Javier Asensio, Marco Batarce, Anna Matas
Abstract
Spain operates a ‘competition for the market’ system to award regulated monopoly rights for the provision of intercity bus services. We assess the impact of changes in the tendering system since 2007 on outcomes such as participation, bidded prices and frequencies, as well as prices and frequencies offered to consumers. Our results show that the design of the tender terms can significantly affect the conditions under which intercity bus services are operated. In particular, a ten percentage point increase in the weight given to price in the score function results in a fare decrease of 1.03 € cent per kilometre.
