ABSTRACT
Financial performance of any public transport organization depends upon the revenue it
generates on the basis of operations and how much it needs to spend on various inputs
in running the organization. The revenue stream of bus undertakings mainly include two
sources namely ticket sales and advertisement revenue on buses and other bus-related in-
frastructure. However the major share to the extent of 96 to 97 percent is contributed by
ticket sales. The cost stream includes capital costs associated with buses, maintenance, fuel
costs, and manpower costs. In addition, the organizations incur expenditure in creating
infrastructure like bus stands, stops, etc. In India for quite some time the government of
India and respective state governments provided some financial assistance to consolidate the
working of these organizations. In India it is normal practice that whenever some financial
assistance is provided a number of social obligations are also tied with it. Bus undertakings
are no exception to this phenomenon. Running buses in cities with very low demand during
off peak hour and student concessions are some of the examples of this phenomenon. For
sustainable growth in the fleet to take care of demand increase and replacement needs of
old stock, the undertakings must enjoy surplus revenue or profits. The following paragraph
details the financial performance bus undertakings in India.
