Title An Investigation of Operation, Subsidy and Fare System of Demand Responsive Transport Service (DRTS) Scheme (1/2) – Operation Cost Analysis and Performance Evaluation
Dept Transportation Operations and Management Division
Year 2025
Month 4
Price 650
Summary     Demand responsive transport services (DRTS) have often been introduced to provide flexible public transport services, especially in areas with dispersed demand. The purposes of this project are to conduct a systematic review of current DRTS, and to propose suitable operating structures and improvement strategies. Evaluation focuses on the following aspects: operational cost, fare structure, subsidy scheme, performance evaluation, and sustainable operations. Operating cost evaluation would consider multiple service design elements (e.g., operating vehicle types, route design concepts, appointment approaches). This project is a two-year initiative with clear expected outputs which are to propose a suitable operational cost evaluation structure, formulate subsidy schemes, classify an appropriate fare structure, and identify performance indices to measure the performance of DRT services to achieve the goal of sustainable operation. In the first year, the main research purpose is to propose a systematic way to evaluate the costs and performance of a DRTS project. Further, subsidy schemes would be reviewed and evaluated on a case-based approach in the first year.
    A reasonable cost formula was established based on 18 cost categories, and taking electric vehicle trends into account. The proposed performance evaluation framework includes four key dimensions: operational efficiency, service effectiveness, service quality, and basic mobility. Indicators were selected using the Delphi method, with weights calculated via Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), revealing that basic mobility indicators hold the highest importance. To prevent the effectiveness evaluation of subsidies from focusing only on operating costs while neglecting social benefits, a consumer surplus and external benefit analysis was conducted based on the case of Nanzhuang Happiness Bus in Miaoli County. This phase of the project also established a public transport supply balance indicator and designed a self-support ratio framework using Taoyuan City as a case. In the second year, the project will continue with case studies and multi-stakeholder discussions to develop a concrete institutional framework and sustainable management strategies.
Post date 2025/05/31
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