Why privatising public transport doesn't work
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- Опубліковано 30 лип 2024
- Why do governments constantly turn to privatisation to solve their transport issues? And can it actually make things better? (hint: not really...)
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Since the late twentieth century, governments have selling off our buses, trains, metros, trams, ferries... you name it! But do we, the passengers, actually benefit? Or are the profits going elsewhere? In this video I aim to unpack both the benefits and the drawbacks of mass transit privatization - to help us understand why it happens and if it's worth it!
Privatization is really just an exercise in the avoidance of political responsibility.
In case of some Turkish cities, they converted dolmuşes to private city buses in some it to be able to regulate road rage caused by dolmuşes.
For some reason this sticks here as the top comment. It is BS. There is never anything responsible about government.
You are right, however, I would argue the parallel primary function semi related to your comment is to ensure the workers won’t get public sector conditions or benefits like pension.
I really think this is the main reason most of the time. And I am really surprised how little of the discourse about privatization focuses on the diffusion of responsibility.
very much so. Where I live now the buses are completely in the control of two private companies. It doesn't concern the town council at all what they do - they'd rather everyone just drove. Going to places where public transport is in the hands of local government was refreshing - I got the impression it actually works and the people who work for it are proud to do so.
Concerning rail privatisation in the UK, public subsidies went up considerably in real terms. There is no evidence that it was actually privatisation that resulted in better passenger satisfaction rather than increased funding, giving increased frequencies.
And over the years, a number of train operating companies have had their franchises taken away from them because of p*ss-poor performance. TransPennine has been a joke within the last few years, and has been renationalised. It's improving slowly now.
The UK’s rail privatisation was an unmitigated disaster. Ridership went up simply because the nature of the UK economy demanded it. The trend started pre-privatisation. Also the responsibility of track maintenance collapsed under private ownership, leading to multiple train crashes, so the actual rail infrastructure is government owned making it a public/ private partnership, not fully private. This means the tax payer is not only paying for the rail but is also paying exorbitantly high ticket prices which private companies demand in order to make a profit.
uK didn’t really privatize. A private railroad would drop unprofitable routes. Under the UK scheme, this was not allowed.
@@nunyabidness3075 You’re wrong. UK rail is privately owned but regulated as are all industry’s worldwide. You wouldn’t say that the US car industry is not fully private when the US government put emissions limits on their vehicles
@@isaacrawlings1651 You're wrong, the entirety of UK rail is publically owned by Network Rail, a public body. Furthermore the Government is the customer and gets to pick who runs the services for the passengers.
The only parts of UK rail that are actually owned and operated privately are the ROSCOs who own the trains that they then lease to the Train Operating Companies, and the Open Access Operators who get some of the highest passenger satisfaction ratings of any of the mainline railways.
This is in direct contrast to the pre-nationalisation era where train and track was owned wholly by private companies, where Britain's railways actually expanded in size as opposed to shrunk. We can't even build new rail lines. As a comparison, it took 9 years to create the Great Western Mainline, from 1832 to 1841. Whereas now we're currently in the 14th year of HS2 and we're seemingly incapable of reopening lines such as the Varsity Line originally removed by the Government.
@@fndjfgsdkin 1841 people weren't driving around in cars. Having a railway was vastly more advantageous compared to alternative modes of transport. The railways were a breakthrough technology and were simply demanded during that time.
@@isaacrawlings1651 It’s likely a matter of opinion about where privatization and regulation start and end, but I’m sticking with my statement. Any airline will be happy to tell you that route scheduling is one of their primary skills and value adds. Imagine you look at the train schedule and realize replacing two midday trains with one would make a route profitable, but some old lady could complain and stop the change?
Car makers are all going to have to compete within the same regulations for exhaust. Theoretically, you could regulate cars to the point they weren’t really private companies anymore, and with all the bailouts and set asides, perhaps they really are not. Still, the equivalent would be that all car companies get told which models and mix of models they must produce so they cannot alter the mix of product. Does that seem fair?
In Argentina the privatisation of the whole rail system left cities and towns without a connection to the rest of the country, while the state company needed reform the supposed "solution" only left people needing to use intercity buses that ironically were far more expensive.
I work for a private bus company in Sydney and it has been horrible, the timetable is made so you can never stay on time and they will just put down traffic as the reason for running late. The buses are poorly maintained and brake down daily and will get bandaid solutions to keep them on the road. We had to go on strike as well as threaten too just to get a small pay increase as well as better conditions. have seen instances were someone had to catch 3 buses that did not connect with each other due to being with multiple companies and meeting trains is a complete joke
Thank you for the video. I think it all depends on where you are.
Where I'm from, Vancouver, Canada, the city's transit broke away from the provincial crown corporation and was privatised, with predictably disastrous results. The service went down the toilet immediately.
By contrast, I live in Japan, and almost all trains and buses here are private, but it works very well. The different companies always cooperate, so for passengers, it's almost unnoticeable when switching from one company to another. It's also easy when it comes to route planning.
It helps to distinguish fully private ownership from a private company running something under contract for the government. Japan's stuff is fully private. No politics get in the way of business.
I wonder if Japan's business culture is less cutthroat than in the USA; private companies don't generally cooperate with each other here
Former Vancouverite here. TransLink isn't private at all. It's a provincial agency, with a minister responsible for it, and is funded by tax revenues.
Japan is a notoriously cutthroat business culture. The transit companies coordinate because they are not in direct competition. They feed each other transfers who would not take the train otherwise.
Meanwhile in the U.S. every railroad interchanges with each other and it is common for railroads to pay their competitors for track access, even as a way to abandon their own underperforming lines.
@@MilwaukeeF40C They are in competition with each other sometimes, when there's a choice of which route to get you to your destination, or sometimes even between two stations.
They also co-operate when they use each other's tracks or they run a joint service.
In New Zealand, private operators do have a say in routes because they can blame short staffing for the reason their deadlines aren't being met for routes. A lot of routes where I live had to be cut back during covid citing labour shortages and never returned since. It's the fancy term of companies avoiding admitting bidding so low for a tender that the company cannot fairly pay their staff literally moving the business forward either in a bus or a train.
Don't forget, bus operators bid for route/s only, as it is the regional council public services entity like Metlink, Auckland Transport, etc to choose the cheapest tender for the route's concerned as required under the PTOM (Public Transport Operating Model) guidelines that require all public service contract's to have the 'cheapest' price to create high 'fare box' recovery for less rate/tax payer subsidy. This why New Zealand haphazard, dysfunctional local public transport services across the country.
Yep some undercut so badly older vehicles forced ran beyond age to keep the services the tenders reduced running.
