Public Sector Advisory
Utilities Tariff & Revenue Reform
Rewiring how cities and utilities pay for essential and emerging urban services.
Public Sector Advisory
Across the world, utilities and city governments are under pressure to do more with less. Water, wastewater, solid waste, power, transport, district cooling, broadband, and new IoT-enabled urban services all need:
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Heavy capital investment
Reliable operations and maintenance
Climate and resilience upgrades
Expanded coverage to fast-growing populations
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Yet the revenue models that fund these services are often decades old. Tariffs are misaligned with actual costs, subsidies are poorly targeted, and non-traditional revenue opportunities remain untapped. The result is a growing gap between what cities need to deliver and what they can afford to sustain.
ACS SYNERGY helps utilities, regulators, and city governments redesign tariffs and revenue systems so that essential and emerging services can be financed responsibly — balancing affordability, sustainability, and investment needs.
Utilities in Transition: From Legacy Tariffs to Sustainable Value
Traditional tariff structures were designed for a simpler world: limited services, slower growth, and modest performance expectations. Today’s utilities face a very different reality:
Rising operating costs (energy, chemicals, labor, technology)
Demand for 24/7 service, better quality, and digital access
Ageing networks and treatment plants needing renewal
Pressure to expand to underserved communities
Stricter environmental and climate-resilience standards
Growing interest in PPPs and private participation
At the same time, new types of urban services are emerging:
District cooling and distributed energy solutions
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Electric-vehicle charging infrastructure
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Smart parking and congestion management
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IoT-based metering, smart buildings, and pay-per-use services
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Smart public lighting and urban mobility platforms
Underfunded operations
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Deferred maintenance and service deterioration
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Inability to scale new services beyond pilots
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Persistent dependence on ad-hoc fiscal transfers
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Lost opportunities to attract green and climate finance
These services often do not fit neatly into legacy tariff frameworks. Without thoughtful design, cities end up with:
Tariff and revenue reform is no longer a narrow technical exercise; it’s a central pillar of urban sustainability.
How ACS SYNERGY Supports Tariff & Revenue Reform
We help utilities and city governments move from fragmented, politically driven pricing decisions to data-driven, transparent, and forward-looking tariff and revenue frameworks.
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​Our work brings together:
Cost-to-serve modeling for existing and new services
Regulatory and policy alignment with national and local frameworks
Tariff design and simulation for different customer groups
Revenue diversification strategies beyond classic tariffs
Affordability and equity analysis to protect vulnerable users
Implementation roadmaps that reflect political and institutional realities
Tariff and revenue reform is no longer a narrow technical exercise; it’s a central pillar of urban sustainability.
Core Workstreams & Services
Effective tariff and revenue frameworks are essential to maintaining high-quality urban services—whether in water supply, sewerage, solid waste management, energy services, district cooling, urban mobility, or the new generation of IoT-enabled municipal systems. As cities grow and infrastructure demands intensify, utilities must operate within models that are financially sustainable, socially fair, and capable of supporting long-term investment.
ACS SYNERGY supports governments, regulators, utilities, and municipal agencies in designing tariff systems and revenue strategies that balance service affordability with the realities of rising costs, climate resilience requirements, and expanding service expectations. Our work combines rigorous cost analysis, forward-looking financial modeling, policy insight, and a deep understanding of utility operations and urban governance.
The following service areas illustrate the breadth of our tariff and revenue reform capabilities across traditional and emerging urban utilities.
Water Supply Tariff Reform
Protecting affordability while ensuring long-term financial sustainability.
We support water utilities and regulators in designing tariff structures that:
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Reflect production, transmission, and distribution costs
Incorporate NRW (non-revenue water) reduction pathways
Use progressive block tariffs and lifeline allowances
Model impacts on vulnerable households
Support capital investment programs
Align with climate-resilient water management strategies
Our financial models help utilities understand the real cost of delivering safe, reliable water.
Sewerage / Wastewater Tariff Reform
Modernizing pricing structures for essential sanitation services.
Sewerage and wastewater services often operate under outdated or symbolic tariffs that fail to cover even basic operating costs. ACS supports:
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Full cost-of-service modeling across collection, treatment, and disposal
Tariff frameworks for households, commercial users, and industries
Integration of environmental compliance costs (treatment standards, sludge management)
Long-term O&M and asset renewal cost planning
Design of volumetric, fixed, or hybrid tariff structures
Affordability and equity impact assessments
This ensures sewerage utilities can maintain public health standards and expand to underserved areas.
Solid Waste Tariff Reform
Designing financially viable and socially acceptable SWM pricing systems.
Solid waste is one of the most underpriced municipal services — yet one of the most complex and costly to operate. We support:
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Cost modeling across the entire SWM value chain
PAYT (“pay-as-you-throw”) and volume-based tariff options
Fee structures for households, commercial establishments, and special waste
Integration of recycling, composting, and waste-to-energy economics
Cross-subsidy analysis and targeted support programs
Long-term sustainability and revenue sufficiency modeling
This helps cities and utilities build credible, investment-ready capital programs instead of isolated projects.
Energy, District Cooling & Urban Utility Tariff Frameworks
Creating pricing systems for modern urban utilities and green infrastructure.
As GCC and South Asian cities expand their energy and cooling systems — often through PPPs and smart-city programs — tariff frameworks must evolve. We help design:
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Tariffs for district cooling networks (capacity, consumption, connection charges)
Energy service tariffs (distributed energy, public lighting, grid-interactive buildings)
EV charging pricing models (time-of-use, peak/off-peak, smart charging)
Demand-side management incentive structures
Environmental or carbon-linked tariff components
These frameworks balance cost recovery, energy efficiency, and consumer fairness.
