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Transport

Fostering sustainable economic development through strategic planning, innovation, and collaborative efforts to ensure long-term prosperity for all.

Pathway to Thriving Economies

Europe Economics has extensive experience advising clients in the transport sector. This has included work in the road, rail, aviation and ports sectors. Europe Economics advises transport regulators and companies on a range of issues. This includes (but is not limited to):

Price control regulation

Europe Economics has advised transport regulators and/or companies on a range of price control issues. This has included the cost benchmarking, input price inflation, the cost of capital, the design of incentive schemes and financial modelling.

Investment appraisal

Europe Economics has used real options analysis to assist a transport client in appraising different options for the timing of a major investment.

Impact assessment

We have carried out various impact assessments of transport policies and regulatory options. We have also provided research on the monetisation of noise impacts in the airports sector.

Transport modelling

Europe Economics has expertise in gravity modelling to estimate the demand and revenue impacts of new transport services.

Competition and market analysis

We have experience applying competition law analysis, such as market definition and assessment of dominance, in the transport sector. We have also carried out market analysis, using both mainstream and behavioural economics to analyse whether market outcomes are likely to be in the interests of consumers.

Tariffs

Our experience in this area includes advising on the structure of access charges in the rail sector, building Long Run Incremental Cost (LRIC) pricing models in the airports sector, and providing training on tariff structures for a transport sector client.

Consumer protection

We undertook an assessment of consumer protection arising from the current travel trade industry bonding arrangements, and proposed and analysed possible options for reform.

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Pathway to Thriving Economies

Europe Economics has extensive experience advising clients in the transport sector. This has included work in the road, rail, aviation and ports sectors. Europe Economics has done a wide variety of work in the transport sector, including (but not limited to) the following:

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Some of our most recent projects and clients advised in these areas are the following: 

Office of Rail and Road

We were commissioned by the Office of Rail and Road to undertake a study to develop and apply a gravity model to forecast the demand and revenue impact of the new services proposed by GUT between London Euston and Stirling. 

Delivery Partner Award

Europe Economics was awarded a Delivery Partner style contract by the Office of Rail and Road to provide policy, economics and project management support for PR23. Some of our work has involved: review of the Schedule 4 possessions regime; benchmarking of Network Rail’s support function; mid-control period updates of Schedule 8 parameters and update of Schedules 4 and 8 freight payment rates.

DG MOVE

We were commissioned by DG MOVE to conduct an impact assessment support study for a possible revision of the Air Services Regulation.

The Commission for Aviation Regulation Ireland

The Commission for Aviation Regulation Ireland (now the IAA) commissioned Europe Economics to evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of the current Irish travel trade protection scheme and develops recommendations for potential reforms. 

Multiple Commissions for a Port's Authority

For a port’s authority, we have completed multiple commissions ranging from constructing a model of allowed revenue to estimating the cost of capital. 

Civil Aviation Authority

Europe Economics led a consortium advising the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) on HAL’s surface-access strategy. The work provided high-level advice on whether the strategy is in the interests of airport users and whether there is a case for recovering some of the associated costs of the strategy via airport charges. 

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Pathway to Thriving Economies

Europe Economics has extensive experience advising clients in the transport sector. This has included work in the road, rail, aviation and ports sectors. Europe Economics has done a wide variety of work in the transport sector, including (but not limited to) the following:

Get in touch with us

Key Contacts

Please feel free to reach out to our experts if you have any questions.

Stephen Topping

Principal

Dr John Spicer

Director and Managing Consultant

Deborah Drury

Managing Consultant

Dive into our practice areas

Price Controls & Regulation
Effective regulation of public services and infrastructure industries.
Competition Policy & Litigation Support

We specialise in providing research input and expert analysis to assist our clients in legal cases

Cost of Capital

We have consistently delivered high-quality results, enabling our clients to make informed decisions

Impact Assessment, CBA & Policy Evaluation

Economics plays an important role in understanding the implications of new government policies, regulatory requirements

Economics Training Courses

We provide economics training courses to regulators, companies, consumer organisations and government departments.

Macroeconomic & Political Analysis

Specialises in providing extensive macroeconomic and political analysis services, offering valuable insights to our clients.

Econometrics, Modelling & Quantitative Analysis

Econometrics involves estimating mathematical models to represent and describe real-world economic relations.

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Professional regulation

Healthcare professionals are the driving force behind the delivery of high-quality care. Outcomes can be affected by external structures and systems as well as individuals’ training and incentives. Economic regulation is one tool that can assist healthcare regulators discern between contextual, clinical and competency risks facing a healthcare profession and its workforce, and develop targeted and cost-effective regulation and training. Our work includes:
  • A seminal assessment of the risks in domiciliary social care and options for revalidation and training to address these risks for the Department of Health, in the context of the Government’s White Paper on non-medical healthcare regulation.
  • Similar assessments of the risks and options for revalidation to address these risks for the General Optical Council; the General Dental Council; and the General Chiropractic Council.
  • A cost-benefit analysis of options for continuing professional development (CPD) for the General Dental Council.
  • Cost-benefit analysis of regulation models for optical businesses for the General Optical Council.

European Commission, DG CLIMA

We have conducted several studies for DG CLIMA relating to the European Union’s emissions trading system.   For example, we conducted a study looking at the impact of changes in trading activity on the price formation processes in the European carbon market, the access to the market for retail investors, which included also the access via exchange traded funds (ETFs), the hedging strategies of EU emissions trading system (ETS) compliance entities, and the role played by derivatives and financial entities in the EU ETS.

Danish Energy Regulator (Energistyrelsen)

We looked at how a benchmarking model used to help set price controls by the Energistyrelsen on DSOs might affect the Green Transition.  We looked at the challenges facing DSOs in the Green Transition and what behaviours should be incentivised.  We then looked at how the benchmarking model and wider regulatory framework might affect those incentives.  This included developing a number of worked examples to consider how the benchmarking model might affect incentives to invest in network expansion, faster connections or flexibility solutions. 

Zero Waste Scotland

Europe Economics was engaged by Zero Waste Scotland (ZWS) to estimate how potential efficiency savings in water and energy are likely to be distributed across firms of different sizes and ownership structures in Scotland. The aim was to inform ZWS policy of where to target resource saving initiatives; in particular whether potential savings were sufficiently concentrated among SMEs to warrant specific effort among these.

We was also engaged by ZWS to estimate the costs and benefits of proposed market restrictions on specific single-use plastic products in Scotland and to analyse the impacts of the restrictions on competition, consumers and Scottish firms.

Citizens Advice UK

We were commissioned by Citizens Advice UK to investigate the mechanisms that could be used to limit or share the financial risk for energy bill payers in the context of highly anticipatory energy infrastructure investments in GB.

We developed a compendium of risk-allocation tools and, for each, we analysed: the suitability of the mechanism for different types of investments and projects; the extent (and the type) of risk allocated to consumers; the relative advantages and disadvantages of the tool; and how they affect the cost of capital. Each tool also included a case study of the tool being applied in practice.

Difference-in-difference

Relevant for measuring the impacts of changes in regimes/shocks. It uses observational study data of the same units across time and requires that the units (firms, individuals or countries) are divided into treatment and control groups. Difference-in-difference estimates the effect of an intervention by comparing the average change in the outcome variable experienced by the treated group over time to the average change in the outcome variable experienced by the control group.

Stated preference – survey method which is typically used to identify a person’s willingness to pay. Its key advantage is that it enables a monetary value to be placed on certain impacts of a policy or measure.