Portrait of Maria Bates

Maria Bates : Consultant

Maria has been a member of Oxera’s Regulation & Market Design team since 2018. Her work focuses on the transport sector (rail, roads and aviation), often in conjunction with regulatory issues. She has contributed to expert reports as part of a commercial dispute between two rail operators, as well as advising a number of clients on a range of regulatory issues and incentive design. In addition, she is a key member of Oxera’s Climate Change group.

Maria is a regular presenter at Oxera’s biannual Utility Regulation course, where she has led sessions on topics including setting regulatory outcomes, service quality mechanisms and incentives under the RAB–WACC model of regulation.

Maria speaks English, and German.

Tel: +44 (0) 1865 253022

Maria's specialisms include:

Selected
professional experience

  • Support to Scottish Water on developing a new economic toolkit for undertaking investment appraisal which takes account of the full range of relevant costs and benefits both now and in the longer term (2020–)

  • Advice and support to Highways England on service quality incentive design and efficiency during the second Road Period and on the development of the third Roads Investment Strategy (2020–)

  • Analysis for the Rail Safety and Standards Board on the role of incentives in relation to willingness to share data across the GB rail sector (2020)

  • Providing litigation support to a claimant in evaluating the damages resulting from a European cartel in the power cables market (2020)

  • Analysis for the Government of Jersey of the Jersey Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) market, and assessing the potential impact of changing some aspects of the current ECEC policy (2019–20)

  • Supported the litigation between car part producers and original equipment manufacturers in Germany (2019–20)

Selected
publications

  • Bates, M. and Franzen, C. (2020), ‘Economic incentives throughout the lifecycle of an electric vehicle’, Papers and Proceedings of the European Transport Conference, October.

  • Bates, M., Meaney, A. and Riley, C. (2018), ‘Connected and Autonomous Vehicles: Implications for rail appraisal and demand forecasting’, Papers and Proceedings of the European Transport Conference, October.

Qualifications

  • PGCE Mathematics, University of Oxford, UK

  • BA Economics, University of Durham, UK