Bus Driver Strike: Fares, PPPs and a Plan to Reach Cost Recovery

I read the news today that bus drivers in Almaty went on strike and did not show up for work.

The main explanation is low pay.

Clearly, the way Almaty's transport system currently operates calls for a radical solution. But the most interesting point is that whoever comes into this sector will lose money at current fares.

To solve the problem fundamentally, with a good fleet, clean buses and so on, one has to either raise the fare or subsidize transportation from the state budget under a public-private partnership (PPP).

To pursue the first option, a fare increase alone is not enough. Taxis would also have to become more expensive, and that would mean closing off parts of the city to traffic, introducing paid parking and cracking down on unlicensed drivers. All of this is unlikely at present and would have to be done gradually.

That leaves one realistic option: introducing a PPP with a fare subsidy, followed by a transition to cost recovery. The alternative is to make transport fully municipal, although the first option is the more attractive. Either way, we need a sound calculation and an action plan for reducing subsidies over a set period, for example ten years.

The plan should set out how the fare will be raised (it must grow faster than inflation) and what measures the city will take to increase ridership. The model should show what passenger flow and what fare allow the system to break even, and that is the target to aim for.

After all, with current prices for spare parts (which are all imported), bus depreciation and fuel prices, it is simply impossible to make the business profitable while maintaining decent service.

Without a working payment system, achieving this will be extremely difficult. And however many targets are set, they will only irritate drivers, because any target is subjective, and that subjectivity will always be there. In effect, by pressing drivers to meet a revenue target, we encourage them to race one another and break traffic rules.

A driver's job is to carry people (an enormous responsibility), keep to the schedule and follow the rules of passenger transport. That is all. Drivers should not have revenue-collection targets.