Title: A MODEL OF CURB RIGHTS IN PRIVATE URBAN TRANSIT MARKETS
Abstract: Urban transit service has been privatized in a number of countries over the last two decades. Local bus service was deregulated in Britain in 1986, and the impacts have been widely studied. Partial transit deregulation has been implemented in the Nordic countries and privatization is widespread in Latin America and developing countries elsewhere in the world. Arguments have been made for deregulation in the United States and limited experiments with deregulation have been conducted in a few areas. Deregulation has had a number of positive impacts in transit operations, including reductions in operating costs, innovations such as the use of minibuses, and expansion of service measured in route-miles. But several problems have also emerged. Firms head-run or jockey for riders by attempting to run their buses just in front of rivals' buses. Jitneys and other informal service providers predate on scheduled service by picking up riders at bus stops just before the scheduled bus arrives. And in attempts to forestall entry, incumbent firms have added buses to their routes and allegedly engaged in other preemptive or predatory behavior. The objective of this paper is to lay some groundwork for a location-theoretic analysis of curb rights. Consistent with KMR's vision, the ultimate objective is to assess the merits of a system of curb rights in transit markets that are otherwise unregulated. Thus, while fare regulation has often continued in transit markets where limited deregulation and privatization have taken place (Britain being a notable exception), it is assumed that firms compete in fares. It is also assumed that free-entry conditions prevail, despite some evidence that transit markets are not perfectly contestable.
Publication Year: 2001
Publication Date: 2001-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 1
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