Formation of the concept of development of public transport in a big city

Problem setting. In general, the current level of integration and globalization processes requires a significant optimization of the existing transport system and its maximum adaptation to the requirements of European standards for the provision of transport services for the movement of passengers within urban agglomerations. The elimination of vertical state planning, financing and control in the field of public transport has caused a kind of chaos in the transport sector, because a new model of management and development has not been formed. That is why it was necessary to implement an effective concept for the development of public transport, especially in large cities.

Recent research and publications analysis. Structural changes in the life of the country’s population, caused primarily by the strengthening of the role of cities in their lives, along with a decrease in the rural population, led to a modification of the needs of consumers of transport services, which in turn necessitated the restructuring of the route systems of most Ukrainian cities, which until this time was mostly spontaneous. At the same time, this process is extremely complex, as it affects the interests of a significant number of citizens and is of great social and economic importance. Therefore, there is a need for scientific justification and research of the process of formation of transport systems, as well as the selection of criteria for effective and uninterrupted functioning of public transport. The works of Russian and foreign scientists, in particular, are devoted to these and other issues in the field of public transport: V. Dymchenko, Yu. Kossogo, A. Radzyuka, V. Shtanova, L. Bulavinoy, L. Ryabko, A. Stelmakha, S. Dubovoy, V. Fedorova, J. Berry, J. Forrester, A. Sullivan, K. Godfrin, B. Greenshields and others.

Highlighting previously unsettled parts of the general problem. Existing developments in the outlined area of research cover a wide range of issues, but the new economic conditions and the constantly growing number of existing problems in the transport sector require a thorough study of ways to solve them. In particular, in such circumstances, there is an urgent need to find fundamentally new ways to solve the contradictions and shortcomings of the existing public transport system. To solve the current situation, there is a need for a detailed study of the process of developing the concept of public transport development, its constituent elements, as well as the study of practical achievements of its implementation on the example of large cities.

Paper main body. Conditionally, the process of developing the concept of public transport can be divided into several stages. The first stage determines the role and place of local governments in the organization and implementation of the process of managing the region, in particular through the development and implementation of concepts of development of public transport. The second stage forms the main obstacles to the implementation of the concept at the local level (from the state to the level of a separate territory). At the third stage, the features of participation in the process of forming and implementing the concept of legal entities and individuals involved in the field of public transport are determined.

The structure of the concept of development of public transport includes: general provisions, analysis of the state of passenger transportation of the city, stages of implementation of the concept and expected results.

Every year the number of individual transport is growing. This has a significant impact on the congestion of roads and the lack of parking spaces, not to mention the harmful effects of car emissions on the environment. In order to influence the situation that has developed, the city councils of some cities decided to develop a concept for the development of public transport. Such cities are: Lviv, Cherkasy, Kharkiv, Kyiv, Odessa, Poltava, Mariupol.

Regarding the evaluation of the effectiveness of the implementation of the concept of public transport development, it is not possible to do this in the cities described above, because this is an action plan for the next couple of years, and the result of its implementation will not be fully evaluated soon.

However, the results of the implementation of the concept of public transport development can be estimated on the example of Kyiv in 2015, based on the report on the state of sustainable development of urban transport. According to this document, optimization of some routes of the city of Kyiv was carried out in order to better respond to the demand from consumers of transport services. When developing optimization scenarios that were tested (and repeatedly improved) using the Kyiv transport system model, the project team also sought to revise the local hierarchy of land-based public transport facilities. These are only the first steps towards eliminating Kyiv’s traffic collapse and establishing an efficient public transport system. After all, despite the large number of concepts and projects for the development of urban transport, there are still many unsolved problems that have been eliminated for more than a year.

Conclusions of the research and prospects for further studies. Given the above, it can be concluded that the development and formation of the concept is a complex multi-component process that begins with the development of a specific reform plan, then goes to the stage of research and approval at the level of local governments, flows into the stage of practical implementation and analysis of the results obtained. The practice of spreading the concepts of public transport development in Ukrainian cities has become more widespread in recent years. The constantly growing number of urban population and the increase in private cars on the roads of cities set local authorities the task of solving the problems caused by these processes. A positive factor for the development and further implementation of Public Transport Development Concepts in Ukrainian cities is the positive experience of Kyiv, which confirms the possibility of eliminating some problems with the help of this action plan. However, life does not stand still, and new, deeper problems arise that need to be addressed in the future.