Water Utility Management

In urban communities, infrastructures that support living are indispensable. There is increased interest in alternative ways of providing such support systems, including semi-autonomous infrastructures resulting from the self-organization of local actors. In this study, we analyze the emergence and management of such infrastructures in light of the theory of complex adaptive systems, within which they are called ‘inverse infrastructures’. Empirical evidence is drawn from the case of water cooperatives in the town of Ikaalinen, Finland. Our analysis shows that, with favorable preconditions in place, inverse infrastructures may contribute significantly to local infrastructure services and so also to the functioning of society.

Customer water-use data and analyses are essential to understanding water use among different subgroups of customers, planning and implementing successful water conservation programs with appropriate water-saving goals, and setting rates that effectively meet utility objectives. By segmenting a customer base by water use and benchmarking consumption over time, utilities can better design and target conservation programs and rate structures. Water-use indicators can be used to categorize each customer’s water use patterns over a period of time and identify subgroups of customers with similar patterns. These subgroups go beyond the sometimes ambiguous and generic classification of “residential” or “commercial, industrial and institutional (CII)” customers, to a more precise categorization of individual customers based on their own water-use patterns. This method segments a customer base further within the larger and more traditional classifications to help utilities better understand customer consumption patterns. Using the proposed indicators in this document will guide a utility to divide its customers into several subgroups based on unique water-use patterns.

As technological innovations continue to proliferate, new modes of shared
decision-making and inclusive empowering public engagement have not.
Too many put their faith in new apps, algorithms and the internet of things,
and talk excitedly about a green transition, but where is the enthusiasm and
curiosity for new mechanisms of accountable democratic governance and
creative multi-stakeholder collaborations?

In this essay, we argue that democratizing public services, especially water
and electricity, is essential for a just, sustainable and resilient production and
allocation of the public goods needed to promote human flourishing and
a healthy planet. We believe that democratizing public utilities can help to
address our political institutions’ legitimacy crisis by showing that democracy  can be innovative and empowering, and a trust-enhancing alternative to an increasingly oligopolistic economy and political authoritarianism.

In this project, we are going to build a water flow sensor using Arduino. We will interface the water flow sensor with Arduino and LCD, and program it to display the volume of water, which has passed through the valve. For this particular project, we are going to use the YF-S201 water flow sensor, which uses a hall effect to sense the flow rate of the liquid.

— This paper presents empirical information regarding the types and magnitude of corrupt behaviors documented in water supply and sanitation service provision in several South Asian localities. It also examines the strengths and weaknesses of current strategies to reduce corruption among several public water and sanitation bureaucracies in South Asia, drawing on interviews and focus group discussions with more than 1,400 staff, customers, and key informants. Where corruption has been reduced, two concomitant drivers are observed: a shift in the accountability networks of service providers, and a change in the work environment that increases the moral cost of misconduct.

It is a belief that if correct laws, regulations, and institutions are in place then good governance is inevitable. Practice proves different. One of the challenges of the water policy of South Africa is to respond to diversity in income in the communities and the prevailing living conditions.
Policies must yield the desirable results and the timely delivering of what is needed on the basis of clear objectives. Despite the importance of regulation in affecting the performance of the utilities, a comparatively little consideration has been given to the detailed design of the institutional structures and the regulatory instruments appropriate to the conditions and capacities, as noted in different developing countries. 
There are several aspects in any water policy that impact positively or negatively on the efficiency of the water sector and the market response. The paper presents some aspects of the water policies that require special attention from the regulator to avoid a inherent inefficiency of the operator.

Summarized results of the partnership between Vietnamese water utility, Da Nang Water Supply Company (Dawaco), and Dutch company, VEI, between 2007 and 2010, including: timeline, cost, approach, improvement tracks, challenges, success factors and quotes, as well as general data and motivation from both the mentor, mentee, and supporting third parties. Targeted improvements: Non-Revenue Water and Water Loss | Operation and Maintenance | Integrated Urban Water Resource Management | Water Supply | Tariffs | Customer Relations | Asset Management | Financial Management | Service to the Poor

Water Operators’ Partnership (WOP) Case Study produced under the BEWOP project, documents the partnership between Vietnamese water utility, Da Nang Water Supply Company (Dawaco), and Dutch company, VEI, between 2007 and 2010. The case study describes the WOP and the capacity and performance improvements it helped make, and explains how the results of this WOP have been sustained since.

