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RESEARCH CENTER FOR INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT PROBLEMS of NAS of Ukraine (KHARKIV, UKRAINE)

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ID R30-03156

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Liburkina L. M.

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Regulated Application-Based Access to Ukraine’s Interregional Bus Transport Market: The Competitive and Investment Effects
Hevko B. R.

Hevko, Bohdan R. (2026) “Regulated Application-Based Access to Ukraine’s Interregional Bus Transport Market: The Competitive and Investment Effects.” Business Inform 9:406–732.

Section: Economics of Transport and Communications

Article is written in Ukrainian
Downloads/views: 0

UDC 338.47:656.13:351.81(477)

Abstract:
Research gap: the literature has not sufficiently examined a hybrid regime in which access to a non-exclusive interregional route formally occurs through a competition, yet all qualified applicants may become winners. Its effects on demand predictability, route profitability, and carriers’ willingness to invest in vehicles amid Ukraine’s major spatial-mobility shifts also remain unclear. Aim: the article substantiates regulated application-based access to commercial interregional bus services and determines its competitive, operational, and investment effects. Methods: the study combines institutional-legal and comparative analysis, scenario comparison of four access regimes, and analytical modeling of break-even load, service capacity, and investment net present value. Its evidence base comprises Ukrainian legal acts, EU documents, and peer-reviewed studies of bus-market liberalization and competitive tendering. Findings: according to the Ministry for Development’s official assessment, new routes, especially interregional ones, had not been officially opened since 2013; the 2026 reform enabled carriers to initiate routes electronically but retained automatic referral to a competition. The multi-winner competition does not perform classical comparative selection and, before completion, prevents reliable forecasts of aggregate frequency, demand share, load factor, payback period, and fleet needs. Unlimited open entry likewise does not remove excess-capacity risk. The proposed unified application-registration cycle combines electronic route formation, automated licensing and safety checks, an open capacity and slot register, a transport-corridor test, minimum service-stability commitments, and ex post supervision. Originality/value: multi-winner competition is identified as a distinct hybrid institutional regime; an administrative operator quota is replaced with an aggregate-capacity test; and the effect of regulatory predictability on investment is specified through expected cash flows, the discount rate, and the option value of waiting. Practical implications: a dual architecture is substantiated: application-based access for commercial routes and competitive public procurement with compensation of efficient costs for socially necessary but unprofitable services. The model can reduce administrative costs and improve business planning without guaranteeing private profitability or weakening safety requirements.

Keywords: interregional bus transport; regulated application-based access; competition model; competition; route profitability; fleet investment; route network; public service obligation.

Tabl.: 3. Formulae: 11. Bibl.: 25.

Hevko Bohdan R. – Candidate of Sciences (Economics), Assistant, Department of Motor Transport and Logistics, Ternopil Ivan Pului National Technical University (56 Ruska Str., Ternopil, 46001, Ukraine)
Email: [email protected]

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