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Budgetary Cutback and Transit System Performance: The Case of MARTA
Author(s) -
Guess George M.
Publication year - 1988
Publication title -
public budgeting and finance
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.694
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1540-5850
pISSN - 0275-1100
DOI - 10.1111/1540-5850.00774
Subject(s) - revenue , transit (satellite) , context (archaeology) , order (exchange) , service (business) , operations management , process (computing) , business , computer science , resource (disambiguation) , marginal cost , transit system , economics , operations research , transport engineering , finance , public transport , marketing , microeconomics , engineering , paleontology , computer network , biology , operating system
In the context of diminishing availability of transit revenue, an important question for transit managers is what kind of information system or format should be used to signal costs and benefits of each required cut in the budget? Should the present MARTA process of negotiated across‐the‐board cuts in line item accounts be replaced by a formal results‐oriented system that could tie marginal cutback decisions to changes in operating and maintenance performance? In order to develop a preliminary answer, this article attempts first to measure managerial and service performance of line‐item cut;. Then, based on the FY 84‐87 MARTA experience, it argues that transit systems, should avoid the considerable costs of developing a comprehensive results‐oriented alternative to the line‐item method by using operations and management experience to trace only selected performance‐resource linkages.