The regimes of regulation of the bus industries of ten Western European countries are reviewed. The countries are Eire, West Germany, Italy, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden and Portugal. In each case the legal institutional basis of regulation, the structure and performance of the industry under regulation, recent regulatory reform, and the potential for future reform, are discussed. An almost universal reluctance to accept British style open entry to the industry is observed, the exception being Portugal. This is explained partly in terms of different perceptions of the effectiveness of controls on competitive pressures within the existing regimes, but mainly in terms of greater emphasis placed on the use of local political control of the bus industry as an instrument of social and economic policy.
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