; Transit operating agencies
• Identifier Terms: Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe
• Geographic Terms: Berlin (Germany)
• Subject Areas: Economics; Operations and Traffic Management; Passenger Transportation; Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation; Railroads;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01051420
• Record Type: Publication
• ISBN: 9780080450957
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Jun 14 2007 11:55AM