Restructuring of Public Transport Service of Alcoy

Abstract

Alcoy has a population of 60.000 inhabitants and is located in Valencia, on the north of the province of Alicante. Alcoy has been provided with an urban public bus transport service since 50 years ago. As a result of the current economic downturn, the Municipality of the city applied to the Polytechnic University of Valencia for a study to restructuring the public transport service to allow less municipal subsidies, ensuring quality from two points of view - coverage and frequency. The aim of this study was to provide the government team of detailed information about public transport service of Alcoy from several points of view; functional, economic, social, spatial coverage and other aspects, making easier the decision-making of the municipal government team, to achieve a public transport service more functional and socially appropriate and economically viable. The study consists of several phases. In the first phase, "Diagnosis of the current situation," the methodology used consisted, first of all, in assembling available information from recent years, on this basis, the UPV planning team made a study of the characteristics of the existing offer and demand, making more than 3.800 gauging and 700 surveys. The second phase consisted in meetings with neighborhood associations and the municipality to define objectives and make proposals to the government team. The third phase consisted in making a deep analysis of the proposals, according to the criteria considered and allowing an operation of the service approachable from a financial point of view. The paper presented details the work carried out as well as the proposed solutions and its impact on demand and municipal subsidies. As evidenced by the restructuring proposed that it is possible to achieve savings greater than the 30 % in the municipal contribution with a demand damage lower than 10%