About the Thredbo Series

History of the Thredbo Series

The Thredbo Series was established in 1989 by Professor David Hensher and the late Professor Michael Beesley CBE. Since this time it has been held biennially in locations all over the world: Tampere, Finland, 1991; Toronto, Canada, 1993; Rotorua, New Zealand, 1995; Leeds, UK, 1997; Cape Town, South Africa, 1999; Molde, Norway, 2001; Rio de Janerio, Brazil, 2003; Lisbon, Portugal, 2005; Hamilton Island, Australia, 2007; and Delft, The Netherlands, 2009.

The objective of the conference series is to provide an international forum to examine passenger transport competition and ownership issues, reporting on recent research and experience and developing conclusions on key issues. The focus is on determining the effects of different forms of competition, ownership and organisation for land-based passenger transport on operators, users, governments / funders and society as a whole. The conference series is directed towards a broad audience of policy makers, planners, decision makers on infrastructure and service operators, consultants, researchers, academics and students, and is recognised as one of the most important international forums for analysis and debate of competition and ownership issues in land passenger transport.

The conference typically features plenary sessions over four days and a series of intensive workshops based around keynote papers and a series of resource papers providing a range of international perspectives on each issue. There is a strong emphasis on what policy lessons can be learnt from recent experience internationally and what issues warrant further investigation.

International Steering Committee

The Michael Beesley Award

Michael Beesley Award Professor Michael Beesley was one of the most influential transport economists of his time. He was the co-founder (with Professor David Hensher) of the Thredbo conference series. In 2005 the conference series' International Steering Committee established the Michael Beesley Award to pay tribute to his memory. The award recognises the best workshop paper presented at the conference by a person in the early stages of their career (first ten years). The person must be the primary author of the paper presented. The award is determined by the Michael Beesley Award Committee Chair (appointed by the Conference Chair) in consultation with all Workshop Chairs. The award recipient will receive a trophy presented on the closing day of the conference at the conference dinner. Honourable mention will be made of two other presenters who will receive certificates of recognition. All award recipients will receive sponsored registration to the next conference in the series.


Past winners

Thredbo 10

Thredbo 9

Professor Michael Beesley, CBE

Michael Beesley 3 July 1924 to 24 September 1999

By Professor David Hensher

Professor Michael Beesley, one of the transports most illustrious and influential academics passed away on 24 September 1999. Michael was on ITLS' advisory board, and an annual visitor to ITLS. He is much missed.

Commencing his academic career as a lecturer in Commerce at Birmingham University, then Reader in Economics at London School of Economics he became the UK Department of Transport's Chief Economist for a spell in the 1960s. Michael Beesley was a founding Professor of Economics at the London Business School and subsequently Emeritus. His main teaching interest was the contribution of economics to developing organisations' strategy. He started the Small Business Unit and was Director of the PhD programme from l985-l989 at the London Business School.

His widely known work in transport economics has had a major impact on the literature and the way we think of the transport task. He advised the UK Government on approaches to deregulation of buses in 1984-5. Among his numerous academic and other publications have been many dealing with the question of evaluating Government policies for industries in which the public interest is a major concern. His work at the London Business School centred on the implications for management in, and the management by the Government of organisations receiving public financial support, and issues of deregulation and privatisation in telecoms, transport, water and electricity. He became Economic Adviser to the UK electricity regulator, OFFER, immediately the office was established in 1989. This involved him in addressing a wide range of competition policy and economic efficiency issues. In September 1994, Michael was appointed Economic Adviser to OFGAS (the UK Office of Gas Supply).

He was Managing Editor of the Journal of Transport Economics and Policy from 1975 to 1987; and was on the editorial board member of that Journal and of several other academic journals up to his passing.

His 1993 book on Urban Transport: Studies in Economic Policy (Butterworths) brought together his major contributions in transport economics. In 1992 his book on Privatisation, Regulation and Deregulation (Routledge), summed up much of his work in those areas up till 1991. A second, expanded and revised edition was published in 1997. As a leading authority on regulation, industry restructuring and competition policy, he was appointed CBE in the Birthday Honours List of 1985. In 1999 he was presented with an Honorary Doctorate of Laws at Birmingham University.

Michael was a market economist to the limit, arguing that many economists and those not fully acquainted with the subtleties of markets failed to understand the dynamics of competition, relying heavily on the existence of stable equilibrium in the search for solution to efficient markets. While not denying the importance of equilibrium, Michael saw it as nothing more that a moving feast that never exists but which can usefully reinforce the notion of competitive dynamics in which we strive for an efficiency outcome based on some neoclassical principles of static efficiency. Michael also had a great deal of concern about competitive regulation (e.g. tendering) as a way of securing the real benefits of efficient markets (as best illustrated by the debate between Beesley-Glaister and Gwilliam-Mackie-Nash in Transport Reviews (1985). Beesley and Glaister argued from theory for economic deregulation in contrast to competitive tendering for the provision of local scheduled bus services (Michaels influence came through in the early drafts of the Bus Act in Britain in 1986I was privileged to see the first draft that he penned before the government advisers got to it).

The obituaries in the press in Britain by Stephen Littlechild, Harold Rose, Christopher Foster and David Currie speak volumes of Michaels contributions: the most influential industrial economist of his generation in the field of transport and public utility policy, he was the intellectual architect of the privatisation, competition, and deregulation of the utility industries in the 1980s, in 1983 he published with Stephen Littlechild the principles for RPI-X (price cap) regulation, which became the fundamental tenet of the UK regulatory model, and many informed commentators see Michael Beesley as the grandfather of the British model of regulation.

References

Thredbo 10

Thredbo 10 Conference Program Cover The 10th International Conference on Competition and Ownership in Land Passenger Transport (Thredbo 10) was hosted by the Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies, the University of Sydney on Hamilton Island in August 2007. Thredbo 10 was a huge success attracting high quality participation from 140 delegates of 22 countries, from government, industry and academia. The conference delivered a large portfolio of impressive material, synthesising developments not only from developed economies but also from developing economies.

Local organising committee

Sponsors

Thredbo 10 sponsors

Thredbo 11

The 11th International Conference on Competition and Ownership in Land Passenger Transport (Thredbo 11) was hosted by the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management at Delft University of Technology (The Netherlands) from 20-25 September 2009. The conference attracted 120 participants from 22 countries, representing transport authorities, operators and academia. The conference included seven parallel workshops discussing 87 papers on the topics of the outcome of competitive tendering practices, ways to reach a successful contractual setting, alternatives beyond competitive tendering, system development, social inclusion, public policy and transport, and public transport markets in development.