@@joshuahill6153 - It seem you referring to NZ Bus and Go Bus which are now owned by Australia based Kinetic group and Ritchies which owned by American Investment Company used alot of older buses. Under the new contracts, buses must not be no older at then 10 years from start of a contract and after 15 years, they must be replaced by a bus less than 10 years old.
Nope! Ritchies Albany is short-staffed 3 mechanics to 300 vehicles+ and has extended the buses life rules to buses over 25 years old. It is based on an average age so older buses from the late 90s are doing runs. Also at pavlovich 2003 buses are running. Where did you get 15 from? The maximum age has always been a average of 20 years. if it goes above no more.
Are you going to force people to work? That's slavery. Are you going to employ government workers at all costs? That's slavery of taxpayers.
In Japan everything is heavily privatized and the trains are clean and on time. Maybe that's just because it's Japan
It is because you pretty much always have a choice of at least two different rail operators for your journey.
@@katrinabryce Well that's privatization
I have spent 40 years working on the construction of transport projects with contractors and with the NSW Government. Whilst it is not in the operation PT a lot of themes are common starting with there are projects that should be built by the government and some that should never be built by the government with a sizeable grey area in between. A huge problem in NSW was that privatisation of the bus network in inner Sydney corresponds with a period of unprecedented spending on transport projects. There just wasn’t enough experienced staff to throw at the contracting process. Some of the problems are due to poorly worded contracts instead of the concept being wrong. Keep in mind that all other bus routes in NSW including parts of Sydney have always been run by private operators. Remember the new metros are privately operated and doing very well. Newcastle stands out we’re the new private operator had some control over routes and timetables on a network that was long overdue for a change to reflect demand in the 21st century. Out of that there have been winners and losers.
Which private operator in Newcastle are you referring too?
@@chrismckellar9350 Keolis Downer
@@gregessex1851 - Keolis Downer that owns Newcastle Transport to operate the Newcastle light rail, buses and ferry services under contract to Transport for NSW as a public/private partnership.
The Newcastle light rail track, depot and rolling stock own by the NSW State Government so are the Stockton ferries.
@@chrismckellar9350 I understand that but it is still a privatised operator. The difference is that KD decided the routes and frequencies they would operate within some loose guidelines determined by TfNSW
@@gregessex1851 - KD under their contract with TfNSW needs to operates the route/s and schedules as determined in their contract as they are fund from those routes. It is TfNSW in association with Newcastle Council decides the routes and schedules not the public transport operator.
It is cheaper for TfNSW like PTV to use private contractors especially for bus services to use private bus companies, as they have the depots and bus fleets, to do the services cheaper than what the state government can in most cases, plus it get around the Union problems.
New Jersey has a slew of routes that are under New Jersey Transit but operated by private companies. Recently, some of these companies went belly-up, leading NJT to try to stem the bleeding directly, while others (to be more specific, Academy) were caught lying about service provided and how resources were allocated, thereby resulting in (far too light) fines and temporary lockouts. Of course, if the State of New Jersey would actually fund NJT, the various issues could probably be addressed properly.
With what money is New Jersey going to fund anything? It is already one of the highest taxed states.
@@MilwaukeeF40C That was definitely a thing you said.
The Good thing is that NJ Transit has a lot of good infrastructure left over from the Pennsylvania Railroad so it can run good service even with very little funding
@@MilwaukeeF40Cyou said something, but i believe it’s a red herring
@@IndustrialParrot2816 Perhaps, but that covers comparatively little of the state. What I was really getting at is the bus service.
There is no privatisation of public transport in NSW. Only the operation of pubic transport has been privatised. All public transport assets are still owned by the Crown.
British subjects have a very rtrdd idea of what something being private means. I guess they are used to being owned by a king.
@@MilwaukeeF40C It's quite simple - if something is owned by taxpayers then it is not privatised. If something is owned by a privately owned entity then it is privatised. The only people that cannot understand that are those who live under a regime which has butchered the King's English.
Sydney's rail system is not without its faults but it is the best one in Australia. The trains are the biggest, there's more of them and they run more frequently than those in other capital cities. They also go further and the electrification of passenger services in New South Wales is the most widespread of any state and in terms of land area, it is covered by the world's largest integrated transport ticket system, with access gained by the system's own smart card or a passenger's own debit or credit card.
I can imagine renationalisation failing because all of the brains with the know-how to manage a railway are now executives at private companies & the government, not wanting to spend money on coaxing them to become civil servants again, would instead transfer bureaucrats from other departments who have no experience working a transport system.
Great video! I wonder about if there are examples of going the other way? As you mentioned, Brightline made a private passenger rail in the US and plans to include development around the stations to offset costs. Why can’t a public transit agency do that (or something similar) too? Rather than narrowly focusing on the transportation game, I think transit agencies the world over need to recognize that they need to get more involved with the station area land use to make their services better.
Yes, see Menemen, İzmir! Dolmuş to bus conversion was quite good.
Brightline is fully private, not a "public-private partnership".
indeed, private railroads (at least in the USA) originally made most of their money not from their transportation services but from their real estate holdings around the trackways. No reason we, the people, couldn't do likewise.
dwc1964 No, not mostly. In the Eastern U.S. all of the land already had owners, who the railroads had to convince to be allowed to use the land. In the Western U.S. they homesteaded unowned land under conditions set by the government. Direct real estate development schemes such as Flagler's original holdings in Florida were not as common.
To fund public transit this way, governments would have to buy a lot of already high value real estate.
governments don't, usually move quickly
Videos like this make me love Transperth and WA’s hatred of selling off public assets.
I thought transperth was pretty standard until resent trips to Brisbane Sydney and Melbourne. Ours are in a lot better condition.
Pretty sure TransPerth buses are contracted to private companies. It’s just the trains that are operated directly by TransPerth.
The bus services are run by private agencies. Southern Coast transit does most of south of the river and Swan transit does most of the north.
@@vaughanmccarthy6685they are contracted out to public companies, but still don't suffer most of the drawbacks as mentioned in this video (inconsistent branding, inflexibility in bus reform (564 bus service changes in the past two years) etc)
Transperth Buses are actually privatized, only the trains are public. The buses look like they are not because they have a unified livery (which Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, London, and Singapore actually do the same to give off that impression). PTA under the Barnett government absolutely didn't give a hoot what the operators do, even if they throw people off the bus for the pettiest of reasons.
Tokyo Metro is not privatised - it is run jointly by the Tokyo metropolitan government and the national government. JR was privatised in the 1980s (i.e. the bullet trains, Yamanote Line, some others).
