In the Netherlands, the competition between transport operators takes place in the second market, in which the authorities tender their concessions. When the Passenger Transport Act 2000 was discussed in the Dutch Parliament, one of the concerns was that a few large operating companies might get monopolistic power in this new market. Some articles in the draft Act limited the market share of individual operating companies to an (as yet) unspecified share of the relevant market. In the end, the Parliament ruled that these articles would not come into force immediately, but that the Minister of Transport could decide this at a later stage, based on an evaluation. This considered: the results of the first tenders; the way the market started to develop in response to the Passenger Transport Act 2000; and the possible effects of the market power articles compared with the generic rules that already exist in the Dutch Economic Competition Act. Changes in ownership of a number of operating companies in recent years, the position of the large state-owned bus operator Connexxion (which also operates a light rail transit line and a regional railway line), the position of the two internationally operating companies Arriva and Connex/Vivendi that have become important players in the Dutch market, the role of the smaller operators, possible future developments when the former municipal operators in the largest Dutch cities will no longer be confined to their current territories, the way the territorial authorities are dealing with these developments, and the peculiar role of the National Fare System are described. The Passenger Transport Act 2000 required the territorial authorities outside the large cities to have tendered 35% of their public transport services by the beginning of 2003. This has not been achieved and the Ministry of Transport is monitoring further developments. The study on competition and market power identified a number of market distortions, relating to the cost of entering and leaving the market, to the unequal access to market information, to the economies of scale, and to some differences between public and private companies. The scan of the experience in other countries, which have competition in public transport, showed that there are very few cases of sector specific regulation of competition, almost all countries relying on generic anti-trust regulation. At the same time, a tendency towards concentration in the public transport industry is visible in most countries, despite an absence of clear economies of scale and in most cases a limited profitability. It is noteworthy that the draft regulation as proposed by the European Commission does contain specific articles against market dominance (which are facultative). The conclusion of the study was that the specific competition articles in the Passenger Transport Act 2000 would solve some of the market distortions, but would also have some disadvantages. e.g., excluding certain companies from tendering would lead in the short run to a reduction of the number of competitors in each of the tendering processes and not to more competition. For the covering abstract see ITRD E126595.
Abstract