Local public transport in Russia: Regulation, ownership and competition

This paper is motivated by the evolution of relations between public transport authorities and operators all over the world. So far, however, there has been little discussion about this phenomenon with regard to Russian land passenger transport. This issue only received considerable critical attention in light of the transformations in the countries of the former Soviet Union in the 1990s. However, recent developments have not been extensively studied. The major objective in this paper is to understand both positive and negative trends of evolution of organisational practices in Russian land passenger transport. The methodological approach is mixed and based on an analysis of legislation, market structure and contracting approaches. Studies of the largest cities, including the recent Moscow ‘new model’, are also performed in this paper. The overall structure of the study includes overviews of legislation, the performance of public operators, institutions in the private bus sector and the recent bus reform in Moscow. This research paper sheds the light on an important example of public transport evolutions in developing and transitional countries.