Striking evidence: The impact of railway strikes on competition from intercity bus services in Germany

Arbeitspapier

This paper investigates the impact of the largest rail strikes in German history on intercity buses - a then newly liberalised market. Using unique booking data of bus services, we exploit variation in rail service cancellations across routes to show that the disruption in rail transport increases bus ticket sales. Crucially, the effect persists beyond the strike, indicating that travellers do not return to their originally preferred mode of transport. It is particularly pronounced for passengers travelling on weekends. The findings suggest that customers were previously under-experimenting. Beyond transportation, our results highlight the importance of service reliability, as temporary disruptions can cause customers to permanently switch to competitors.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Kiel Working Paper ; No. 2251

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Methodology for Collecting, Estimating, and Organizing Microeconomic Data; Data Access ; Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness ; Railroads and Other Surface Transportation ; Transportation: Demand, Supply, and Congestion; Travel Time; Safety and Accidents; Transportation Noise
• Subject: Experimentation ; inter-modal substitution ; learning ; optimisation ; strike ; switching costs ; transport

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Beestermöller, Matthias Gerhard ; Jessen-Thiesen, Levke ; Sandkamp, Alexander-Nikolai
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel)
• (where): Kiel
• (when): 2023

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/273076
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:41 AM CET