Chapter 8: Coordination, Integration, and Transport Regulation

A number of characteristics of the functioning of transport markets have led through time to a call for “coordination.” The topic has been a much-debated issue for several decades. The literature from the 1930s until the 1970s paid considerable attention to the topic and generated numerous definitions of coordination. Lack of clarity remained a problem throughout the whole period during which coordination policy was fashionable, as exemplified by Peterson (1930), Tissot van Patot (1938), and Ponsonby (1969). The main elements of the concept are presented here, starting with the definitions suggested by Peterson:

These definitions are not necessarily inconsistent, but they involve radical differences in emphasis, and suggest divergent programs of execution.