This paper studies incentive-based subsidy to transit systems to improve performance. It derives a formula for optimal effort that equalizes marginal cost and marginal benefit and derives some principles from it among which is that the larger the value of a transit system’s performance criterion the larger the effort it will exert to improve it. Next, using a constrained cost minimization approach it derives a nonlinear cost function that includes optimal effort and estimates it using an unbalanced panel data of single mode U.S. bus transit systems. The results show that optimal effort is the equivalent of seven full-time employees (15,243 labor hours) per year and in real terms it results in 0.6% cost saving (US$198,331) and US$836,796 in incentive subsidy per observation. The implications of these findings are examined.

本文研究了基于激励的公交系统补贴，以提高绩效。它得出了使边际成本和边际收益相等的最优努力的公式，并从中得出了一些原则，其中包括：运输系统绩效标准的价值越大，改进它所付出的努力就越大。接下来，使用约束成本最小化方法，得出包括最佳工作量的非线性成本函数，并使用单模式美国公交系统的不平衡面板数据对其进行估算。结果表明，最佳努力相当于每年七名全职雇员（15,243工时），按实际价值计算，每次观察可节省0.6％的成本（198,331美元）和836,796美元的激励补贴。这些发现的含义进行了审查。