IRACST- International Journal of Research in Management & Technology (IJRMT), ISSN: 2249-9563 Vol. 2, No. 4, August 2012 383 A Quick Assessment Technique to Determine Profitability in Private City-Bus-Services – Case Study Kolkata-Howrah Urban Area, India Soumen Mitra Assistant Professor Department of Architecture, Town & Regional Planning Bengal Engineering and Science University, Shibpur, Howrah, India Dr. Jayita Guha Niyogi Professor and Head Department of Architecture Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India Abstract - Public transport system must be profitable to the private operators without government subsidy or intolerable rise in bus fare to ensure efficient mobility in a third world city. However, a populist but not so affluent government is unwilling either to subsidize or raise the bus fare, thereby forcing private players to withdraw or compromise with the level of service and the commuters are badly affected. Present research aims to strike a balance. A study on private city-bus services has been conducted in Kolkata-Howrah urban area which incorporates data on route, operation and financial system. A multiple linear regression is used on a combinatorial basis which indicates that five attributes, namely, route-length, number of days a bus operates in a month, average passenger per day, average fare and legal cost contributes significantly in computing service profitability. Thus, the decision makers may adopt the tool for quick assessment of profitability in the constraint domain of operation of existing and new bus routes. Keywords: Profitability, Private City-Bus Service, Multiple Linear Regression I. INTRODUCTION Bus transport system largely serves the travel demand of developing countries [1] like India. They serve more than 90% of commuters in Indian cities [2]. Since buses constitute less than 1% of vehicle fleet but meet around 62% of total travel demand [3], their service cannot be overemphasized. Bus service involves minimal installation cost, flexibility in operation and lower fare structure vis-a- vis other effective qualities like reduction in street congestion, fuel consumption, environmental pollution, street fatality and land used for transport [4]. National Urban Transport Policy (NUTP) 2006 [5] of India and Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Mission (JnNURM 2005) too view public transport as an efficient solution of future transportation system [6]. Bus services in India are operated by ‘government’ and ‘private’ authorities as well. There are dedicated government city-bus services in 17 cities of India having population more than 1 million [7]. However, lately bus services in Indian cities are incurring loss [8] and there is a steady decline of fleet sizes [9]. Quantitatively the losses per effective kilometer in Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Pune amount to Rupees 20, 84, 3 and 5, respectively [10]. Present survey reveals that employment-load per bus (both in number and salary) in government is much higher than their private counterpart. Hence, the privatized operations seem to be more profitable in a constraint domain of operation. But practically, the overall profitability in private city-bus service is found mostly to be negative with a marginal profit in only some routes. This article investigates least possible attributes responsible for profitability and finds out a methodology to quickly assess the profitability in Indian context for rapid appraisal. Kolkata-Howrah urban area, in the Eastern state of West Bengal, India, has been chosen to make a case study. The outputs from the study exhibit combinatorial equations processed through multiple linear regression analysis. Furthermore, the relevant directions for further research have been identified. II. REVIEW OF LITERATURE Two distinct approaches have been adopted by various researchers to account for profitability: some of them explore relationships among various attributes connected with profitability, while others suggest improvement strategies for bus service, this being an extremely efficient mode. Models in relation with profitability and various social, economic and system-based attributes have been developed by various researchers. In a nut-shell, these attributes include residential density [11], demographic characters and