It could and should be privatized.
i think the gap in costs can be even greater than you mentioned, not only does a private company run network need to make a profit but publicly run networks dont even need to break even, theyre a service
If there is a franchise model, there can still be government funding. Government funding of the railways in the UK actually increased after privatisation. Take the East Coast Mainline for example, it has been privatised and re-nationalised several times since the 1990s. When run by the government, it makes a profit. They attempted to privatise it 4 times, and in each case, they had to pay a private operator to run it, and that private operator failed to do it and went bankrupt.
In Singapore. land Transport Authority Government owns every public transport SG but they let private company manage by bidding but not the actual owner hence no full private ownership but co-ownership between Public and Private which works the best for the people.
Better to follow the Hong Kong model where the stations serve as commercial spaces themselves for majority of the revenue
Thanks for sharing a fascinating video. Privatization can lead to better or worse results. It seems to work okay here in Melbourne so far, though in USA back in the 1960's, especially in Los Angeles CA, it was disastrous with both the tramway and interurban systems being completely scrapped. Ballarat and Bendigo Vic used to have government run tram systems with a reasonably regular service. However, the replacing private bus services there leave much to be desired.
Melbourne tram system is good? Is that some kind of antipodean joke?
The Melbourne tram system is excellent. I certainly have no complaints there. It is a pity that Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo didn't retain their tram systems as well.
Do you think that privatisation is also done to deflect criticism of poor service and operation of public transport networks from the government to the private operators? Even though the government still retains control over stops and timetables in the contract.
Much of it is due to cost and well screwing the workers over. Privatization mean the Government doesn't need to employ people directly. Workers are generally paid more in the public sector and condition are better. Here in Adelaide bus drivers were paid $25 an hour in 1990 under the public system. Under a private operator they are still been paid $25 an hour in 2023 and with far worse conditions. Much of the saving is made by worsening conditions for staff and reducing pay.
Here in america its so bad that people want free public transit, then they also complain that public transit makes no money, LIKE WTF DO THEY WANT HUH
A neoliberal would say that privatisation drives development because having a choice means companies compete to give you the best service. However, if there's only one private company, e.g, running a train between two places, or offering a medical service, they're not really accountable. At least a government monopoly can be broken by an election.
There are almost never private monopolies in anything unless government market interference creates them. A train line is not a monopoly. You can walk, use road vehicles, work from home, or move somewhere else.
What the fck is a "neoliberal" anyway? Leftists made up that term and use it to avoid honest discussion.
@@MilwaukeeF40Cwhat a bad analysis
Great video and username😉- there's also the somewhat overlooked aspect of private interests dictating development if they're driving infrastructure projects from the very start. This is more relevant for the historical private-first networks that you mentioned in passing, but a lot of the east-west railroads in the US were built this way because they served the major manufacturing/agricultural interests who were funding the projects
If you look to Sydney buses recent privatisation you can see that routes are being cut and services reduced due to private companies being unable to fulfil their required routes, so the point at 4:30 isn't always true since sometimes private operations prevent the timetables being met
this is out of their control though, as there is a long standing and widespread shortage of bus drivers across Australia, not just in the Eastern Suburbs/inner west. The operators are not "preventing" timetables being met.
These days, the privatization of public transport only manages to put pressure on the worker's wages and conditions. The regulators really put a lid on the infrastructure investment lest they cause a few deadly crashes or major breakdowns and cause a political issue, so the corporations can now only skimp on wages for profit.
"Tendering" is not privatization. Privatization means the government sells it, desubsidizes it, and gets out.
A government entity like PTV (Public Transport Victoria), Transport of NSW, etc can plan, fund and procure public transport services by contracting private companies to operate respective bus, train, ferry and other passive public transport service's. This know as private/public partnership or known as PPP.
"Without competition from cars, there was a lot of money to be made in the railway business". Much of the money was made from land development around the stations (what today we would call transit-oriented development) and other side businesses. This is still how much of the money is made in Japan today, where there is still substantial private involvement in railways.
Also, it's worth noting that government takeover/involvement in railways precedes the widespread development of urban freeways, which mostly kicked off in the 1950s. The relationship between the advent of cars and government involvement in the rail business isn't straightforward.
Japan: nope you are dead wrong
What Brightline is offering is great but the Floridian State Government canned two public high speed proposals which both went quite far in through the approval process before being axed. Ultimately both of these proposals would've provided a better service than what the private Brightline is offering. Nevertheless, Brightline is still good too.
The public ones were far too expensive.
Who knows, cali went ahead with CHSR and there still aren't any trains operating (and won't have any operating until at least 2030) meanwhile brightline has trains running between miami and orlando. I think CHSR (and HS2) are prime examples why public projects don't have to be better than private ones. After all the managers on those projects somehow seem to have no accountability while the people over at brightline have real financial pressures to make sure their expansions work.
I live on Sydney's northern beaches and since the buses were privatized, a lot of bus routes have been deleted.
Minneapolis has a hybrid system for its buses most are run directly by the regional planning authority (metro council) but some outer suburban commuter oriented routes are contracted out to private operators. They also have private operators running some of the more niche lines inside the city. My understanding is this is allows metro transit to right size the buses based on Ridership well, keeping economies of scale for there own fleet by operating as few types as possible
Another way that privatisation wastes money is bus deadrunning. When a bus operator in London wins a route, they will select the most appropiate of their garages to operate the route however it may still be far from ideal. For example in early 2023, Metroline lost 226 to RATP. Metroline operated from Willesden Junction garage which was much better than RATP operating from Edgware garage as the deadrunning time to Ealing Broadway is much longer. To be fair it was supposed to be operated from Park Royal but HS2 may interfere with the garage there allegedly so it wasn't used.
Perhaps a better example is 640 which used to be with Metroline operating from Harrow Weald garage which had very quick deadruns to Bentley Wood School and South Harrow until it went to Sullivan Buses which is a very friendly company and has flexible hours but only one garage, South Mimms garage which takes much longer to deadrun from, wasting plenty of fuel.
It the frontline staff that suffer in privatization. Prior to Adelaide buses been privatization bus drivers were been paid $25 per hour in 1990. That was really good back then. In the private system in 2023 they still been paid roughly $25 an hour. There also that staff churn. Once upon time many of these jobs where jobs for life. It was really a brotherhood. You stayed in the jobs until your retirement, death or you screwed up and were fired. Today there a conveyer belt of new staff and they can never find enough. You need to work 6 days a week, a few 12 hours shifts and spilt shifts to support a family. It wasn't always like that. Private operators due to the nature of privatization must force every drop of productivity out of their staff which leads to unhappy staff. Also when your so short on staff you need to hire anyone who applies. This doesn't lead to the best staff. I call it bums on seats. Hire anyone with the correct tickets regardless of their reputation. They literally take anyone with the correct license and accreditation. I personally could be paid a sign on bonus of $3k to work for a certain operator if i wanted to take up their offer. They are that short on staff. I seen new drivers abandoned their bus and quit on the spot because they can not handle the pressure and stress of the job. Passengers still on board too.
