Staffing and Expertise Requirements
See a structural overview of the authority’s staff and department functions for a system based on a public monopoly with management contract. Compare this structure with the authority structures for the various other system reform options.

For the public monopoly with management contract the authority can be a relatively small agency keeping a relatively light hand on the operating company. The authority would have to undertake strategic planning including investigation of alternative modes of public transport and also for advising on all policy issues.

Since the managers would probably be given the responsibility to plan the network with the authority taking a passive overseeing role, the number of staff in the planning division should be small. Many of the functions which are carried out by authorities in other reform options will be done by the operator in public monopoly with management contract system (e.g., operations and scheduling, ticketing, public relations, legal issues, accounts.)

The authority should however be involved in marketing in the sense that it should be aware of public aspirations for public transport and complaints about service. It should also ensure that the service being offered is suitable for the community.

The authority should also be responsible for fare setting and monitoring the costs and productivity of the operator. This will involve maintaining a survey team to undertake regular checks. The authority must also select the managers and set performance targets with some form of incentive payments. Thus a small tendering and selection division may be needed to oversee the selection of managers and then follow up and monitor their performance.

An overall staffing level is hard to determine since it depends very much on the functions to be performed and the complexity of each function — these will vary greatly from city to city. Cities that are expanding rapidly will require higher staffing levels than those that are relatively well developed. For a city of about 1 million population and say 1,000 buses in service, the staff levels needed to regulate a public monopoly would probably be of the order of 50 to 100 depending on the workload. Larger cities would need more staff but the increase would not be proportional to population.

See also
Institutional requirements