A MARKET FOR MOVEMENT - PAPER FROM IOTA NATIONAL COUNCIL IN APRIL

摘要

Over the whole of the industry there are so many distortions and barriers to entry that the market cannot be said to tend to perfection. The contrast between the passenger and freight sectors is however startling, and while freight movement does tend to maximise customer satisfaction the same cannot be said for passengers. Even car users suffer from congestion while they have little incentive to make market-based choice. Arguments to the effect that trains and buses are a utility fly in the face of the economics of demand for movement while intervention to seek political objectives must always tend to worsen the outcome. Where intervention by government agencies is least the market for movement functions best in both tending to efficiency and in satisfying customers. Intervention for safety and to a limited extent for environmental purposes may be necessary, but what the market for passengers suffers from is a lack of spontaneity. While this in is part due to problems of access and regulation, it is also a product of the diseconomies of large scale, which the industry could of itself attend to.