That's a fallacy. When it comes to vital utilities and infrastructure, privatised companies are more expensive than nationalised ones. The reason is that the country can't have vital utilities and infrastructure go bust. As such they get heavily subsidised by government (or rather, the taxpayers) to keep running, no matter what profit or loss they make. The investors of course can't lose. Their profit is effectively guaranteed by the tax payer.
They're not gonna get people out of cars unless they provide a nice alternative, the government know that, hiking up taxes and stuff isn't going to help the traffic situation at all, but it will help the governments pockets, and they know it. Off topic: I think we should make a Bit-tech political party
I get what your saying in that they wouldn't have 60 million but they also whould have a better fleet and more services. Under a nationalised system the company tends to do things like preventative maintanence, ie replacing parts before they break to make sure they don't break. In a private company running to make profit you only fix that which has broke, this however means trains breakdown and are out of action. one generates more profit and appeases accountants, the other keeps a puplic transport system running. unfortunatly it tends to be a few years down the line when the part that should have been replaced in your now cancelled preventative maintenance program, breaks and a train flys of the line killing its passengers and you suddenly find that all the profit your company made in the last few years is suddenly spent on legal fees. Plus if a company is running on generating profit it stops the unprofitable but needed local routes in favour of the already full national routes. this really defeats the whole purpose of a public transport system
^^^ What he says. Privatisation results in cherry picking. The most profitable services are developed, while the non-profitable but still essential services are neglected. Privatisation is also wide open to "slash-and-burn" business, which like its agricultural counterpart expoits available resources without any re-investment for maximum short-term profit, simply to move on to another business opportunity when stock and resources are worn out and depleted. Because the service is essential, the government then picks up the considerable tab for breating back life into the empty husk of this depleted business --only for the next private company to move in once the service has been revived to a profitable level by a large investment of tax payers' money, and suck it dry all over again.
Since when? Mindless beuraucracy, deep staff hierarchies, gross inefficiencies, union deadweight, and corruption are the hallmarks of nationalised industries. It's not so much that they don't need to make a profit, it's more that they can run at a vast loss as the bill will be picked up by the tax payer. This unfortunately doesn't translate to it being run well with more services, a new fleet and better trained staff. In fact it probably means some minister in charge of it is skimming a nice chunk off the top, employing vastly too many people to ensure the unemployment rate looks rosy and is employing some very expensive consulancy to put a positive spin on the frankly shocking service figures. No what is needed in public transport is cut throat competition to drive lower prices and better services. Quite how you introduce that say on trains is a difficult one, but if we can do it we'd enjoy substantially better transport.
Isn't this system supposed to replace insurance costs? If you think of it in the same sort of way you pay for mobile phones (pay as you go, and contract), then there should be no insurance costs (or just extremely cheap otherwise). If this is the case, then shouldn't motorists have a choice, between using the pay as you go scheme (for people who don't drive much, saving them money), and having insurance (the 'contract') instead?
It would be virtually impossible to have competing firms on the rail network, and if it did happen you'd end up with 14 companies running a Scotland to London express service and nothing else. You still end up with mindless bureaucracy, union deadweight, and corruption even in a private organisation. What the public actually need is a centrally organised public transport system linking trains, buses and trams together, with clear management structure, transparent accounting and have a willingness not to leap for the cheapest quote or laying rails but the most thought out quote taking into account things like weather. Yes it would be subsidised but we might get a system people would use. It would also be nice to have simple to understand ticket system
The way you introduce it is by nationalising, great huh?! Basically we get taxed more but the travel is cheaper ergo it actually costs the same. Tbh we have 3 cars in our house hold, and there are only a few occasions we need all three, thats what needs to be cut back. My parents didn't want me on their insurance though incase I crashed (which i haven't, after driving for 3 years) so this forced me to get my own car. Catch 22! But if the cars weren't so polluting this would not be an issue. So back on topic, road pricing, well yeh, good idea, the money generated can be used to self fund the project and then plough the eventual profit back into the public transport system. (have you spotted the problem yet? that's right, ploughing the money back into public transport to improve it and make it more efficient and reliable to entice people to use it then means, once people are infact using it, the extra funds previously available for it dry up because there are less people traveling on the roads and therefore less money being generated via road pricing).
