IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-00684161.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The industrial organization of competition in local bus services

Author

Listed:
  • Philippe Gagnepain

    (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement)

  • Marc Ivaldi

    (TSE-R - Toulouse School of Economics - UT Capitole - Université Toulouse Capitole - UT - Université de Toulouse - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • Catherine Vibes

    (TSE-R - Toulouse School of Economics - UT Capitole - Université Toulouse Capitole - UT - Université de Toulouse - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

Abstract

This article is aimed at deepening our understanding of the functioning of competition in the local bus transportation industry and to evaluate its effectiveness. It provides an overview of the competitive constraints that are at work in the industry as discussed in the economic literature, and sketches empirical tests to check whether the intuitions provided by the economists are in line with the reality of the industry.

Suggested Citation

  • Philippe Gagnepain & Marc Ivaldi & Catherine Vibes, 2011. "The industrial organization of competition in local bus services," Post-Print hal-00684161, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-00684161
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-00684161
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hal.science/hal-00684161/document
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. André de Palma & Robin Lindsey & Emile Quinet & Roger Vickerman (ed.), 2011. "A Handbook of Transport Economics," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 12679.
    2. Philippe Gagnepain & Marc Ivaldi, 2002. "Stochastic Frontiers and Asymmetric Information Models," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 145-159, September.
    3. Kaushik Deb & Massimo Filippini, 2013. "Public Bus Transport Demand Elasticities in India," Journal of Transport Economics and Policy, University of Bath, vol. 47(3), pages 419-436, September.
    4. Ellis, Christopher J. & Silva, Emilson C. D., 1998. "British Bus Deregulation: Competition and Demand Coordination," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 336-361, May.
    5. repec:adr:anecst:y:1999:i:54:p:06 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Evans, A., 1990. "Competition And The Structure Of Local Bus Market," Papers 90-17, Flinders of South Australia - Discipline of Economics.
    7. 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.
    8. Bresson, Georges & Dargay, Joyce & Madre, Jean-Loup & Pirotte, Alain, 2003. "The main determinants of the demand for public transport: a comparative analysis of England and France using shrinkage estimators," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 37(7), pages 605-627, August.
    9. 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.
    10. Salas, Osvaldo, 1998. "Technical Efficiency During Deregulation of the Urban Bus System in Sweden," Working Papers in Economics 4, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    11. Zhou, Jing & Lam, William H.K. & Heydecker, Benjamin G., 2005. "The generalized Nash equilibrium model for oligopolistic transit market with elastic demand," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 39(6), pages 519-544, July.
    12. André de Palma & Robin Lindsey & Emile Quinet & Robert Vickerman, 2011. "Handbook Of Transport Economics," PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) halshs-00754912, HAL.
    13. Fried, Harold O. & Lovell, C. A. Knox & Schmidt, Shelton S. (ed.), 1993. "The Measurement of Productive Efficiency: Techniques and Applications," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195072181.
    14. 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.
    15. Mehdi Farsi & Massimo Filippini & Michael Kuenzle, 2006. "Cost Efficiency in Regional Bus Companies: An Application of Alternative Stochastic Frontier Models," Journal of Transport Economics and Policy, University of Bath, vol. 40(1), pages 95-118, January.
    16. Jonathan Cowie, 2002. "Acquisition, efficiency and scale economies: An analysis of the British bus industry," Transport Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(2), pages 147-157, January.
    17. Martijn Brons & Peter Nijkamp & Eric Pels & Piet Rietveld, 2005. "Efficiency of urban public transit: A meta analysis," Transportation, Springer, vol. 32(1), pages 1-21, January.
    18. Taplin, John H.E. & Hensher, David A. & Smith, Brett, 1999. "Preserving the symmetry of estimated commuter travel elasticities," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 215-232, April.
    19. Peran van Reeven & Maarten C. W. Janssen, 2006. "Stable Service Patterns in Scheduled Transport Competition," Journal of Transport Economics and Policy, University of Bath, vol. 40(1), pages 135-160, January.
    20. Kristiaan Kerstens, 1999. "Decomposing Technical Efficiency and Effectiveness of French Urban Transport," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 54, pages 129-155.
    21. Langridge, R. & Sealey, R., 2000. "Contestability in the UK bus industry? The National Bus Company, and the "Tilling Mark II" effect," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 105-115, April.
    22. Cerasi, Vittoria & Chizzolini, Barbara & Ivaldi, Marc, 2009. "The Impact of Mergers on the Degree of Competition in the Banking Industry," TSE Working Papers 09-113, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), revised 07 Jun 2012.
    23. B. de Borger & K. Kerstens, 2006. "The performance of bus-transit operators," Post-Print hal-00185456, HAL.
    24. Jan Peter Van Der Veer, 2002. "Entry deterrence and quality provision in the local bus market," Transport Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(3), pages 247-265, January.
    25. Peter Romilly, 2001. "Subsidy and Local Bus Service Deregulation in Britain: A Re-evaluation," Journal of Transport Economics and Policy, University of Bath, vol. 35(2), pages 161-193, May.
    26. Joyce M. Dargay & Mark Hanly, 2002. "The Demand for Local Bus Services in England," Journal of Transport Economics and Policy, University of Bath, vol. 36(1), pages 73-91, January.
    27. Wang, Judith Y.T. & Yang, Hai, 2005. "A game-theoretic analysis of competition in a deregulated bus market," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(4), pages 329-355, July.
    28. Kerstens, K., 1996. "Technical efficiency measurement and explanation of French urban transit companies," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 431-452, November.
    29. 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.
    30. Andrés Gómez-Lobo, 2007. "Why Competition Does Not Work in Urban Bus Markets: Some New Wheels for Some Old Ideas," Journal of Transport Economics and Policy, University of Bath, vol. 41(2), pages 283-308, May.
    31. Yang, Hai & Yan Kong, Hoi & Meng, Qiang, 2001. "Value-of-time distributions and competitive bus services," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(6), pages 411-424, December.
    32. Dodgson, J. S. & Newton, C. R. & Katsoulacos, Y., 1992. "A modelling framework for the empirical analysis of predatory behaviour in the bus services industry," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 51-70, March.
    33. Jonathan Cowie & Darinka Asenova, 1999. "Organisation form, scale effects and efficiency in the British bus industry," Transportation, Springer, vol. 26(3), pages 231-248, August.
    34. Judy Shaw-Er & Wang Chiang & Ya-Wen Chen, 2005. "Cost structure and technological change of local public transport: the Kaohsiung City Bus case," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(12), pages 1399-1410.
    35. Evans, A., 1991. "Are Urban Bus Services Natural Monopolies?," Papers 90-19, Flinders of South Australia - Discipline of Economics.
    36. Viton, Philip A., 1997. "Technical efficiency in multi-mode bus transit: A production frontier analysis," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 23-39, February.
    37. 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.
    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. Beestermöller, Matthias, 2017. "Striking Evidence? Demand Persistence for Inter-City Buses from German Railway Strikes," Discussion Papers in Economics 31768, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    2. De Borger, Bruno & Proost, Stef, 2015. "The political economy of public transport pricing and supply decisions," Economics of Transportation, Elsevier, vol. 4(1), pages 95-109.
    3. Hörcher, Daniel & Tirachini, Alejandro, 2021. "A review of public transport economics," Economics of Transportation, Elsevier, vol. 25(C).
    4. Abrate, Graziano & Erbetta, Fabrizio & Fraquelli, Giovanni & Vannoni, Davide, 2016. "Bet big on doubles, bet smaller on triples. Exploring scope economies in multi-service passenger transport companies," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 81-88.
    5. Laurent Cavaignac & Romain Petiot, 2016. "A Quarter Century of Data Envelopment Analysis Applied to the Transport Sector: A Bibliometric Analysis," Post-Print hal-02395215, HAL.
    6. Matthias Beestermöller & Levke Jessen-Thiesen & Alexander Sandkamp & Alexander-Nikolai Sandkamp, 2023. "Striking Evidence: The Impact of Railway Strikes on Competition from Intercity Bus Services in Germany," CESifo Working Paper Series 10483, CESifo.
    7. Batarce, Marco, 2016. "Estimation of urban bus transit marginal cost without cost data," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 241-262.
    8. Cavaignac, Laurent & Petiot, Romain, 2017. "A quarter century of Data Envelopment Analysis applied to the transport sector: A bibliometric analysis," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 84-96.
    9. Graziano Abrate & Fabrizio Erbetta & Giovanni Fraquelli & Davide Vannoni, 2014. "Cost function estimation of multi-service firms. Evidence from the passenger transport industry," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 380, Collegio Carlo Alberto.
    10. McHardy, Jolian & Reynolds, Michael & Trotter, Stephen, 2023. "A consumer surplus, welfare and profit enhancing strategy for improving urban public transport networks," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).

