The 16th Conference of the International Thredbo Conference Series on “Competition and Ownership in Land Passenger Transport”

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 Janeiro, Brazil, 2003; Lisbon, Portugal, 2005; Hamilton Island, Australia, 2007; Delft, The Netherlands, 2009; Durban, South Africa, 2011; Oxford, UK, 2013; Santiago, Chile, 2015;  Stockholm, Sweden, 2017 and Singapore, 2019.

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.