The deregulation and privatisation of public transport in Britain: twenty years on

This report is a transcript of a lecture given by Dr John Preston on the deregulation and privatisation of public transport in Britain. The lecture looks firstly at the timetable of reforms in the British bus industry since 1980. It then examines the main trends in the local bus and national rail markets before highlighting the problem of the counterfactual-what would have happened if these reforms had not occurred. Dr Preston then reports on an aggregate macro-analysis of the bus market and a more micro route-based analysis. A significant conclusion was that on-the-road bus competition can lead to too much service at too high fares with too low quality of service. Micro-analyses were also provided of on-the-track competition and off-the-track competition, with the evidence suggesting the latter was preferable to the former for passenger rail services. This, and other issues raised by Dr Preston, were subsequently the subject of a lively debate among the audience.