    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. 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".
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. Pestana Barros, Carlos & Peypoch, Nicolas, 2010. "Productivity changes in Portuguese bus companies," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 17(5), pages 295-302, September.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. de Borger, Bruno & Kerstens, Kristiaan & Staat, Matthias, 2008. "Transit costs and cost efficiency: Bootstrapping non-parametric frontiers," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 53-64, January.
    8. Karlaftis, Matthew G. & Tsamboulas, Dimitrios, 2012. "Efficiency measurement in public transport: Are findings specification sensitive?," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 392-402.
    9. 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.
    10. De Borger, Bruno & Proost, Stef, 2015. "The political economy of public transport pricing and supply decisions," Economics of Transportation, Elsevier, vol. 4(1), pages 95-109.
    11. 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.
    12. 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.
    13. Batarce, Marco, 2016. "Estimation of urban bus transit marginal cost without cost data," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 241-262.
    14. 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.
    15. Christian von Hirschhausen & Astrid Cullmann, 2008. "Next Stop: Restructuring?: A Nonparametric Efficiency Analysis of German Public Transport Companies," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 831, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    16. 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.
    17. Zhang, Chunqin & Juan, Zhicai & Luo, Qingyu & Xiao, Guangnian, 2016. "Performance evaluation of public transit systems using a combined evaluation method," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 156-167.
    18. Obeng, K. & Sakano, R. & Naanwaab, C., 2016. "Understanding overall output efficiency in public transit systems: The roles of input regulations, perceived budget and input subsidies," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 133-150.
    19. 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.
    20. 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.

    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:hal:journl:hal-00684161. 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: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.