How to create efficient public transport systems? A systematic review of critical problems and approaches for addressing the problems.

Creating efficient public transport systems that attract users is a challenging task in contexts where the control of public transport is divided between various actors. Recent research on public transport has therefore seen increasing focus on issues like coordination, collaboration and steering in complex governance settings. However, more is known about what needs to be done than how to implement the necessary changes. This paper presents a systematic literature review with a focus on developing the understanding on how to improve the conditions for public transport. The reviewed articles are analysed for increasing the understanding of the critical challenges in the planning and implementation of measures to increase public transport travel; the working practices for dealing with problems described in the literature; and the advantages and disadvantages of different working practices. Based on the analysis an analytical framework is developed that can be used to study and evaluate working practices for managing critical challenges. The framework consists of three interconnected factors (i) actors, (ii) institutions (laws and rules that govern the interaction of the actors), and (iii) work processes (phases in the interaction between the actors). Drawing on the results of the systematic review a number of key issues for establishing working practices for dealing with the challenges are emphasized for each of the factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]