The Need for Greater Transparency When Assessing the Performance and Prospects of Melbourne’s Rail Franchise Contracts

《The Need for Greater Transparency When Assessing the Performance and Prospects of Melbourne’s Rail Franchise Contracts》

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作者: David Patrick Ashmore;John Stone;Yvonne Kirk

来源: URBAN POLICY AND RESEARCH,Vol.37,Issue1,P.82-96

语言: 英文

关键字: Rail operations and maintenance outsourcing,rail franchising,Melbourne rail,risk allocations,risk allocation,public policy

作者单位: Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia

摘要: Among policymakers and researchers at an international level, there is great interest in the performance of the Melbourne rail franchise model. This review attempts to examine the Melbourne model in an international context and assess the performance of the system under current contracts. Potential flaws are highlighted including lack of information, concerns over performance and contestability, and the treatment of the potential long-term maintenance backlog under short-term contracts. The authors conclude with an overall stance of there needing to be far greater public information transparency to allow proper scrutiny of the effectiveness of these contracts for the public good.国际上的决策者和研究者都对墨尔本轨道运营模式的绩效表现出很大的兴趣。本综述试图将墨尔本模式放在国际语境中加以审视，并评估其目前的运营绩效。综述突出了潜在缺陷，如信息缺乏、对绩效和竞争性的担忧，以及短期合同可能对长期维护造成问题。作者指出，从总体上看，墨尔本模式需要大大提高其信息透明性，以便对合同效益进行恰当的监督，保障公众利益。KEYWORDS: Rail operations and maintenance outsourcing, rail franchising, Melbourne rail, risk allocations, risk allocation, public policyAdditional informationFundingThere are no funding or grant-awarding bodies associated with this work.AcknowledgmentsThanks to staff at Metro Trains Melbourne and Public Transport Victoria for making valuable data available and for very useful comments on previous draft articles. Credit is also due to Professor David Hayward and Eric Keys for constructive feedback, and to the Melbourne School of Design for their encouragement through the Transport, Health and Urban Design Research Hub. The authors are also grateful for the support of Professor Brendan Gleeson and Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute throughout the process.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.