Studies in Urban Transport Book

Contents: Preface. Foreword. Abbreviations. About the contributors. 1. Public versus private transport agencies in Calcutta/Dilip Halder. 2. The Calcutta State Transport Corporation (CSTC) : an evaluation of its performance/Dilip Halder and Gurudas Gupta. 3. Financial performance of the CSTC compared with private operators/Dilip Halder and Satyaprabha Basu. 4. Major problems of mini bus/Dilip Halder and Gurudas Gupta. 5. Management and performance of mini bus/Dilip Halder and Gurudas Gupta. 6. The chartered bus in Calcutta/Dilip Halder and Gurudas Gupta. 7. Calcutta Tramways: prospects and retrospect’s/Dilip Halder. 8. Have rickshaws outlived their necessity in Calcutta/Dilip Halder and Satyabrata Basu. 9. The tube rail in Calcutta at its planning stage/Dilip Halder. 10. Impact of tube rail in Calcutta: assessed at its planning stage/Dilip Halder. 11. What the traffic will bear in Calcutta/Dilip Halder. 12. Observed demand and preference pattern of travel modes/Dilip Halder and Snigdha Chakrabarti. 13. Expenditure behaviour of the public transport users in Calcutta/Dilip Halder and Snigdha Chakrabarti. 14. Selection of target group from those performing journey to work/Dilip Halder and Snigdha Chakrabarti. 15. The fare structures of cycle and auto rickshaw/Dilip Halder. 16. Co-operation with the context/Dilip Halder. 17. Findings of the studies put together. Bibliography. Index. 

"Studies in Urban Transport’ is a collection of revised version of the papers already published in various popular and specialized journals in India and abroad. The sixteen papers selected in this volume were devoted to study the reasons behind inefficiency and financial maladies that the owners of the dominant urban transport modes suffer from and suggest some meaningful remedial measures. In the process some theoretical questions relating to planning, pricing, subsidy, criteria for judging efficiency of performance, were encountered and sorted out for both public and private undertakings, giving regard to their respective objectives. The problems of coordination of modes and urban land-use, which are major concerns of the planners and administrators in a multimodal transportation system, have also been dealt with in one of those papers. The empirical base of these studies was Kolkata one of the most problem infested cities of India. The spotlight of the studies was focused on public and private undertakings in bus service, mini bus, chartered bus, trams, auto and cycle rickshaws, metro rail, commuters’ choice, ability to pay of the commuters and expenditure behavior, target group in transport planning and coordination, etc." (jacket)