| Article ID: | iaor19972219 |
| Country: | United Kingdom |
| Volume: | 47 |
| Issue: | 12 |
| Start Page Number: | 1452 |
| End Page Number: | 1460 |
| Publication Date: | Dec 1996 |
| Journal: | Journal of the Operational Research Society |
| Authors: | Mercer Alan, Tielin Ding |
| Keywords: | transportation: road, Transportation: Road, financial |
School bus services within the UK are subsidised by the local Passenger Transport Executive and bus operators tender for the contracts, with the lowest price normally winning. Analysis of the bids in one district showed that the companies had pricing strategies, which could be estimated from freely available data when they were simple. The difficulties arose when competitors segmented the market.