Ownership and Efficiency in Urban Buses

Efficiency in urban bus operation depends on, among other things, the institutional form of the bus business. For certain cities in LDCs where there are parallel private and publicly owned operations, it is demonstrated that the costs of private provision are between 50 percent to 60 percent of those of publicly owned concerns. Additional evidence is adduced to show that the quality of private bus services is not markedly inferior and usually superior to the public bus operation.