Papers on transport service quality: Demand, supply, industry structure, and public policy

This dissertation examines how service quality affects transport demand, supply, industry structure, and public policy. It addresses two general questions: why the deregulated transport industries such as motor carriers and airlines have become increasingly concentrated, and what this concentration implies in terms of social welfare and public policy. Several analytical and empirical models are developed. They include a shipper logistics cost model, a service quality controlled motor carrier cost model, a motor carrier rate competition model, a railroad rate and service quality competition model, and an airline rate and service competition model. The models are used to examine transport service quality from the demand side and supply side, the firm level and the industry level, and the point of view of the private sector and the public sector. The dissertation finds that shippers are affected by a multi-aspect service quality vector and improving one aspect of a carrier\u27s service quality is likely to expose problems with this carrier\u27s other service quality aspects, rather than conceal them; that carriers have scale economies and large carriers tend to use their cost advantages to offer high quality services; that an industry with such shippers, passengers, and carriers would be highly concentrated; and that regulatory controls may not be required for such concentrated markets when carriers compete on both rates and service quality