Contracting in transit: The value and benefits of private contracting in North America and internationally to meet passenger needs

Around the world, there are many different ways that public transit authorities organize and choose to deliver their daily operations to the riding public. Many contractual models have been influenced by the context, culture and history of the location. Each model has its own characteristics and advantages.

In the context of this paper, several public transport organizations have been interviewed to highlight the benefits of contracting transit operations via a competitive process resulting in usage of a third party (private contractors) to operate services .

The purpose of this paper is to present best practices in terms of the scope and award process, contractual framework, and partnership relations between the parties and benefits of contracting.

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^{The elaboration of this paper would have not been possible without the collaboration of the professionals in our sector mentioned in the Study, who agreed to share their views, experiences, expertise and opinion with the UITP team on this important topic that is contracting in public transport. A special thank also goes to the team of the North American Transit Alliance for their support and their time, as well as to Didier Van de Velde and Jan-Jaap de Vlieger of Inno-V for their expertise and their collaboration, and to Andrea Soehnchen for her dedicated work.}