The Norwegian domestic ferry sector is part of the national road system and is run by private companies as agents. The services receive subsidies from the road authorities, determined through annual negotiations between the companies and the authorities. The authorities have looked for ways to reduce the level of subsidies and have been evaluating competitive tendering as an alternative regulatory mechanism. Six ferry services have been subjected to competitive tendering in a trial period. The experiences from the first years of tendering were analysed by Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and OLS regression analysis. The results suggested that tendering had no significant effect on technical efficiency. There was a potential of 16-18% improvement in technical efficiency of an average ferry service as compared with best practice. The Norwegian Parliament has decided that all domestic road ferry services should be subjected to tendering within a 7-10 year period. The implications for vessel ownership and possible collusionsin repeated tendering are considered. For the covering entry of this conference please see ITRD E132365
Samenvatting