Uno de los problemas que más afecta a las empresas prestadoras de servicios de saneamiento (EPS) del Perú es el hurto del agua, específicamente el hurto realizado por personas que no son sus clientes; así como la existencia de conexiones de alcantarillado que tampoco figuran como clientes suyos. La principal causa es la ausencia de estrategias y procedimientos de captación masiva de nuevos clientes, barreras burocráticas, tiempos excesivos de acceso a los servicios y, sobre todo, el alto costo de convertirse en cliente formal de una EPS.
En este contexto, el presente manual propone procedimientos y estrategias de incorporación proactiva y masiva de nuevos clientes, rápidas y eficientes, para ampliar la base de clientes de la EPS y disminuir el uso informal del agua. En consecuencia, la EPS podrá incrementar la facturación, disminuir los índices de agua no facturada, mejorar la relación con los clientes y aumentar la cobertura de conexiones de agua potable y alcantarillado.
Este manual está dividido en seis capítulos. El capítulo 1 introduce a la problemática y conceptualiza las estrategias de captación de nuevos clientes.
El capítulo 2 explica en forma detallada cómo se compone la cartera de clientes por captar, de qué manera se les preidentifica según su categoría y cómo se mantiene actualizada la base de datos de los futuros clientes de la EPS.
El capítulo 3 analiza las diferentes estrategias para facilitar la captación de nuevos clientes, la revisión de los costos de conexiones y de los trámites, así como de las condiciones de otorgamiento de facilidades de pago.
El capítulo 4 propone procedimientos ágiles para captar nuevos clientes, acorde con su situación actual (cambios de tipo de servicio, venta de conexiones, regularización de clandestinos y subregistrados, entre otros).
El capítulo 5 introduce la figura del gestor de captación de nuevos clientes, explica los criterios para su selección, en qué consisten sus tareas, forma de remuneración, la manera de evaluación y supervisión de su servicio.
El capítulo 6 abarca la instalación de las conexiones, compara las diferentes opciones, desde la instalación con personal propio hasta la tercerización, indica sus ventajas y desventajas.
Finalmente, plantea algunas consideraciones de importancia para el diseño técnico de las conexiones, toma en cuenta aspectos que se presentan en la gestión comercial con posterioridad a la incorporación de nuevos clientes, así como consideraciones para captar clientes durante la ejecución de obras de ampliación.

La gestion comercial de una empresa prestadora de servicios de saneamiento (EPS) depende en gran medida de la correcta administracion de la informacion de los clientes, predios y conexiones domiciliarias a los que presta los servicios de agua potable y alcantarillado en un sistema catastral. Conocer esta informacion permite organizar la atencion general a los clientes de manera eficiente, precisar sus necesidades, monitorear sus consumos, realizar una facturacion justa y brindarle un mejor servicio.
Complementariamente, los sistemas de informacion geografica soportados en una cartografia actualizada aportan mejoras muy interesantes generando mapas conceptuales de las variables comerciales mas importantes. Esto permite optimizar de gran manera la eficiencia de la planificacion de actividades comerciales de lectura, distribucion de recibos, inspecciones o cortes y rehabilitaciones de servicios. Ademas, facilita identificar cambios de categoria tarifaria y servicios no facturados en usuarios activos. Crea condiciones para la identificacion e incorporacion de usuarios factibles y conexiones clandestinas, y viabiliza la recuperacion de clientes inactivos, lo cual en su conjunto contribuye de manera significativa a la reduccion del agua no facturada (ANF) en la EPS e incremento de conexiones activas.
En este manual se presentan recomendaciones que ayudaran a guiar la planificacion y ejecucion de la actualizacion de un catastro comercial. Ademas, describe procedimientos y secuencias para mantener actualizado el catastro de clientes, utilizando como proveedores de informacion al personal que trabaja en las labores comerciales.
El capitulo 1 aborda aspectos generales que resaltan la importancia del catastro dentro de la gestion comercial de la EPS, los beneficios que aporta y un analisis de problemas frecuentes.
El capitulo 2 desarrolla la planificacion de la actualizacion catastral censal, siendo de interes el enfoque por objetivos en toda la secuencia logica.
Mientras que el capitulo 3 detalla los aspectos operativos y de ejecucion de la actualizacion catastral censal.
Finalmente, se plantea en el capitulo 4 la actualizacion dinamica catastral (ADC) como un procedimiento para recoger cambios en las principales variables catastrales vinculadas al incremento de la facturacion, los ingresos y la informacion clave comercial.

