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This paper analyses the pricing behaviour of cross channel ferry companies in the eight year period between awarding the Channel Tunnel franchise and the completion of the construction of the Tunnel. The ferry companies appear to have ‘made hay’ by significantly increasing some published prices for car ferry journeys in real terms over the period. The paper presents a model of regulatory intervention which can account for increasing prices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much has been written about the impact of the Channel Tunnel but the attention has been primarily on the gross economic implications of the investment which ignore questions of additionality and spatial effects. The completion of the Channel Tunnel will create a new transport infrastructure but this will be at the cost of lost opportunities for investing these resources elsewhere. Net national gains are, therefore, likely to be somewhat less than many anticipate. Equally, the importance of the tunnel for the South East's economy is uncertain both in terms of the overall long-term impact and the detailed implications for areas within the region. This paper attempts to examine the short and long-term implications for the South East. It attempts to do this by taking cognizance of environmental and social factors as well as reviewing the more standard 'economic' factors. The nature of available data coupled with inadequacies in our understanding of many key links in interacting spatial economic systems inevitably means that calculations are far from precise. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The economic assessment shows that, as a means of meeting the rapidly growing demand for transport across the Channel, the Tunnel is superior to continued reliance on ships and aircraft. Another way of putting this to say that a Tunnel offers a substantial economic benefit to the community. This, of course, is benefit at large and over a long period: the British and French Governments also have to look very closely at the short-term priorities, the commitment of resources and claims on finance. These questions are outside the scope of this lecture. But as is now known, the two Ministers responsible announced in Paris on 28 October that they hope, subject to the satisfactory completion of negotiations for its construction, to see the Tunnel in operation by 1975. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]