Demand for public transport in the context of the efficiency of its financing

The goal of this thesis is to analyse theoretical and legislative premises substantiating and allowing for concentration of procurement and provision of public service of urban public transport in the hands of local governments, to analyse the efficiency of their operation from a financing point of view and to research and verify theoretical hypotheses about determinants of demand for their services on a representative sample of 18 Czech cities and their respective systems of urban public transport. The analytical part of the thesis is based on a correlation analysis verifying the assumption of Niskanens economic theory of bureaucracy and on cointegration analysis of relevant time series to establish systematical relations that determine the demand for urban public transport. The analysis revealed an unfavourable development in financial self-sufficiency in nearly all of examined cases and established positive effects on demand based on expanding the transport service coverage and growing local population. Negative effects were observed based on a growth of unemployment and growing attractiveness of individual transport. Also, the thesis managed to confirm positive effects that having a local light rail service has on the interest of economically fostering population in urban public transport.