For the last sentence, I have seen that with my own eyes too. The trainee just threw his keys at the instructor yelling at him "you think you know everything, you do the %$#@ job!" and then walked off like a boss on a vehicle full of passengers.
@@sgbusesWhere i come from new guys will generally get one week of class room and driving training. The second week is driving with passengers under a mentor. In week 3 they are driving by themselves. That not a lot of time for them. I was lucky, i received 2 weeks of mentor training. The operators wish to reduce costs and get those drivers online as quickly as possible. It damn hard for them.
Privatisation can only work if there's competition.
Japan has several operators on their own lines and ticketing schemes but they are efficient and cheap.
Instead of privatising the whole network to a single company, give dedicated lines to different companies.
Just have a contract to ensure they all use the same ticketing system, but each line will have a different price perhaps.
Allow new companies to enter by constructing new lines.
The problem with this is that if your network doesn't already have enough lines, then you can't even use this to get competition. Competition only works if customers have the means to choose which line they want to travel on, with the only incentive to travel on one line over another being what can be controlled by the line operators. In most cities, do I really have a choice to travel an extra 20 kilometres to a far away railway line just because it offers a slightly better service? No. That can work in Tokyo because they have a crazy number of lines and the population to support it. Everywhere else, building that many lines is just wasteful. The alternative is to have the lines be government owned, and the train services be operated by multiple different companies. But would most people purposely let 1 train of a company go by just so they could catch a specific train operator? The other problem this introduces, is now all the trains use the same tracks, so they delay each other. This method is how Australian rail freight is operated, and it can work for super long distance passenger trains, like how it works for airlines. It would actually be a pretty good idea for high speed rail, as long as each company only bids over the time slots and the actual drivers and signallers are a combined operation.
@pwhnckexstflajizdryvombqug9042 That's a really good summary of the pitfalls.
I was coming at it from a Melbourne perspective, where every line is radial towards the cbd.
What do you think of the idea that different operators could have different routes through the city loop, so if you just take the first available, then you will have to interchange, but if you want to go to a particular destination you wait for a particular train?
pwhnckexstflajizdryvombqug9042 Competition includes walking, driving, flying, swimming, not traveling at all. If there is only demand for one railroad line between two points that is fine in a free market.
Also Japanese private railway companies also own other businesses like department stores, supermarkets, real estate companies and more
And in the UK, there is no competition of which company you can take the majority of the time, combining all the disadvantages of both a private and public system
On the other hand direct influence of the city council means they can also cut cost by cutting public transport, because they own it and they set the conditions. Privatized they are bound to a contract for bad (as your Sydney example showed) but also for good. If you want to save money, do it somewhere else, you have a contract valid and running with a private operator. Only ahead of a tender this can be changed, when the new operating conditions are published and not only companies are asked to bid, but usually this also involves the public, represented by for example passenger associations have their say before the bidding.
The local government should own the infrastructure and vehicles. Staffing and maintenance can be tendered out to private companies or individuals in (hopefully) similar pieces of work to be bid on. You need competition so that greedy managers find efficiencies to increase profit and their bonuses. But having private companies run entire routes (as in the UK) just leads to the companies trying to maximize their profits by reducing the level of service in ways that get around contracts. Lastly you need politicians that can stand up to NIMBYs to get new infrastructure built at reasonable costs.
Is it possible for a private non-profit to take over public transport?
Private owned and operate 'not for profit' public transport don't keep share/sock holders happy,as they are not getting a return on their investment.
It is possible. They would still have to cover costs and build savings which is the main expense of any for profit corporation. However I guess it could be set up to accept tax deductible donations.
Yes, but a few recent ones did not survive the lockdown.
I would argue that saying privatisation has failed because of the model you described is disingenuous at best as the government dictates and has so much control it is not actually privatising the service but subcontracting the running of it. Where I'm from the bus and rail company is run by a private company but the finding, routes, prices and timetable are all dictated by the government and the service is accepted as nationalised.
A proper privatised service would allow the management and complete day to day running of the railway to be done by the private company. Not this control everything but wash our hands of culpability nationalised model we actually have.
As long as you have an unreasonably high barrier of entry, it will never be good. There should be no regulations on it other than, dont stop in the middle of the road without a shelter, and dont kill people. A big van can be entry level to mass transit, or a truck with an open air trailer seating attached. If anybody can participate in the market, it could be healthy, but cities are way too strict about this stuff
As someone who works in public transportation, i can tell you in the long run privatization doesn't work. The problem start coming in the second tender because to win the tender the new company must operator the network cheaper then the current operator. In the third tender the same thing happens again. You have a case of running out of fat to cut so you need to start cutting bone. Once this happens quality is decreased. I have also noticed private operators have a much higher rate of staff turn over due to the demands on staff and cuts to pay/conditions. That churning of staff decreases experience of your staff and that can be problematic when things are not running right. I am a product of that system. When things are working as expected I am fine but when unusual problems occur I may struggle which can lead to longer delays. My lack of experience comes back to bite me sometimes. It's really the staff that suffer in privatization because i been forced to see the doctor because i held off going to the toilet too long. Think about that. I had to see a doctor because my running times were so demanding i could not find the time to use the bathroom. Sadly, Privatization has short term benefits and in Australia politics short term benefits are the focus because the problems in the future are another Government problem. Btw now i do not care about late running when i need to use the toilet. Lesson learned.
Just for your lolz... PTV doesn't always show tram disruptions that show up on Yarra Trams - even when shared to Google.
I agree with the entire video, but I have to say that transit advocates often get fixated on privatization and the private component of transit, where they should, I say, embrace it, specifically in the case of English-speaking countries. In 99 out of 100 cases, a transit project takes more than 4 years to implement, meaning that a change of government is likely to take place. Realistically, the only deterrent there is that would keep a more, say, 'fiscally conservative' type of government interested in a transit project started by its more progressive predecessor is private capital with a binding contract. The only way to keep a transit project on track with an unfriendly government in power is to have substantial private sector commitments. Yes, it does cost more, but if it gets built, it is better than the alternative. I am Canadian, so I think of High Frequency Rail promised between Toronto and Montreal. The only way we would actually see it built is if the incumbent, and likely outgoing, Liberal government attracts enough private investors to persuade its probable Conservative successor to not cut the funding
The incentive for private companies to keep operating costs down is not necessarily a good thing. You need x amount of vehicles and staff to run a certain line, and the operator will now try and save money by keeping their actual numbers of staff and vehicles as close to that minimum as feasible, at the cost of reliability. As soon as one vehicle breaks down, there isn't a replacement on standby. Same goes for staff, short term illnesses or any other reason for an employee to be unavailable can't be covered up by a colleague, as they don't exist. Sure, you can fine companies if that happens, but the damage has been done.
