After the BOT road operation contract expires, generally, the road will be transferred to the government, and then the government operates the road independently without charging costs from its users. Facing the huge amount of the operation cost, Chinese government tends to continue to charge the road users to guarantee the high quality of road operation. Then, the government will have to decide whether a private firm or government itself would be suitable to operate the road. A model is presented for decision-making through balancing interests between the government and the private firm with an introduction of an intermediate variable, i.e., bidding price. Three scenarios are investigated in the model, including the optimization of government operation, the optimization of private firm operation, and government operation with an improper decision of the intermediate variable. Improper intermediate variable will result in a higher toll charged by the government than by a private firm. The method of avoiding an improper decision is investigated. The result shows that the intermediate variable should be determined to be the government operation cost, based on which the private operator could be chosen, if available. With consideration of the private operator’s profit to be guaranteed by the government, the maximum subsidy should be equal to the minimum private operator’s profit to be disclosed when the contract is signed.

The passenger flow of urban rail transit (UTR) is influenced by many factors including gross domestic production, total length of urban rail lines, and the urban population scale of the city. A macro-factor passenger flow estimation model is needed for more and more cities in Chinato to build urban rail transit system. Before the urban rail transit becomes an operating network, a lot of government agencies usually build the first metro line in the center of city. Considering only one line services a limited number of people in the city, a modified multiple variables linear regression model is established based on the URT operating data in cities of China which can forecast the passenger flow of urban rail transit exactly. The results show that the model is very accurate in passenger flow forecasting.

At the end of the build-operate-transfer road concession period, an optimal model for the operation of public toll roads is created based on user heterogeneity regarding the values of time for different road users. The impact of user heterogeneity on operation costs for government and private firms is subsequently analyzed on the following critical variables: user values of time, road volume/capacity ratio, and road capacity. Concerning the values of time for different road users, the mean residual and failure functions are established to describe three optimization hypotheses: maximization of social welfare with operation by the government, two extreme cases with operation by a private firm, and a Pareto-optimal solution with operation by a private firm. It is concluded that the mean residual values of the time function are a linear function of the user values of time under a Pareto-optimal operation by the government. It is also determined that private profit is related to the demand-related operational cost of the government and private firm under a Pareto-optimal operation by a private firm. These conclusions suggest relevant recommendations for the government on policymaking for the operation of public toll roads.

When build–operate–transfer (BOT) roads are transferred back to the government upon the expiry of their contract, they are typically considered to be public roads and are no longer subject to tolls. However, in China, BOT roads, after being transferred to the government, remain tolled by the government in order to maintain efficiency. Therefore, such roads are termed public toll roads (PTRs). During the operational phase of PTRs, ongoing operating costs become a significant financial burden compared to the initial investment made for their construction. Against the backdrop of global carbon emission efforts, this paper studies the operational strategy of PTRs in terms of car emission costs, which constitute a portion of PTRs’ operation costs. This paper explores the operational strategy of PTRs, including whether the government should operate the road independently or outsource their operation to a competent private firm. Our analysis concludes that the operator should manage PTRs for the entire duration of their operation by maintaining self-financing while also accounting for operation costs. In this study, governmental regulations for the cost of carbon emissions are also studied.

Construction cost of urban rail transit (URT) is huge, but its environmental benefit (EB) is considerable. With the skeleton planning method, the EB of URT is evaluated through computing vehicle emission reduction and fuel consumption saving. The EB is calculated through the real travel behavior data and operation data of Beijing URT from 2007–2014. The results show that unit EB increases as the length of URT increases, from 2007 to 2014, HC total emission reduced 57891 ton, CO total emission reduced 126665 ton, NOx total emission reduced 75282 ton, which leads to total direct EB 38.831 billion Yuan (RMB). More specifically, the findings have insightful implications for planning, construction, operation of URT.