Research on Transport Subsidies for Public Transit and Cars

Creating a transit-oriented built environment and implementing the important economic policy of transport subsidy are effective means to promote the use and accelerate the development of public transit. The importance of the transport economic policy must not be ignored because a policy preference will possibly affect travel behavior to a great extent. Taking subsidy as an angle and the city Nanjing as an example, this article focused on analyzing and comparing the operating subsidy and disguised external cost subsidy for public transit and cars use. The result showed that the unit subsidy for cars is 11.8 times of that for public transit. This is extremely unfair and it goes against the established transit-oriented development direction. Furthermore, this article, based on stated preference survey data, analyzed the transfer of travel mode on the condition that free parking is cancelled. The result showed that more than 1/3 customers would turn to public transit and slow-moving traffic under that condition. In conclusion, this article brought forward policy suggestions, such as eliminating the subsidy for parking prices, setting maximum index of appertaining parking facilities instead of minimum index, subsidizing public transit, and increasing car-using tax, in order to achieve society equity and transit-oriented development.