These are issues private operators in Germany have. For the sake of saving money, the services have become far less reliable than they were before. The annoying thing is that Deutsche Bahn is still entirely owned by the state, but in the name of CoMpEtiTiOn, they are forced to act as if they needed to make a profit as well, so their service, despite being publicly owned, suffers just as much as the private operators'.
A little story from my home networt (Stuttgart, Germany):
In the 2010s, the gouverment of the state Baden-Württemberg had made some tenders for various regional railways in the Stuttgart region.
The winners:
DB, the national, state owned carrier
Abellio, a subsidiary of NS, the national state owned carrier of the netherlands
Go Ahead, a real private carrier
Start of operatios was in various steps between 2017 and 2020.
first Abellio collaped in the whole of germany in 2021. In Baden-Württemberg the operations was switched to SWEG, a operator owned by the state of Baden-Württemberg semself
second, a few weeks ago, go ahead collaped in germany and and sells its german sbsidiary to the austrian state owned ÖBB.
you see, a lot of chaos, and in the end, all "private" operators are operated by state owned companys.
The reasons given for the insolvencys ware usually:
- Hard competition
- strong unions
Yes, European rail needs to be fully privatized and consolidated in to transcontinental companies who run them as they see fit, similar to in North America. Europe's insane labor laws need to be shtcanned.
@@MilwaukeeF40C
The state in Eurpe with the best used rail system is Switzerland.
All of their rail is state owned.
It still has garbage utilization compared to any single meter of mainline route in fckn Mexico, nevermind the U.S. or Canada.
God I remember the times I lived in the UK. The buses are quite good in terms of frequency depending where you live but everything else is shambles. Private operators try run buses at minimum frequencies and also don’t provide early morning or evening service. Also the ticket prices are insane!
Over here in the uk l can tell you now privatisation in most places is bad asse9t for a few cases like merseyrail which is a local train in liverpool
I would agree with the concussion that privatization can have mixed results.
I can bring more than one perspective. Until January I lived in a major German city. Now until the end of December I live in a small township in the countryside. Both have transit but obviously the transit in the countryside is less frequent.
While the city I was born and live most of my life did went all out on privatization for Busses in the early 2000 they reverted course in the last couple of years. Trams and Metro where never privatized. Suburban rail was privatized with the “privatization” of national rail services in the late 90. Deutsche Bahn Never lost the contract so it continues to be pseudo-private ever since. Regional Rail is privatized.
Here in the countryside busses are privatized, rail is pseudo-private by Deutsche Bahn.
With the context out of the way to my experience and opinion.
Here the countryside privatization made a lot of sense. Services are operated by coach-bus operators (using city-buses).
The additional costs of training and paying staff for hourly service will be higher than taking some regional coach-bus operator’s staff to run the services.
They have the know-how to to run and maintain busses.
The staff is more consistently assigned. It a win win.
In a city, services are way more frequent so the additional costs of staff and training is just less compared to the level of service.
For the city I was born and lived for almost my entire life, the solution is halfway.
No matter what 50% of Busses are always operated by the city, no bidding involved it just handed to the pseudo-private city operator.
The other have is bidder between operators.
For the regional rail line going north from my city, it’s just ridiculous.
Three operators, sharing the same ticketing a d prices. All providing their own rolling stock but the staff is all by Deutsche Bahn (WTF). Now you created four administrative systems four dispatch system. One of each operators and and fourth additional to coordinate the three other. That not efficient it’s the complete opposite of efficiency.
You pretty much overlooked management. If a publicly owned system has smart people running it, then it should be operating at its best potential and there would be no need to privatise it. If the system is run by idiots and is then privatised, then there also will be no improvement if the same idiots are telling the private operator what to do. It is very easy to run public transport badly - all you need is a government that doesn't care or has a pro-cars agenda, and then bad political decisions about funding etc will ensure the public transport is second rate. On the other hand, it is very difficult to operate good public transport. Because governments are made up of politicians, and politicians are not experts in whatever ministry they are given, so they rely on advice from their bureaucrats. Those bureaucrats are the same idiots who have been stuffing things up for so long, and they will give the same stupid advice they have always given, so the end result will always be idiots running the show. To fix the show, you need to get rid of idiots running it, and that can't be done just by changing the government. The cycle needs to be broken, the idiots need to be purged and smarter people given the management positions. Then, if the government has the right policies they can be implemeted properly. But until that cycle can be broken it will always be the same old same old.
The UK, as usual, just implemented it wrong. Japan is known for having the best railway lines in the world and they're completely private to the point where they even own malls and hotels around their train stations to pull more customers in.
Lol right beside this video on my UA-cam homepage is one by Railways Explained titled, 'Nationalisation of British Railways - what went wrong?' 😅
Try living in big cities in the USA. The transit agencies are largely just free healthcare agencies which is totally unfair to other workers and to the local riders and state taxpayers. It is actually cheaper to ask them to work overtime than hire more workers. And they are totally ungrateful, blocking lower pay for smaller buses.
The US was built on 100% private rail. The subsidies that Grant and Johnson gave were meant to be for the south but of course they just went to western states. One of the major exceptions of western bound rail not being subsidized was the Great Northern Railway in which the owner was harassed and eventually had his track taken over by the government. The railway was even the inspiration of the railway in Atlas Shrugged.
Great Northern was never taken over by government. James Hill actually took over some failed lines that were started with government subsidies and went broke before completion. It is now part of BNSF which Warren Buffet bought.
The Pacific Extension of the Milwaukee Road was a competitor built a little later also without subsidies.
Most railroads in the Eastern U.S. were built without subsidies and had to buy all their land from private landowners who had already settled it.
@@MilwaukeeF40C you are right. It wasn’t taken over by the government. I mixed up Hill being harassed by congressmen who were lobbied by other western going railways. (Which also all went bankrupt). Notably he was harassed by certain media figures because he specifically cooperated with immigrant communities to settle along the railway.
Public Authorities might not be best qualified to operate a public transit system (I would agree to that), but are they qualified to negotiate suitable contracts with private operators? In the example you mentioned (inflexible, long time contracts) this was apparently not the case. I think privatising public transit can work, but authorities need to be clear in what service they want to see and what level of flexibility is needed. A private operator can really not be expected to offer less favorible terms on their part. We are seeing this unfold here in Germany over the last years and I guess you can say its a learning process on both sides.
