| Law based administration is a natural demand to realize our country's strategy of ruling the country according to the law. Since the transportation is one of the four basic living requirements (clothing, food, shelter and transportation), the transportation department is known to be one of the most important parts of our country's administrative system. In another word, the transportation management is the embodiment and extension of our national executive power in the transportation system. Transportation administration is based on highway administration practice, and is a response to actual highway management. Domestically, transportation administration has a history of thousands of years, but the systematical study on it started lately in the 1990s. With the reform and opening-up policy, highway transportation has developed rapidly, with the sum of 3.68 million kilometers by the end of 2008. And the total kilometers of expressways ranks the second. The status of highways is rising day by day, and the demand for highways is increasing, which shows an obvious contradiction. The development of market economy gives rises to both opportunities and challenges. Traditional highway administration system is being struck but it urges the reform in system as well. For years, studies on highway administration theories have been going on nationwide. But, the recognition is of limit because highway administration is comprehensive and systemic. Therefore, inevitably, people's recognition on highway is occasionally unilateral and superficial. Furthermore, new problems are always coming into being. It's urgent to come up with new resolutions to confront the trouble. The first law involving highway construction and management-"People's Republic of China Highway Law"in new China was promulgated and implemented in 1997. there are still many legal issues in the transportation administration. For an example, there are still not explicit, direct and sufficient legal proofs to make the legal status of the transportation management agencies clear. The direct consequence of this issue is the dilemma of being"one subject"or"two subjects", and the dilemma of being"the transportation administrative subject"or"the transportation administrative activities'subject"for the transportation management agencies. There are also many other theoretical debates on similar issues. Being the primary element of the national transportation administration, the subject of transportation management is still not clearly defined. This situation seriously affects the realization of the law based administration in the transportation administration. Thus, to research and define the subject of transportation management is very important, since it is the prerequisite to implement the law based administration in transportation management.In the process of highway administration theories directing highway management practice, drawbacks and even barriers and slow down the development, which promotes people to modify old theories and draw up new ones. The gain, definition and force of highway administration subject qualification is the focus in terms of highway administration. Fifty items on"Transportation competent department"and"highway management agency"are included in"People's Republic of China Highway Law". But no clear regulations are included on status of highway administration activities. Therefore, it is greatly significant to regulate and define the status and role of highway management agencies in order to promote the development of highway business. To study the correlated points to highway administration subject and seek the inherent discplinces. In this paper, we analyze the backgrounds and the objectives of the subject of transport management from a realistic view, and summarize the current stages of the administrative subject in different countries. Based on these backgrounds, the research method used in this paper, and the theoretical and practical significance are explained. After that, starting with the concept of the subject of transport management, the characteristics, coverage, classifications, qualification forms and other primary elements of the subject are studied. Based on the above analysis, the transportation management agencies and highway management agencies are further studied with a view of current laws and current transportation development using the method of science of administration, jurisprudence and contrastive studies. The legal relations in the transportation administration are made out. Emphasizing on the"authorization theory"and"commission theory", it is confirmed that the transportation management agencies are (or are not) the subject of the transportation administration. With the subject of transportation is well defined now, in order to further understand the legal standing of the transportation management agencies, the transportation attributes, the transportation administrative content and the meaning of administrative law are used as the new theoretical starting point, the legal standing of the transportation management agencies in the legal relations in the transportation administrative system is further studied. Finally, including the current transportation administrative development in China, the main administrative problems are studied, and some improvement suggestions are given to provide a reference to the development of legal system on transportation. |