The Water Research Foundation (WRF) is a member-supported, international, 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that sponsors research that enables water utilities, public health agencies, and other professionals to provide safe and affordable drinking water to consumers.

The accelerated growth of society and the requirements of quality of service, both by users and by the regulator, imposed to the sector of water consumption the need to implement management methods that allow the increase of efficiency of service provided by water utilities. The main concerns of regulator focus on imbalances associated with the presence of natural monopoly, especially in ensuring a high quality service at reasonable prices and the preservation of natural resources. In turn, utility companies have to absorb not only the interest of the shareholders, but also with the impositions of the regulator and other stakeholders.
Given this reality, the problems offered to the internal management of water supply systems, regardless of the adopted models are very similar and are repeated in many municipalities in Portugal. Moreover, companies have a duty to submit annually to the regulator, indicators of quality of service and economic and financial sustainability. However, the system developed by ERSAR presents itself insufficient to evaluate the performance and management of internal management entities.
In this context, the main objective of this thesis is focused on contributing to the performance assessment of the managing water utilities and consequent construction of a performance management system based on indicators.
Besides the proposed performance management system, it was designed a benchmarking study focused on international best practices in the sector of water consumption in terms of performance indicators. The results should be used in applying the methodology to compare indicators as an important stimulus for the introduction of measures and improve management.
The main evidence that results of this thesis is that it is possible to have cross-sector indicators in addition to indicators of ERSAR. The indicators presented are really useful to manage organizations, and may be applied to the industry since: study departed from the Portuguese reality; they were validated by a panel of experts with experience in the industry; and almost all indicators are rates, allowing for easy comparison with the awareness of context conditions.
The methodology allows analyzing the evolution of the organization from year to year and seeing what the weaknesses and strengths of the organization facilitating the establishment of management objectives for achieving improvements in the company. The evaluation process created facilitates benchmarking, contributing to the sustainability of the sector with weak competition but providing a vital service to communities by safeguarding public health being essential to human value.

Water pricing can be one of the most effective methods to driving conservation and is also the primary mechanism for recovering the revenue that a water utility needs to protect public health and the environment.  The Environmental Finance Center at the University of North Carolina and the Sierra Club, Lone Star Chapter have written a report to help Texas water utilities use their water rates and financial policies to encourage customers to reduce their water use while maintaining the financial viability of the utility.

W ater utilities in the United States struggle over how to set policies, design rate structures, and implement communication procedures that are effective and appropriate to their customer base. Adding to the complexity of these tasks is that water management requires local planning, and cookie-cutter strategies often fail to consider that customer characteristics and water demand vary from one town to the next, even within the same state or geographic region. For example, the same conservation initiative that succeeds at one utility may fail to reach its conservation goals or costs much more at a neighboring utility, solely because customers in the two communities have different water use patterns. Consequently, the revenue effects of the conservation initiative will be vastly different for the two utilities.

The aim of this article is to shed light on the theory and praxis of utility stakeholder communication. Our general research objective is to contrast citizens’ experiences of utility-specific information needs with the views of communication managers of municipal water utilities. Empirical data for the study were gathered using two methods. Citizens’ views were gathered from street interviews in several Finnish middlesized cities, whereas the views of communication professionals of municipal water utilities were collected via email-based survey. Empirical analysis shows that one-way communication has its relevance, and it should actually be improved most notably in exceptional situations, such as water supply disruptions. More profound changes in customer communication require, however, that utilities support customers’ strive for sustainable and economical water consumption. The overall challenge to utilities is to get closer to the everyday needs of their customers and to develop new communication culture to support such an endeavor.

New York City, the largest city in the USA and one of the most economically powerful in the world, would not be where it is today without quenching its thirst. Throughout its history, water supply and sanitation services have been closely tied with the economic and social development of the city. The current legal and institutional structure of the sector was not always in existence but as a result of reforms which began in 1983 in response to problems that utilities face across the globe, specifically financial health, aging infrastructure, water quality and fiscal/managerial autonomy. Similar to developed to developing countries, these reforms did not happen naturally but as a response to the external shocks of new federal mandates and a city-wide fiscal crisis forcing NYC to rethink its strategy. The external shocks exposed the underlying issues of the sector and has allowed NYC's water utility, and NYC itself, to grow. The question arises, how did the institutional and legal reforms improve NYC water supply and sanitation services and how can other utilities across the world adapt these strategies to go from in the red to the black.

