Discussion on Characteristics and Price Regulation of Urban Rail Transit

摘要

Urban rail transit all around the world is generally under strict price regulation imposed by concerning urban government authorities. Such regulation as price-caps, comprehensive cost recovery, standard cost comparison and etc. are popular with cities as Beijing and Seoul. Experiences of Tokyo and Shanghai show that it's imperative to regulate urban rail transit price according to a comprehensive model. Urban rail transit has such characteristics as network economy, public goods, and marketability, which determine and imply the importance of fiscal subsidy and operational cost. Price regulation should comprehensively take subsidy, electricity, CPI, PPI and transportation volume into consideration. In fact, urban rail transit price regulation should not only compensate operational cost, but also introduce market incentive.