Competition and Regulation in the Provision of Local Transportation Services

20 June 2022 Paris

Efficient urban transport services play a crucial role in ensuring quality of life and meeting climate change and environmental goals. However, many countries face challenges in the provision of sustainable and efficient public transport services. Recent technological developments have brought new opportunities for competition and innovation, introducing new transport services into the market that could either complement or compete against traditional public transport.

In June 2022, the OECD held a roundtable that explored:

aspects of governance and institutional framework, and the role of public and private operators in the definition of urban transport services;
room for competition in the market and the impact of new technologies, such as Mobility as a Service, taking into account the possibilities for substitution and complementarity;
challenges arising from competitive tendering. Delegates will discuss the factors that affect the intensity of competition at the tender stage and the mechanisms that jurisdictions have developed to reduce barriers to entry and ensure bidders’ wide participation.

Some key findings from the discussion include:

As launching tendering is not sufficient to ensure competition, responsible authorities need to pay particular attention to barriers to entry arising from asset ownership, duration of concessions, definition of the size of the lots and timing of the tenders.
Mobility as a Service (MaaS) platforms have the potential to change the provision of urban public transport, but they are still at a nascent stage and anticompetitive practices (e.g., refusal to supply data or access to the services of the public transport incumbent) may affect such new business models.

All related documentation can be found on this page.

See the full list of OECD best practice roundtables on competition

Invited Speakers

Graham Currie Bio
Professor, Monash University