Distributional effects of public transport subsidies

Maria Börjesson, Jonas Eliasson () and Isak Rubensson

Journal of Transport Geography, 2020, vol. 84, issue C

Abstract: We analyze the distribution of transit subsidies across population groups in Stockholm. We develop a novel methodology that takes into account that the subsidy per passenger varies across transit links, since production costs and load factors vary. With this, we calculate the subsidy per trip in the transit network and analyze the distribution of subsidies across population groups. The average subsidy rate in Stockholm is 44%, but the variation across trips turns out to be large: while 34% of the trips are not subsidized at all but generates a profit, 16% of the trips have a subsidy rate higher than 2/3. We calculate the concentration index to explore the distribution of subsidies across income groups. The average subsidy per person is similar for all income groups, except for the top income quintile. This holds not only for the current flat-fare system, but also for distance-based fares and fares with a constant subsidy rate. Transit subsidies is hence not effective as a redistribution policy in Stockholm. The largest systematic variation we find is across residential areas: the average subsidy per person is five times higher in the peripheral areas of the region compared to the regional core, and the subsidy per trip is ten times higher.

Keywords: Public transport; Subsidies; Equity; Progressive; Distribution effect; Concentration index (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0966692319304016

Related works:
Working Paper: Distributional Effects of Public Transport Subsidies (2018)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jotrge:v:84:y:2020:i:c:s0966692319304016

DOI: 10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2020.102674

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Transport Geography is currently edited by Frank Witlox

More articles in Journal of Transport Geography from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().