Evaluating the Fuel Efficiency of Transit Bus Subsidy Programs: Comparison of Two Cities in South Korea

Transit bus services play an import role in urban transportation systems. Many cities in South Korea adopted a quasi-public transit bus system which improves bus routes and schedules based on public needs and provides subsidies to participating bus companies. While the quasi-public bus operation system had highly improved the quality of bus services, city governments had to provide significant financial support to maintain the system. Daejeon city government changed its subsidy rule and provided the fuel subsidy based on standard fuel consumption rates from actual fuel usage reimbursement program while Gwangju city government provided the subsidies based on actual fuel usage. T-test results clearly show that the differences in fuel efficiency are statistically significant. Specifically, the mean fuel consumption rates of the buses operating in Gwangju are 3.9% and 3.1% higher during weekdays and weekends, respectively, when compared to Daejeon. The study developed multiple linear regression models to assess the contribution driving factors of bus fuel efficiency and found that the most significant factor is a mean speed. Ten percent increase of mean speeds resulted in 4.4% and 3.6% of fuel saving for Gwangju and Daejeon, respectively. Further, the study found that the standard deviation of the acceleration significantly affected the transit fuel economy. In summary, the study found that a transit fuel reimbursement policy could improve overall bus fuel economy in this specific case study and also found improving a transit average speed and reducing unnecessary acceleration behaviors could significantly improve the bus fuel efficiency.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AP050 Standing Committee on Bus Transit Systems.
• Authors:
  • Park, Sangjun
  • Lee, Dongmin
  • Lee, Chungwon
  • Ahn, Kyoungho
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 97th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2018-1-7 to 2018-1-11
• Date: 2018

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References;
• Pagination: 7p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Bus transit; Expenses; Fuel consumption; Subsidies
• Geographic Terms: Daejeon (Korea); South Korea
• Subject Areas: Energy; Finance; Operations and Traffic Management; Public Transportation;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01658676
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 18-02921
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Jan 31 2018 4:59PM