IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/reggov/v6y2012i1p83-100.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Governance and regulation of urban bus transportation: Using partial privatization to achieve the better of two worlds

Author

Listed:
  • Daniel Albalate
  • Germà Bel
  • Joan Calzada

Abstract

Mixed delivery of public services is gaining increasing attention as a way for public managers to avoid deciding between a purely public and purely private delivery system. The unusual coexistence of public and private operators in the urban bus market in Barcelona provides an interesting context in which to analyze the challenges and opportunities posed by this system. Competition for concessions among private operators and the regulation of concessionaires generate incentives to improve efficiency and quality. Furthermore, partial privatization increases the efficiency and feasibility of public operators. In fact, competitive bidding is effective in disciplining private operators and increasing the regulators' bargaining power over both public and private firms. The reform implemented in Barcelona offers an interesting insight into all metropolitan areas that are in a position to create a number of separate concessions large enough to benefit from economies of density.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel Albalate & Germà Bel & Joan Calzada, 2012. "Governance and regulation of urban bus transportation: Using partial privatization to achieve the better of two worlds," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 6(1), pages 83-100, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:reggov:v:6:y:2012:i:1:p:83-100
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1748-5991.2011.01120.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1748-5991.2011.01120.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1748-5991.2011.01120.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Baumol, William J, 1982. "Contestable Markets: An Uprising in the Theory of Industry Structure," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(1), pages 1-15, March.
    2. Dag Dalen & Andres Gómez-Lobo, 2003. "Yardsticks on the road: Regulatory contracts and cost efficiency in the Norwegian bus industry," Transportation, Springer, vol. 30(4), pages 371-386, November.
    3. Amaral, Miguel & Saussier, Stéphane & Yvrande-Billon, Anne, 2009. "Auction procedures and competition in public services: The case of urban public transport in France and London," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 166-175, June.
    4. Boitani, Andrea & Cambini, Carlo, 2006. "To bid or not to bid, this is the question: the Italian experience in competitive tendering for local bus services," European Transport \ Trasporti Europei, ISTIEE, Institute for the Study of Transport within the European Economic Integration, issue 33, pages 41-53.
    5. Steven Tadelis, 2009. "Auctions Versus Negotiations in Procurement: An Empirical Analysis," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 25(2), pages 372-399, October.
    6. Bel Germà & Fageda Xavier & E. Mildred, 2014. "Is private production of public services cheaper than public production? A meta-regression analysis of solid waste and water services," Public administration issues, Higher School of Economics, issue 3, pages 103-140.
    7. William Roy & Anne Yvrande-Billon, 2007. "Ownership, Contractual Practices and Technical Efficiency: The Case of Urban Public Transport in France," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-00107375, HAL.
    8. Massimo Filippini & Paola Prioni, 2003. "The influence of ownership on the cost of bus service provision in Switzerland - an empirical illustration," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(6), pages 683-690.
    9. Mehdi Farsi & Aurelio Fetz & Massimo Filippini, 2007. "Economies of Scale and Scope in Local Public Transportation," Journal of Transport Economics and Policy, University of Bath, vol. 41(3), pages 345-361, September.
    10. William Roy & Anne Yvrande-Billon, 2007. "Ownership, Contractual Practices and Technical Efficiency: The Case of Urban Public Transport in France," Journal of Transport Economics and Policy, University of Bath, vol. 41(2), pages 257-282, May.
    11. Mark Armstrong & David E.M. Sappington, 2006. "Regulation, Competition and Liberalization," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 44(2), pages 325-366, June.
    12. Lee, R. W. & Rivasplata, C. R., 2001. "Metropolitan transportation planning in the 1990s: comparisons and contrasts in New Zealand, Chile and California," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 47-61, January.
    13. Oliver Hart & Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 1997. "The Proper Scope of Government: Theory and an Application to Prisons," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1127-1161.
    14. Savage, Ian, 1993. "Deregulation and Privatization of Britain's Local Bus Industry," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 5(2), pages 143-158, June.
    15. David A. Hensher & Ian P. Wallis, 2005. "Competitive Tendering as a Contracting Mechanism for Subsidising Transport: The Bus Experience," Journal of Transport Economics and Policy, University of Bath, vol. 39(3), pages 295-322, September.
    16. Lee, R.W. & Rivasplata, C.R., 2001. "Metropolitan Transportation Planning in the 1990s: Comparisons and Contrasts in New Zealand, Chile and California," Institute of Transportation Studies, Working Paper Series qt6sb5p14g, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Davis.
    17. Giovanni Fraquelli & Massimiliano Piacenza & Graziano Abrate, 2004. "Regulating Public Transit Networks: How do Urban‐Intercity Diversification and Speed‐up Measures Affect Firms’ Cost Performance?," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 75(2), pages 193-225, June.
    18. Mathisen, Terje Andreas & Solvoll, Gisle, 2008. "Competitive tendering and structural changes: An example from the bus industry," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 1-11, January.
    19. William Roy & Anne Yvrande-Billon, 2007. "Ownership, Contractual Practices and Technical Efficiency: The Case of Urban Public Transport in France," Post-Print halshs-00107375, HAL.