The answer to your first question is yes.
It is not government's responsibility to make your traveling convenient, nor is it competent at it. True privatization means a company fully owns and operates something, not a contract with the state. If the service is good and needed, the company will be able to keep up with it. If not, people have other options. Move if they want. Nobody is entitled to anything. Being able to take a train is a minor thing in life.
@@MilwaukeeF40C So many things wrong with that post. It’s hard to know where to start.
gregessex1851 The only thing wrong is that you are probably a communist. Good luck with that in whatever insolvent place you reside.
@@MilwaukeeF40Cit actually IS its responsability, taxes are paid for services and public transportation is a service
Please change title to something like “Various forms of privatized mass transit in Australia” if you can to get more descriptive.
I’ve seen various forms of transit operated for profit:
Japan and Switzerland have non-government train operators that have been operating for over a century.
In the USA Greyhound operates a shrinking national network.
In Taiwan, multiple private companies bid to operate routes in a complementary network.
Turkey has a fascination landscape for their national bus network.
Of course Europe nie had Flix Bus, Flix Train, and Mega Bus
In San Mateo County, just south of San Francisco, the bus agrncy operates some buses, but outsource a portion of their operations, in identical livery except the outsourced buses have a small “operated by” words. The drivers have completely separate salary scales, work rules, pension plans, seniority rosters ... etc whole they work side by side.
I think calling Brightline private requires an asterisk. It was able to find investors after the Federal Railroad Administration arranged a $1.6 Billion loan. One local government gifted the company $75 million to build a station. Fiscally, it borrowed money in the fit of selling tax-free bonds. In all taxpayers gifted Brightline a lot of money without receiving any equity.
Tax free bonds are not a subsidy. Everything should be tax free.
Another high quality video! Very interesting.
I think, in general I think that essential services should have public and private operators with the private part seeking efficiency by cost reduction while public companies containing prices eliminating the opportunity for profiteering.
The main issue is the few specialized companies with highly sectorial knowledge, therefore you end up with interlocking directorates between regulators, regulated entities, funder and recipients etc.
Dude I love this bc this is the type of argument I show when people say "Well rail privatisation worked in Japan". It didn't, it failed just as badly as it did in Australia and then municipal, prefectural, and federal governments had to pick up after their mess.
Immediately before privatisation of both JNR and of the Tokyo subway, unions warned of massive cuts to pay and staffing, the degredation of service quality and inconsistent timetables. Precisely this happened immediately after.
There is a great Showa sentimentalism in Japan in general, similar to nostalgia culture in the west. This Showa sentimentalism often influences how tetsudou-otaku view trains in a contemporary setting, with many badmouthing modern rolling stock and the direction Japanese rail has taken since privatisation. Post-privatisation rail in Japan is seen as sanitised, corporate, classless and cheap among many tetsudou-otaku.
Even today, the reason chikan happens on Japanese trains, above anything else, is that the safety of women is inadequately monitored at train stations, and men particularly are freely allowed to consume alcohol until they literally vomit... on a train!
There were measures in place to curtail chikan on public transit in the 80s, there would be platform hands who would monitor the safety of women. Now these are nonexistent, limited to certain services or in some way neglected. That, or they replaced them with women's only cars. The largely male boards of these private companies segregated public transit by gender instead of actually protecting women, think about how messed up that is.
The only reason that it hasn't failed is because of things like the City Planning Act of 1968 (都市計画法 Toshi keikaku hou) which restrict property developers to only making livable, walkable development in urban areas. Everything has to be a duplex or greater unless it's in a rural area, so your typical development in urban zones is a Family Mart, a train station and six apartments in the space of 30m2.
It is prohibitively expensive to transit by car in Japan - as it is anywhere - but because the alternatives to driving that exist often exceed the standard of infrastructure that roads get as a function of law, people only use those alternatives. Hence, private companies make enough income they might consider spending a small amount on the rail users. This is why the Tokyo subway saw success despite privatisation, there was a legislative benefit to private rail companies in capitalising on a higher standard of transit
So ye basically: If Melbourne starts narrowing roads, removing lanes from highways and incensitivising public transit usage and cycling: it's only about twenty years from holding modern, urban development. Even with private companies owning your railways, you can still make things work if you just *force* people to use those railways. It's just not ideal, and they should be public
Exo buses 🚌 is a private compagnies like Transbus and Keolis.
I think privatisation only works well in a Regional city but run by a local business or a business that gives back to the community. I personally think that in a big city like Melbourne, it's best that the public transport and regional rail is run by the government but in regional areas, I think local bus networks are better off run by local governments than by state governments. Privatisation in Australia is only getting a private business to run the service but the business does not have a say on what fares they can charge, what routes they can run. Which I think can be a good thing but I can see problems with this where governments are too lazy to upgrade bus routes, and the private operators want to expand their operations to serve the community. just look at the buses in Victoria, many routes haven't changed much and bus services have been neglected for a long time.
U-Go Mobility buses in Sydney is the best private bus company 😅.
Workers driving for the government are often doing so under much better conditions than private companies. Bosses try to cut costs on every level 😅.
Thanks for creating this video. I have seen many misconceptions around the privatisation of public transport, which you have addressed.
I believe that whether privatisation is good or bad depends on how it is done. Privatisation should not involve the private operator owning or procuring the vehicles like was done in the past in Melbourne. The contracts should allow for service changes and improvements.
Privatisation should not involve the private operator putting their branding on vehicles or infrastructure as this just creates a confusing system for passengers. In Perth, although our buses are privately operated, there is barely any way for passengers to tell. The only giveaway are the small signs next to the doors of buses that say who the operator is. Contrast this with Melbourne, where Metro Trains Melbourne and Yarra Trams branding is displayed prominently, which creates the duplication of branding discussed in the video.
What you are talking about is not privatization at all. Privatization means the government sells it and fcks off.
If you privatize public transport, then it is no longer public. What it WILL be, is very expensive and the question then becomes...who is willing to afford it and use it?
Maybe what really matters is organization size? Roughly speaking, a big organization is bureaucratic, and tends to get itself a "king" in time. (So the problem with government is that most of the time it's big, and then the problem with a "privatization" that just outsources the bureaucratization is that the company that does this will be big, too.)
"Big is stupid" seems a nice polemical way of putting it. I've certainly encountered "government level" bureaucracy dealing with e.g cell phone companies and their "service" departments. (Anything that has a department is a deficient "collective mind", too. That would make a good rule of thumb, too. To go with "Big is Stupid" - maybe as a nice, stupid explanation of why.)
