A Terminology of Interorganisational Coordination in Public Transport: The Case of Timetable Planning in Denmark.

Abstract

State, regional and municipal authorities, public transport authorities and traffic operators at many different levels are essential players in public transport. Inter-organisational coordination between those players are required to achieve optimised timetables that take the needs of customers into account. This paper presents a terminology in the form of four coordination mechanisms of relevance when the many public transport players are to coordinate to make customer-focused timetables. The four mechanisms are ownership and instruction, contracts, partnerships and mutual understanding. They are all based upon basic coordination mechanisms of marked, hierarchy, and network. The paper gives examples of problems relating to insufficient coordination mechanisms resulting in timetables that are not optimised and customer-focused. The results presented stem from a Danish study focusing on institutional constraints for optimisation of timetables in inter-organisational relations. The empirical focus is the Eastern part of Denmark, including the Greater Copenhagen Area.