This presentation by Gaetano Lapenta, OECD Competition Division was made during the discussion “Competition and Regulation in the Provision of Local Transportation Services” held for competition authorities officials on 20 June 2022. More materials on the topic can be found at http://oe.cd/crplts. This presentation was uploaded with the author’s consent.

1. Competition and regulation
in the provision of local
transportation services
Gaetano Lapenta
OECD Competition Division
Gaetano.lapenta@oecd.org
Working Party No. 2
20 June 2022

2. 1 2
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Opportunities for competition in-
the-market and antitrust risks
Institutional set-up and
new models to leverage
private expertise
Competition for-the-market
and barriers to entry
Governance MaaS and new
technologies
Competitive
tendering
Ov e rv ie w

3. Le v e ra gin g p riv a te e x p e rtis e to c om p le m e n t
p u blic re s ou rc e s
• Weak public authority’s expertise and control + excessive
discretionary powers  less intensive competition in public
transport, with higher prices and lower quality
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• Levels of planning
and control in
public transport
• Public-private co-operative partnerships to leverage private
experience and involve market players at different levels of
decision-making

4. An titru s t ris ks of c o-op e ra tiv e m od e ls
• E.g., quality partnerships and public-private co-operation in
UK and Norway are example of hybrid institutional models
• Potential antitrust risks
– Barriers to entry. E.g., limiting competitors’ ability to provide new
services, setting too high entry requirements
– Geographic segregation
– Sharing commercially sensitive information, e.g. when defining
multi-operator ticketing schemes
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5. Ma a S te ch n olog ie s w id e n s s c op e of
c om p e tition in -th e -m a rk e t
• Competition for-the-market is the most widespread model for several
reasons
• New technologies and Mobility as a Service (MaaS) may partially
erode such reasons and widen the scope of competition in-the-market
– Blurred boundaries between private and public modes
– Enabling provision of on-demand services rather than regular scheduled
services
– Facilitating monitoring and evaluation of public transport services (e.g.,
customer rating systems)
– Combining different mobility services boosts multimodal transport and
intermodal competition
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6. Mod e ls for Ma a S a n d c om p e tition ris ks
• Different models for the provision of MaaS, depending on level of
public involvement
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• Competition risks
– Access and sharing of public transport operator’s data (static, dynamic, historical)
in machine-readable and interoperable form
– Access to public transport operators’ services (possibly at discounted rate) as the
backbone of urban transport (risk of vertical foreclosure in JV between Dutch
Railways NS and Pon)
– Vertically integrated operator’s self-preferencing or exclusivity obligations upon
mobility service providers  foreclosure of competing MaaS platforms

7. Com p e titiv e te n d e rin g a n d ba rrie rs to
e n try
• Different sources of barriers to entry for new
bidders
– Asset ownership (vehicles, depots, maintenance
equipment, drivers), especially when non-fungible or
in the absence of well-functioning secondary market
• Different models with public or private ownership
– Size of the lots, balancing economies of scale and
bidders’ participation
– Timing of tenders (staggered vs synchronous)
– Duration of concessions, including possible
extensions 7