DEREGULATING THE BUS INDUSTRY

In its Buses White Paper, the British government sets out its proposals for abandoning quantitative control of entry to and provision of local bus services. The logic on which the proposals are based can be reduced to four propositions: (1) deregulation will produce a competitive market; (2) competition will substantially reduce costs; (3) a competitive market will improve resource allocation; (4) a competitive market will not cause any significant undesirable spin-off effects. Each of these propositions is examined in turn and is found to be suspect. It is argued that rivalry involving schedule matching and price wars, and collusion will not produce efficient results; that even if competition is present, the resulting resource allocation would not be socially efficient; that a competitive market solution will not optimise load factors; that quality competition, in the form of minibuses, may also be socially undesirable; that the white paper authors underplay the significance of these resource allocation arguments, while exaggerating the likely impact of deregulation on cost efficiency. Even though some cost savings may be available they could be obtained anyway under a regime of competitive tendering for profitable as well as unprofitable routes. (TRRL)

• Corporate Authors:

  University of Leeds

  Institute for Transport Studies
  Leeds, West Yorkshire  United Kingdom  LS2 9JT
• Authors:
  • Gwilliam, K M
  • NASH, C A
  • Mackie, P J
• Publication Date: 1984-10

Media Info

• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 44 p.

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Budgeting; Bus transit; Buses; Competition; Cost effectiveness; Costs; Deregulation; Economic efficiency; Financing; Jitneys; Legislation; Level of service; Minibuses; Operating costs; Physical distribution; Productivity; Public transit; Sociology
• Uncontrolled Terms: Efficiency
• Geographic Terms: United Kingdom
• Old TRIS Terms: Bus services
• ITRD Terms: 257: Budget; 1272: Bus; 235: Competition; 224: Cost; 9016: Distribution (gen); 5911: Efficiency; 244: Financing; 1556: Legislation; 653: Level of service; 744: Public transport; 2253: Sociology; 8119: United Kingdom
• Subject Areas: Economics; Finance; Freight Transportation; Law; Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00394360
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: Transport Research Laboratory
• Report/Paper Numbers: Working Paper 179
• Files: ITRD, TRIS, ATRI
• Created Date: May 31 1985 12:00AM