So then the way to benefit from privatization is to outsource specific things for the shortest reasonable contract? (You can't really do that with a state organization. There you're always going to have the king figuring out a way to make the "department" answerable to people like The Inspectors.)
The maintenance of the Wollangoo to Vangaralla section of the North Line could be put out to tender, provided it's small enough for it to be run on a human scale. Cleaning of units could be outsourced per depot.
I can think of one benefit of "atomizing" the privatized aspects offhand: You get lots of experiments running (but done with a care to maximize efficiency.) You can learn more rapidly from something like that. You also get the flexibility to pilot more things.
That happens in the private and public sector anytime you have a long lasting organization. You do accumulate deadwood overtime and it makes it hard for the new growth to come through. Still, with proper management you can overcome this in any public or private organization. You need to remember that private operators want to maximize their profits. That means the private operators do not like doing certain things. A good example of this is having standby bus drivers. You have drivers and buses sitting idle ready to go in case someone goes home sick, their an accident or something unforeseen happens. This is really good for network resilience but private operators hate it because they have to pay people to watch youtube. Private operators like to run with only what they need and this means poor network resilience. That means if someone goes home sick or something happens things can fall apart. Public networks are better because Government can put that resilience into the network and are not worried about profits. I can tell you many private operators are house of cards. They just need a strong wind and they fall apart.
@@carmattvidz4426 Good points, yes. Even "small and nimble" private operators don't profit, as such, from reliability. And what doesn't profit gets cut.
That said, when a big organization develops some part that ceases to function, instead of falling flat and bringing attention to the problem, the other parts just hold the broken one in place. A private operator's house of cards property might have the hidden benefit of being a "fuse that blows". If something's wrong, the private operator falls down, and there's no "senior management" around to quickly cover up the fact and keep reporting all's well.
A two edged sword of course
privatising rail services is not as simple as it seems, there are different sections that exist from train to track/signal maintenance, train operation, etc, when you out source anyone of these sections as took place in NSW you have a large percentage of skilled staff & middle management won't transfer across to the incoming company but take early retirement, some do hang around for a period, but due to the loss of existing knowledge & introduction of new systems of management they also quickly depart, now leaving the new staff/management trying to maintain the equipment without the years based knowledge that once existed, the result in a short time of twelve months the train/equipment start experiencing failures, on time running (RELIABILITY) crashes from pre privatisation 92 to 95% to 60% then the government gets kicked out at the next election, but the incoming government cannot reverse the process due to contracts signed for 30 years, & the nightmare of trying to re employee the original staff who have since moved on, The metro in Sydney did not suffer from this as it was all new including the staff from day one, of course it only operates around 18 hours out of 24 & has a rest on Sundays.
Rapid transit not working on Sundays? What kind of public transport is that?
@@erkinalp its operated by a private company for the NSW Government, I was also surprised that it didn't operate on Sundays, but that is what is shown when you Google operating times, it will be interesting if it changes when the second stage opens in eighteen months, because it will replace the heavy rail section currently operating on the Bankstown line seven day a week.
Tripview app shows "Metro" trains running on Sundays. P.S. it's not a Metro train like Paris's metro sets or London's Tube train sets (not the full-size London Underground sets). Transport 4 NSW wanted a trendy name for what are really normal size single deck driverless trains.
I know it's cost more to run privately operated trains than it does for public services with less workers, poorer quality vehicles being used and there profit going overseas instead of going to the workers.
Public rail > Private rail > No rail.
Want to see why (even partial) privatization of public transport is bad? Look at Deutsche Bahn 🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃
DB was never privatized. Privatization means the state sells it completely and fcks off. Canadian National was privatized and is successful.
DB was never privatized. Privatization means the state sells it completely and fcks off. Canadian National was privatized and is successful.
You have failed to mention one of the major drivers of privatization, which is industrial relations. Militant unions typically dominate the delivery of public services resulting in high costs, restrictive work practices, and a pathological desire to maintain the status quo and resist innovation.
Word.
Militant is a very loaded word there. Unions make sure workers actually get fair pay and the rights to which they're entitled. And if workers want to join a union that represents them then I say good for them!
shoallasoala BS. The government forces private companies to bargain with unions. They are a mafia.
I am in the UK, privatization of transport was terrible. I notice it with our buses, the prices are astronomical and operators don't accept one anothers tickets leading to monopolies taking over or having to take a bad deal or a longer route. Circular routes that connected spoke areas have been axed, minibuses that used to service satelite villages in my area every 5 minutes were replaced with a single route that comes every 20 to 30 minutes depending on time of day and stops at 7pm and does not run at all on a Sunday leaving you with the option of taxi, car or mix with aforementioned vehicles on your bike with almost no infrastructure. The train station is a bit of a saving grace, but in true British fashion it is extorionate and prone to delays!
It’s very dependent upon the area one would say. There are certain areas where buses should be better, but in others like my corner of the world (Hampshire/Surrey) there are day tickets that are accepted by several operators as part of their agreement to run services. There are also partnerships between enterprises, local government and bus operators that work together to bring a better service through increased infrastructure spending, for example. That’s worked in my locale with new bus lanes, shelters and new buses. Of course, not all companies are as proactive to boost passenger numbers, which is very disheartening, but I’ve followed several instances of operators going up and beyond to make the switch to greener travel.
I think we all know why public transport privatisation doesn't work : because it always costs more to supervise the private entity and its contract administration than it does just to run the bloody thing yourself. PPP contracts for rolling stock however... thats another story entirely.
The “good” things about privitisation aren’t actually good at all. Prioritising lower operating costs and financially insensitivisng targets are both bad things imo, because they take away from the only thing that should matter, which is providing a good service.
Yes it does, it does work. It is a method to get governments out of financial trouble. It does that, and they hope it lasts until AFTER the next election.
Mass transit should be always controlled by national company.
Bayside and hillside trains 💀💀
Welcome in Germany, where the damn DB is in private hands.
And after becoming a AG the Deutsche Bahn basically looked: Huh, looks like we could just get rid of some of those tracks here and there. Don’t seem to be making us money. Oh, and, you see that, those switches also seem expensive. Lets rip out half of them. Sounds like a great idea. Your asking what we’re going with the cut cost? Well, my salary increase needs to come from somewhere after all.
Sorry mate, but the DB is not in private hands, its a private company owned 100% by the state.