SANUSI MAIKUDI, the Managing Director of Kaduna State Water Corporation (KADSWAC), said that the Corporation has recorded the highest cost recovery than any water agency in the country. However, he aims to improve on KADSWAC’s record, as he explains in this interview.

La principal fuente de ingresos de una empresa prestadora de servicios de saneamiento (EPS) en el Perú está constituida por la recaudación de la contraprestación de los servicios realizados. Por ende, una adecuada facturación es indispensable para la sostenibilidad económica de las empresas y, al mismo tiempo, facilita una interacción justa y transparente con los usuarios. En este manual, se analizan los principales factores de los que dependen los volúmenes y montos de facturación, así como la importancia que tienen estos en la eficiencia de los procesos comerciales incidentes.
En el capítulo 1, se describen al detalle los principales conceptos facturados que comprenden los ingresos de las EPS, así como los procesos y las variables importantes de las que depende esta facturación. Asimismo, se señalan los principales errores que afectan los volúmenes facturados.
En el capítulo 2, se analizan los principales problemas que generan pérdidas de volumen al facturar las conexiones que no cuentan con un medidor de consumo y están bajo el régimen de asignación de volumen consumido.
En el capítulo 3, se abordan otros grupos de casos que generan pérdidas de volumen al facturar a usuarios que tienen un medidor instalado, que no están relacionados a la lectura. El capítulo 4, por su parte, señala aquellos errores que sí están vinculados con las lecturas cíclicas que se toman a los medidores.
En el capítulo 5, se describen las medidas recomendadas para la identificación de errores en conexiones con medidor instalado, que son principalmente procedimientos de análisis estadístico y trabajos de muestreo en campo. Complementariamente, en el capítulo 6 se recomiendan medidas para disminuir la incidencia de estos problemas.
En el capítulo 7, se tratan los errores que producen un exceso de facturación en las conexiones que están bajo el régimen de facturación de promedio histórico, así como sus consecuencias y las medidas para disminuir las pérdidas.
En el capítulo 8, se mencionan las pérdidas que devienen de un incumplimiento de las normas o procedimientos internos de la EPS, relacionadas con casos de atención de reclamos, aplicación de recuperos e incorporación de nuevos usuarios.

Utility managers must design rate structures that meet multiple objectives: full cost recovery , fairness, economic efficiency, and resource conservation. To reach these multiple goals, the design of an optimal rate structure would ideally include detailed information on cost of service, demand elasticity, and preferences of the customer base within each utility. However this information is often unavailable, especially when analyzing utilities at regional or national scales. In this absence, the comparison or benchmarking of rate structures across utilities may reveal insights regarding the features, management, or performance of one utility relative to another. We review the metrics and methods available to water utility managers for comparing rate structures with publicly available information. By presenting the full range of metrics available to utility managers, we aim to facilitate the comparison of water rate structures, and ensure that the analysts can select the metric that best fits their needs. To illustrate how these metrics may help generate insight, we use them to compare the rate structures of five municipalities in Canada. Despite the contextual differences, we find that the rates tend to converge at a single metric, the Canadian standard of 25 m 3 /month, suggesting that there is a " looking over the shoulder effect " in which managers are probably cognizant of the metrics used to compare them to others. We suggest that the design or redesign of rate structures can be informed by the metrics that compare rates across utilities, despite the limitations of working with only publicly available information.

As part of neoliberal reforms to public service delivery, the corporatisation of water supply has been of increasing concern since the late 1990s. Typically, both promoters and detractors frame it within neoliberal theory: it is the next best (or worst) thing to privatisation, enabling the ostensibly independent, commercial and technical management of utilities. In Colombia, however, city-owned water supply corporations are far from new. They were adopted across the country's main cities at the beginning of the 20th century. Colombia's century-long experience with corporatised water supply is instructive. The case reveals a model that emerged in the context of challenges common to Southern cities, rather than as a 'solution' imposed from the North, the deep inter-linkages between public and private sectors in the evolution of publicly owned corporations and thus the limited nature of utility autonomy under corporatisation. In sum, corporatisation – imagined as a technology for the 'government of government' – cannot escape the shifting social realities in which it is immersed. It therefore emerges as a technology not for the excising of government authority but for the negotiation of public and private interests in (and influence over) utility services in contexts of relatively limited government autonomy from the private sector.