I'd like to see them road price people like me who do more miles in other peoples cars than in their own, my annual mileage is probably about 7k in my own car and probably the best part of 20k in other peoples (picking up, doing the job, returning car to owner.) The people i pick up from and drop off to can be anywhere between London and Edinburgh and i live on the south coast, thats a lot of miles i wont be paying for. Anyway its downright disgusting to charge for road usage when the motorist in this country is already one of the most tax persecuted groups here, with a total of approx 87% of petrol costs & the VED (not road tax as it used to be but now a tax on owning a vehicle) already lining the chancellors coffers and the roads being in an increasingly bad condition due to lack of council funding (so they say locally). Not only does public transport not pick up and drop off where you would like it to, sometimes it fails to stop or appear at all, for me to travel the 5 miles each way to work i can either a catch a a bus to the travel interchange, get another bus (different company so another ticket) to the shopping centre and then either walk or bus the remaining 2 miles travel time 90 minutes cost £7 return, or i can use the car, 30-45 minutes due to congestation cost in fuel less than a quid, alternatively if i wasn't such a lazy unfit old git i could cycle, but that would hurt
here we have one city bus company, it is semi-private, it is called "Horarios do Funchal", they work very well and are fast and almost every time they get to the stop in time. if i lived in a more flat place i would cycle my way to almost everywhere... but this place is full of ups and downs that i would have to be super man to go around doing my stuff, so i take my "yellow limousine" aka bus. that tax that you guys are going to pay sucks, i hope someone does something to offset the tax weight.
But then the government would get money from fares, and I'd imagine if they managed to really start pulling customers in, the public transport could easily pay for itself. If not, they could stop spending billions on restocking after useless wars.
I'd use the train for a hell of alot of my journies but I have a car sat on my drive thats cheaper for me to use than the train. (I am ofcourse only factoring in fuel, if I used the train I would still have to pay for the MOT/Tax/Insurance under the current system) Don't get me started on if I was carrying 3 mates as well, friends and I make a regular trip from Portsmouth to Newbury for computer gaming events and a round trip costs 25 quid in fuel, takes 45 Min's and is Door to Door (4 PCs, sleeping gear and sustenance is not something you want to lug on the train) Compared to a train which takes a minimum of 2h06m with 2 changes (over Reading station which is a nightmare even when your travelling light) and assuming the trains are running on time. At a total cost of £141.60 for the 4 of us. Oh and only one of us is within walking distance of any of the Portsmouth Stations, so we would have to take the bus..... Not. ****ing. Likely.
There is another solution, especially in the city of london, get rid of the buses, keep the tubes (they are over crowded anyway) and people could just walk, christ it is a square god damn mile, it isn't going to kill anyone to walk around it! It has great rail connections from london bridge and canon street, why the hell do people need to take a bus?? OOO it's raining, big frick, get an umbrella, OOOOO it's snowing....wear some heaft trainers and put your shoes in that massive bag you are already carrying...and so on
i think he's confusing this with pay as you drive insurance policies, which some companies are introducing and marketing as ideal for 'weekend drivers'.
What about old people and disabled people, and people with crap loads of shopping to carry around? I don't see how taking the busses out of london would solve anything at all.
I meant the city of London veles, I am not sure how you'd get around the problem in the rest of London, maybe make the buses for disabled and elderly only? Everyone else should be quite able to walk a couple of miles each day, if its further, the tube will get them pretty close. And if it is just for elderly and disabled people they don't have to run the buses as frequently, there is nothing wrong with waiting for a while.
