LAUSR

Abstract This article examines public procurements in the regional bus transportation sector. The data were collected exclusively for this research from regional offices in the Czech Republic. This study does not propose to estimate the cost function for bus operators, as do most efficiency studies. Rather, it’ focuses on identifying the factors that influence the final price offered by participants in the tender. Knowing these factors will help to properly set the tender conditions, which can further help to improve how well the bus operator functions, and to reduce public subsidies. The study also aims to estimate the technical efficiency rate by using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and find the implications of efficiency scoring for tender conditions. This statistic also enables contract owners to compare the cost differences between individual bus service providers and examine companies that operate at the efficiency frontier.