New York City is the largest city in the USA and one of the largest in the world. Water Supply and sanitation services are an essential requirement for the economic and social development of the city. The current legal and institutional structure of the sector was not always in existence but as a result of reforms which began in 1983. These reforms did not happen naturally but as a response to the external shocks of new federal mandates and a city-wide fiscal crisis forcing NYC to rethink its strategy. The external shocks exposed the underlying issues of the sector, financial health, water quality, aging infrastructure, and autonomy. This paper analyzes the NYC Water Supply and Sanitation legal and institutional reforms and how they addressed these underlying issues.

This article tests the importance of cost, demand, institutional and geographic factors on the bills that consumers pay for water and sewer service in North Carolina and the pricing signals utilities send to customers. The authors apply spatial regression models to test whether other factors besides costs drive rate-setting practices. Results indicate that cost factors, operating ratio, temperature, the application of "outside" rates, and utilities’ primary importance on affordable rates affect combined water and sewer bills at average levels of residential consumption. The study also finds that bills are significantly and positively correlated to bills paid in nearby utilities. Community income and the percent of customers below the poverty line are weakly associated with combined bills. However, utilities facing higher growth rates and those that value conservation are no more likely to send stronger pricing signals than others.

Center is an interdisciplinary center for teaching and policy analysis, based at the School of Government at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Faculty and students working with the center concentrate on helping improve the financing and the delivery of environmental goods and services. For more information, visit www.efc.unc.edu.

The purpose of this report is to help North Carolina water and sewer utilities meet their policy objectives and assure that they have the revenues they need to protect public health. The report provides up-to-date information on current rate-setting practices and trends that can inform and influence (but not dictate) local decisions. The analyses uniquely determine and compare water and sewer bills for multiple levels of consumption and relies on data from multiple sources, including 1) a rates and financial practices survey completed by 277 utilities, 2) a rates inventory and database that includes information from 333 utilities, 3) a financial information database compiled and maintained by the NC State Treasurer, and 4) data from the United States Census Bureau.

In response to the severe California drought, in April 2015, Governor Jerry Brown issued an executive order mandating statewide reductions in water use. The mandate aimed to reduce the amount of water consumed statewide in urban areas by 25% from 2013 levels. The State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) proposed regulatory instructions that grouped urban water utilities into nine tiers, with conservation standards ranging from 8% to 36%. In this paper we evaluate welfare losses caused by this mandate. Understanding the proposed regulation's welfare losses requires estimating water demand. Using fixed effect models and data from 2004 to 2009 on 111 urban water utilities, an annual demand curve is estimated. The estimated demand elasticity is between -0.61 and -0.1 which is heterogeneous across the regions and seasons. In the second step, we use the estimated annual demand function to recover price elasticities for a sample of 53 urban water utilities in California, which provide water for more than 20 million customers. We considered two scenarios to calculate welfare losses in Northern and Southern California: the governor's mandate, and a hypothetical 25% uniform cut back. The results for Northern California indicate an average welfare loss of $6,132 per acre-foot of shortage for a governor's mandate and $4,424 for a 25% uniform shortage. In Southern California, the average estimated welfare loss is $2,113 per acre-foot of shortage for a governor's mandate and $2,171 for a 25% uniform shortage. Results indicate the monthly household-level willingness-to-pay to avoid the governor's mandate is $36 in Northern California and $25 in Southern California. Our results suggest inefficiencies in the distribution of the percentage cutbacks between Northern California utilities from SWRCB.

New York City, the largest city in the USA and one of the most economically powerful in the world, would not be where it is today without quenching its thirst. Throughout its history, water supply and sanitation services have been closely tied with the economic and social development of the city. The current legal and institutional structure of the sector was not always in existence but as a result of reforms which began in 1983 in response to problems that utilities face across the globe, specifically financial health, aging infrastructure, water quality and fiscal/managerial autonomy. Similar to developed to developing countries, these reforms did not happen naturally but as a response to the external shocks of new federal mandates and a city-wide fiscal crisis forcing NYC to rethink its strategy. The external shocks exposed the underlying issues of the sector and has allowed NYC's water utility, and NYC itself, to grow. The question arises, how did the institutional and legal reforms improve NYC water supply and sanitation services and how can other utilities across the world adapt these strategies to go from in the red to the black.

