Contestability in bus markets - evidence from the British deregulated market

Jonathan Nelson Malcolm Cowie ()
Additional contact information
Jonathan Nelson Malcolm Cowie: School of Engineering and the Built Environment - Edinburgh Napier University

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: Following the 1985 Transport Act in Great Britain, reforms in the provision of bus services continue across Europe and other parts of the world to this day. The British experience however remains a key point of study in informing these continuing developments. This paper looks at the issue of contestability in bus markets, and tests for the existence of the contestable market in Britain through an examination of fare levels, profit margins and technical efficiencies in 90 identifiable bus markets. The main conclusion is that there is evidence of the contestable market in Britain, however it can hardly be described as widespread, only found to be present in 15 of the 90 markets identified in the sample. The real issue however, particularly with regard to continuing reforms elsewhere in Europe, is the ability of regulatory authorities to maintain competitive and contestable (free) markets and the research suggests that in the face of market forces this is simply not possible. The only conclusion therefore is that contestability in the free market is not sustainable, and thus can only be introduced directly through franchising.

Keywords: Social; Sciences; &; Humanities (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-09-08
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-00730232
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published in Applied Economics, 2011, 44 (36), pp.4777-4785. ⟨10.1080/00036846.2011.564146⟩

Downloads: (external link)
https://hal.science/hal-00730232/document (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-00730232

DOI: 10.1080/00036846.2011.564146

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().