Urban Mobility & Transport Pricing
Enabling sustainable and financially viable mobility solutions.
Cities increasingly rely on mobility pricing to fund services and manage congestion. We support:
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Fare structures for buses, BRT, metro, and integrated transport
Parking tariff frameworks (on-street, off-street smart parking)
Congestion charging or low-emission zone fees
Value capture mechanisms around transit investments
Integrating transport subsidies with affordability targets
These models help municipalities shift from subsidy-heavy systems to sustainable mobility ecosystems.
Tariffs for Emerging IoT-Enabled Urban Services
Pricing the next generation of city services.
New municipal services often lack established tariff models. Using our cost-to-serve and revenue modeling capabilities, we design pricing mechanisms for:
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Smart waste systems (sensor-enabled, route-optimized collection)
IoT-based water metering and consumption platforms
Smart public lighting (adaptive, pay-per-use models)
Building energy management services
Digital urban services (e.g., data-as-a-service, digital permitting platforms)
These models help cities scale innovations sustainably rather than through one-off pilots.
Cost-to-Serve Modeling
Understanding the true economics of delivering public services.
Cost-to-serve modeling is the analytical backbone of any tariff, pricing, or revenue-policy decision. Without a clear understanding of the total economic cost of delivering a service—from operations to long-term capital renewal—governments risk setting prices that are misaligned with fiscal reality, environmental targets, or service-quality expectations.
ACS SYNERGY develops robust, transparent, and decision-ready cost-to-serve models that help utilities and public agencies understand exactly what it costs to deliver water, wastewater, solid waste, transport, district cooling, energy, and emerging municipal services.
Our cost-to-serve models typically include:
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Full OPEX and CAPEX analysis, including asset depreciation, energy, chemicals, labor, maintenance, and technology
Lifecycle costing to capture long-term asset renewal and capital-replacement needs
Cost allocations across user groups, service tiers, geographic zones, or asset categories
Service-level impact analysis, showing how quality or coverage changes affect total costs
Scenario modeling for efficiency gains, service expansion, climate resilience measures, and PPP operator models
Integration with FMIS or financial planning systems, ensuring institutional ownership and implementation feasibility
Our goal is to give policymakers a clear view of cost structures so tariffs, subsidies, and investment plans are grounded in reality—not assumptions.
Strengthening Utility Revenue Systems
Improving the financial performance of tariffed services.
Many utilities struggle with revenue leakages and inefficiencies that undermine financial sustainability—even when tariff structures are adequate. Strengthening the revenue cycle is therefore essential to sustaining operations, improving service quality, and reducing dependency on government transfers. Typical challenges include:
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Weak billing and collection processes
Unregistered or inaccurately classified users
Non-metered or illegal consumption
Fragmented or obsolete billing systems
Low compliance and enforcement
Underutilized non-tariff revenue opportunities
ACS SYNERGY designs and supports utility-focused revenue enhancement initiatives that may include:
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Billing and collection modernization
Digital payment systems and customer interfaces
Revenue-protection programs
Metering and consumption-verification strategies
Customer reclassification and registry cleanup
Integration of billing systems with FMIS/ERP platforms
Targeted enforcement and compliance programs
Development of new utility-side revenue instruments
These improvements help utilities secure the revenue needed to invest in service expansion, resilience, and long-term performance.
Linking Tariffs and Revenues to Sustainability
Our work is explicitly framed around the broader sustainability agenda:
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Financial sustainability
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Ensuring utilities and services can maintain and improve operations without chronic fiscal distress.
Environmental sustainability
Supporting tariffs that encourage efficient use of water, energy, and materials, including incentives for waste reduction and recycling.
Social sustainability
Designing structures that protect low-income and vulnerable users, with clear, transparent subsidy policies.
Institutional sustainability
Building decision-making tools and processes that help utilities and city governments periodically review, adjust, and communicate tariffs and revenue policies.
Revenue Reform in the Public Sector
​Drawing on ACS SYNERGY’s PFM, modeling, and governance capabilities, we help governments build modern revenue systems that improve fiscal resilience, expand fiscal space, and reduce dependence on ad-hoc transfers and emergency funding.
Revenue reform goes far beyond utilities and tariffs. Cities, municipalities, and sector agencies often rely on fragmented, outdated, or unpredictable revenue streams that cannot support modern service expectations or long-term investment.
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With growing populations, climate pressures, urban infrastructure needs, and fiscal constraints, public-sector institutions must rethink how revenue is generated, diversified, administered, and managed.
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Who We Work With
National and local water and wastewater utilities
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Solid waste and sanitation agencies
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Municipal finance and revenue departments
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Energy, district cooling, and urban services providers
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PPP units and regulators involved in infrastructure pricing
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Donor-funded programs focusing on urban services and municipal finance
Why ACS SYNERGY
Integrated view of tariffs, revenue, and sustainability — not just pricing in isolation
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Deep experience in utilities and municipal services, including water, wastewater, and solid waste
Strong modeling capability for cost-to-serve, tariffs, and long-term revenue planning
Understanding of emerging urban and IoT-based services, and how they fit into municipal finance
Ability to bridge technical analysis and policy dialogue, including support for communication and stakeholder engagement
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Delivery & Technology Enablement Center backing up our senior experts with robust analytics and documentation