This paper presents empirical information regarding the types and magnitude of corrupt behaviors documented in water supply and sanitation service provision in several South Asian localities. It also examines the strengths and weaknesses of current strategies to reduce corruption among several public water and sanitation bureaucracies in South Asia, drawing on interviews and focus group discussions with more than 1,400 staff, customers, and key informants. Where corruption has been reduced, two concomitant drivers are observed: a shift in the accountability networks of service providers, and a change in the work environment that increases the moral cost of misconduct.

“A policy is not finished after its political design or discursive phrasing. Rather, policies are subject to a continuing process of production and promotion aiming to mobilize and maintain political consent among the epistemic community to which they are directed and which they shape”(Haas, 1992).
The appropriate level for providing water services remains highly debated as many countries seek for sustainable approaches to the provision of water services. Many countries have experimented with Local Government provision of water services and for a long time, researchers and experts argued the benefits that would accrue from providing services at ‘the lowest appropriate level’ considering the involvement of local leadership as crucial to efficient water services delivery. Recent developments in the water sector seem to show a shift from local provision to ‘centralised’ provision of services.
This research contributes to the discussion on the factors that influence this shift using empirical evidence from eight urban water authorities in Uganda. Management of these has been transferred from Local Governments to the National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC), a Government owned public parastatal. The study analyses the factors that have influenced the management transfer and the impact of the transfer, both on the towns and on the National Water Utility. The study also endeavors to identify the ‘winners and losers’ of this process. While the original aim of transferring management was to prepare ground for private sector involvement in water services provision through a lease, management transfer of urban water services has continued despite the absence of the lease.
The study revealed that the factors influencing management transfer vary for different phases of transfers. While the first phase was driven by political interests, the second phase was in the interest of the utility to grow and the latest phase is driven by the need to secure investments made in the towns where the National Utility is trusted to be a better custodian of the investments than the Local Governments. The towns transferred are seen to enjoy the benefits of fiscal redistribution under the National Utility while the National Utility grows as a result of additional towns. The impact of these additional towns on the National utility is cushioned by investment in the towns prior to transfer. The transfer of responsibility is favored by the water sector legislation which allows room for maneuver, making it possible for the minister to appoint a new water authority as he deems fit. The research also highlights the role played by international financing agencies in influencing the direction of policy and practice. 
The administrative strategy in Uganda’s urban water sector is Distributed Institutional Monopoly in as far as management of the large commercially viable town water systems is concerned. In essence, the National Utility is not obliged to share power with the local authorities and these together with the local private water operators lose potential profit-earning operations to the National Water Utility.

Key Words: Water supply and sanitation, Policy analysis, Sector reform, Uganda

Providing a sustainable supply of potable water is fundamental to maintaining livelihoods and economic development. As one of the larger water utilities in Africa, Umgeni Water is committed to this goal by maintaining and developing its bulk supply network. There are however several " stressors " that have the potential to impact on the utility's ability to achieve its goal. The potential impact of a changing climate on the availability of water resources is one such stressor, and is currently ranked as the 3rd highest risk facing the utility. Consequently, a process has been initiated to quantify the potential impacts of Climate Change on the availability of water resources at a finer level of detail than before, starting with hydrological modeling of the Mgeni catchment. The Mgeni system provides potable water at a 99% level of assurance to the Greater Durban-Pietermaritzburg area, one of the most important economic hubs of the country, and is therefore critical to the utility's operations. This paper provides insight into Umgeni Water's planning process and how the impacts of Climate Change on water resources are being addressed, particularly in the Mgeni catchment. Furthermore, a compelling need to include suitable assessments and adaptation measures in developmental planning and disaster risk management for any possible impacts on water resources, as well as for water yield and infrastructure (augmentation and safety) requirements, is presented.

Since early 2000s a policy of attracting private operators to public utilities, which should help to increase productivity, reduce costs, and as a result, reduce utility prices takes place in Russia. The aim of the study is to identify the relationship between institutional arrangements and pricing for water and wastewater services.
Applying statistical and cluster analysis to empirical data on water utilities in 13 largest cities has revealed the differences in the level and dynamics of prices for water and wastewater services in the group of public utilities and public private water utilities. In 2011-2014 the level and growth price rates in the group of public private partnerships were higher than in group of municipal water utilities. Thus, the involvement of private operators has not yet lead to the expected reduction in prices.
Keywords: public utilities; public private partnerships; water utilities; pricing for water and wastewater services; institutional arrangements; economic efficiency