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Assessing the Cost Impact of Competitive Tendering in Rail Infrastructure Maintenance Services: Evidence from the Swedish Reforms (1999 to 2011)

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This is the first paper in the literature to formally study the cost impact of competitive tendering in rail maintenance. Sweden progressively opened up the market for rail maintenance services, starting in 2002. We study the cost impacts based on an unbalanced panel of thirty-nine contract areas between 1999 and 2011, using econometric techniques. We conclude that competitive tendering reduced costs by around 11 per cent. Importantly, this cost reduction was not associated with falling quality; quite the reverse. We thus conclude that the gradual exposure of rail maintenance to competitive tendering in Sweden has been a success.

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  • Odolinski, Kristofer & Smith, Andrew S.J., 2014. "Assessing the Cost Impact of Competitive Tendering in Rail Infrastructure Maintenance Services: Evidence from the Swedish Reforms (1999 to 2011)," Working papers in Transport Economics 2014:17, CTS - Centre for Transport Studies Stockholm (KTH and VTI), revised 22 May 2015.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:ctswps:2014_017
    Note: Published in Journal of Transport Economics and Policy (JTEP), Volume 50, Number 1, January 2016, pp. 93-112.
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    Cited by:

    1. Jan Stráský, 2016. "Priorities for completing the European Union's Single Market," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1315, OECD Publishing.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Railway; Infrastructure; Maintenance; Tendering; Contract; Cost;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H54 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Infrastructures
    • L92 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Railroads and Other Surface Transportation

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