About the author, Jan. 30 -- Clifford Winston is a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and author of Market Corrections Not Government Interventions: A Path to Improve the U.S. Economy.

In 1977, a swashbuckling British entrepreneur named Freddy Laker launched the Skytrain, a no-frills, low-fare flight between London and New York. At a time when the trans-Atlantic air market was a cozy cartel of national flag carriers charging exorbitant prices, Laker's $135 tickets were a jolt to the U.S. It directly inspired Congress' 1978 Airline Deregulation Act, which ushered in an era of competitive domestic airline markets with lower fares.

Experiments in foreign markets are about to provide a similar wake-up call for transporta...