    20. Oliver E. Williamson, 1976. "Franchise Bidding for Natural Monopolies -- in General and with Respect to CATV," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 7(1), pages 73-104, Spring.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Germà Bel, 2013. "Local government size and efficiency in capital-intensive services: what evidence is there of economies of scale, density and scope?," Chapters, in: Santiago Lago-Peñas & Jorge Martinez-Vazquez (ed.), The Challenge of Local Government Size, chapter 6, pages 148-170, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. N.F. Cruz & R.C. Marques & A. Marra & C. Pozzi, 2014. "Local Mixed Companies: The Theory And Practice In An International Perspective," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 85(1), pages 1-9, March.
    3. Mildred E. Warner, 2013. "Does local government size matter? Privatization and hybrid systems of local service delivery," Chapters, in: Santiago Lago-Peñas & Jorge Martinez-Vazquez (ed.), The Challenge of Local Government Size, chapter 11, pages 263-288, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. Cristina M. Campos-Alba & Emilio J. De la Higuera-Molina & Gemma Pérez-López & José L. Zafra-Gómez, 2019. "Measuring the Efficiency of Public and Private Delivery Forms: An Application to the Waste Collection Service Using Order-M Data Panel Frontier Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(7), pages 1-15, April.
    5. Tomasz Jedynak & Krzysztof Wąsowicz, 2021. "The Relationship between Efficiency and Quality of Municipally Owned Corporations: Evidence from Local Public Transport and Waste Management in Poland," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(17), pages 1-30, August.
    6. Santiago Lago-Peñas & Jorge Martinez-Vazquez (ed.), 2013. "The Challenge of Local Government Size," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 15294.
    7. Germà Bel & Jordi Rosell, 2016. "Public and Private Production in a Mixed Delivery System: Regulation, Competition and Costs," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 35(3), pages 533-558, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Daniel Albalate & Germà Bel & Joan Calzada, 2010. "Urban transport governance reform in Barcelona," IREA Working Papers 201009, University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics, revised Jun 2010.
    2. Germà Bel & Jordi Rosell, 2016. "Public and Private Production in a Mixed Delivery System: Regulation, Competition and Costs," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 35(3), pages 533-558, June.
    3. Andrea Boitani & Marcella Nicolini & Carlo Scarpa, 2013. "Do competition and ownership matter? Evidence from local public transport in Europe," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(11), pages 1419-1434, April.
    4. Filippini, M. & Koller, M. & Masiero, G., 2015. "Competitive tendering versus performance-based negotiation in Swiss public transport," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 158-168.
    5. Rosell, Jordi, 2017. "Urban bus contractual regimes in small- and medium-sized municipalities: Competitive tendering or negotiation?," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 54-62.
    6. Augustin, Katrin & Walter, Matthias, 2010. "Operator changes through competitive tendering: Empirical evidence from German local bus transport," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 36-44.
    7. Avenali, Alessandro & Boitani, Andrea & Catalano, Giuseppe & D’Alfonso, Tiziana & Matteucci, Giorgio, 2018. "Assessing standard costs in local public bus transport: A hybrid cost model," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 48-57.
    8. Avenali, Alessandro & Boitani, Andrea & Catalano, Giuseppe & D’Alfonso, Tiziana & Matteucci, Giorgio, 2016. "Assessing standard costs in local public bus transport: Evidence from Italy," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 164-174.
    9. Francesco, Gastaldi & Lucia, Quaglino & Carlo, Stagnaro, 2012. "Il trasporto pubblico locale e la concorrenza. Cambiare paradigma per salvare il servizio: il caso ligure [Local Public Transportation and Competition. Changing Paradigm to Save the Service: The Ca," MPRA Paper 49464, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Cambini Carlo & Filippini Massimo & Piacenza Massimiliano & Vannoni Davide, 2011. "Corporatization and Firm Performance: Evidence from Publicly-Provided Local Utilities," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 7(1), pages 191-213, July.
    11. Wegelin, Philipp, 2018. "Is the mere threat enough? An empirical analysis about competitive tendering as a threat and cost efficiency in public bus transportation," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 245-253.
    12. Campos-Alba, Cristina M. & Prior, Diego & Pérez-López, Gemma & Zafra-Gómez, Jose L., 2020. "Long-term cost efficiency of alternative management forms for urban public transport from the public sector perspective," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 16-23.
    13. Amaral, Miguel, 2008. "Public vs private management of public utilities - The case of urban public transport in Europe," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 85-90, January.
    14. Bouf, Dominique & Faivre d’Arcier, Bruno, 2015. "The looming crisis in French public transit," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 34-41.
    15. Mouwen, Arnoud & van Ommeren, Jos, 2016. "The effect of contract renewal and competitive tendering on public transport costs, subsidies and ridership," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 78-89.
    16. Ida, Yoram & Talit, Gal, 2015. "Regulation of public bus services: The Israeli experience," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 156-165.
    17. Cinzia Daraio & Marco Diana & Flavia Di Costa & Claudio Leporelli & Giorgio Matteucci & Alberto Nastasi, 2014. "Efficiency and effectiveness in the urban public transport sector: a critical review with directions for future research," DIAG Technical Reports 2014-14, Department of Computer, Control and Management Engineering, Universita' degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza".
    18. Zhang, Chunqin & Xiao, Guangnian & Liu, Yong & Yu, Feng, 2018. "The relationship between organizational forms and the comprehensive effectiveness for public transport services in China?," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 783-802.
    19. Guillermo Díaz & Vincent Charles, 2016. "Regulatory design and technical efficiency: public transport in France," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 50(3), pages 328-350, December.
    20. Avenali, Alessandro & Catalano, Giuseppe & D'Alfonso, Tiziana & Matteucci, Giorgio, 2020. "The allocation of national public resources in the Italian local public bus transport sector," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:reggov:v:6:y:2012:i:1:p:83-100. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1748-5991 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.