Privatisation and Deregulation: Its Implications for Negative Transport Externalities

Recent years have witnessed a whole range of measures aimed at reducing government intervention in transport markets. A major element of this international movement has been significant shifts of responsibility for provision from the public to the private sector. While many aspects of deregulation of transport have been examined, and matters of equity and traditional economic efficiency have been explored, rather less attention has been paid to ownership matters. Further, the analysis which has been conducted has focused almost exclusively on matters relating to the internal market changes which are brought about. Equally, with respect to deregulation, there have been studies of internal economic efficiency and distribution impacts, but wider safety and environmental matters have received less attention. This paper looks at the impacts that privatisation and deregulation of transport may, both directly and indirectly (in terms of influencing industrial production), have on the environment.