This paper quantifies the technical efficiency of German public bus transport companies and discusses main factors influencing their performance, using a stochastic production frontier approach. We test for the efficiency impact of ownership structure, competitive tendering, and potential cross-subsidisation in multi-utility enterprises. Companies that operate in regions where competitive tendering takes place reveal a significantly higher mean efficiency than other companies. Companies that are part of multi-utility enterprises have a significantly lower mean efficiency. Ownership structure has no impact on efficiency.
Scheffler et al. (Sun,) studied this question.