Provision of Public Transport under Conflicting Regulatory Regimes

In this paper we develop a simple model of regulatory competition in a multi-agency world. This argues that regulatory competition and potential conflicts arise in a similar way to tax competition between jurisdictions. This is then applied to contrasting situations drawn from metropolitan transport and cross-border rail services in Europe. The analysis demonstrates how regulatory conflicts can lead to inefficiencies which impact not just on the provision of transport services, but also on the potential wider benefits from transport, most notably labour market efficiency and productivity growth.