The privatisation of DB never really happened. You can thank the 2008 financial crisis for that. I would say that it mainly just suffers from good old German bureaucracy and awful German managers who do no have the right incentives and only use it as a stepping stone
The privatisation of DB never really happened. You can thank the 2008 financial crisis for that. I would say that it mainly just suffers from good old German bureaucracy and awful German managers who do no have the right incentives and only use it as a stepping stone
@@benp9442 Well i think that's a good thing, because now its easy for the government to make it a good company running in public interest.
Um it can work, just look at Japan
Cash money
The first thing to make privatization work is to actually privatize. I know of no place this has happened.
Japan, also the US and UK before the second world war
Florida Brightline.
@@MilwaukeeF40C Started as private, and if they picked up any public assets I’m unaware.
@@theexcaliburone5933 Can you get more specific? Are sure you there was privatization and not just private companies starting the railroads? The US socialized it’s rail, not the other way round. AmTrak is run by the government.
Examples of freight railroads that have been fully privatized are in Canada, Mexico, Panama, Brazil, Columbia, Chile. They are some of the most profitable in the world with far better efficiency, more freight carried per route mile, and cheapest rates for shippers than what Europe has.
Privatizing urban transit and passenger rail has the problem that its main competition is subsidized and underpriced.
Good video but you're examples of good (more or less) privatization were not great.
British Rail provided good service while significantly underfunded making it the most efficient rail service in Europe and they've managed in their last few years to turn things around and ridership started going up during their time. After privatization things got better because the government more than tripled the investment in rail. This is a trick neo-liberal governments do, they under fund public services to make the service bad than use it to justify privatization that includes much more investment by the government, even though it's suppose to be privately funded. In the end it turned out to be a disaster. As mentioned by others, the number of ridership would have increased with BT as privatization was not the reason.
As for Brightline, this is the worst case of bad privatization.
Florida was planning to build HSR, they passed an amendment to their constitution and started to advance it, than Jeb Bush decided to act against it, he slowed down preparations and managed to overturn this amendment but still efforts continued and even the Federal Government approved billions for this project only to be turned down by the new governor Rick Scott.
Brightline promised the neo-liberals wet dream, privately funded HSR and the reasolt is a regular non electrified rail line with hundreds of at grade crossings, long journey time (it was suppose to be "2h59" but it's 3h33-3h38) at high prices (min $79 regular and $149 premium).
But the worst is that it's fully private, meaning they can do whatever they want, like shutting down for 18 months during Covid while other public transport agencies provided service, but most of the cost was still paid by tax payers. Most funds were from federal tax-exempt bonds for a loan taken by the local government (yes, they need to pay it but in excellent conditions, tax exempted and if they default you know who pays for it), they also got federal grants and the maintenance of those hundreds of rail crossing will be paid by the taxpayer (after some backlash Brightline agreed to pay for the maintenance of a few of them but most will still be paid by taxpayers). The airport station they use was built and paid for by the taxpayer (it was supposed to be used by the planned HSR).
As a private company they can do whatever they want to ensure profits like raising fares, cutting frequency and even complete shutdown.
The UK never privatized anything. Public-private contracts are not privatization. Canadian National was privatized correctly.
Brightline built something far cheaper at no cost to taxpayers even if it doesn't meet communists' perfect standards. Tax exemption is not the same as a subsidy, since taxation is theft and not paying taxes is a good thing. Governments should pay for road crossing maintenance. Brightline is not in the road business. They could block off the crossings completely. Would that be better?
@@MilwaukeeF40C without taxation there will be no roads, nor road crossing, no public transport to take you into places you actually want to go. Even the airport and the airport station they use wouldn't have existed without taxes.
Of course, may be you're OK with "communism" only when the government subsidies roads and air travel. After all, highways are state owned, they are paid for through taxes of state but mostly federal funds (both construction and maintenance)
I will keep living in my "communist" country and pay far less than what you're paying through those horrible taxes for non important things like much better and far more affordable health care, education, food, housing an far better infrastructure of rail but also roads, and airports (yes, we do have those with our communist regime). Maybe you should join us communists as the fact is that we do all of those things, and other things, in a much more efficient and cost effective way than you so either communism is superior or we are not communist and just learned to better use both our free capitalist market with government intervention and when it manages to do things better than the free market.
@@MilwaukeeF40C if breaking up BR, and selling those assets to private.
companies is not privatisation than what is?.
They did have a government regulator, something that also exists in th US and Canada but it was privatisation.
They also sold all tracks signaling crossings bridges, tunnels and station (with a handful of exceptions regarding a few stations) to a newly formd group of company called Railtrack. Only after the horrible way that Railtrack maintained the network tyrning one of the safest rail networks in the world under the government owned BR to one of the worst plagued with incidents, accidents and quite a few deadly crushes the government re-nationalized the network under a new government owned company called Network Rail that inherited a network in an awful state and billions in debt. So the BR horrible incompetent government company left an impeccable network, the amazing private anti communist company left it in a horrible state that caused deadly accidents and created billions in debt and the new communist government owned company managed to fix making it again one of the safest in the world.
It killed british rail. So yeah it sucks
Hmm… all of public transit was built by private sector, until gocernment with highways decided otherwise and ruined all
Someone is always paying the cost of privatisation. If its not the public or the customer, its the employees, because we should not forget, that the profits needs to be payed for in some way. Private companies aren't just magically more efficient and therefore cheaper, they need to cut costs somewhere to be.
If they think they are worth more money they can work somewhere else.
@@MilwaukeeF40C So they are not worth the money? Why are they needed then? Who do you think the world would miss more tomorrow, if they were suddenly missing? Stock brokers and corporate lawyers or garbage men and bus drivers?
I think this should show the point, that its ideological nonsense to think that the market is suited to mesure the true value of things...
If they are not employable in other jobs, then the worth of their employment right where they are is naturally established by how many other people want that job. Nothing else.
@@MilwaukeeF40C So you would be fine with no one doing these jobs anymore?
There are always going to be low skill, first order thinkers like you who can at least pick up trash.
Privatizing*
Privatising*
@@Iron_of_man no
In São Paulo, some of the metro and train lines were privatized, with mixed results. Metro line 4 was the first to be privatized and it has arguably the best service out of all the lines. However, train lines 8 and 9 were privatized last year and accidents have increased significantly. Some argue that line 4 is so good due to it being the newest, while the woes endured in lines 8 and 9 are due to them not having adequate maintenance for many years in the past. I am generally in favor of privatization, as long as it is done correctly with the right incentives for all parties involved.
Google LASD gangs
I am a firm believer in privatisation of the public transport systems. That means a full private system with no government intervention at all. The private company has full control over all aspects of the system they offer. The hybrid approach as seen in Melbourne is failing to benefit users in many ways. E.g. the west of Melbourne is woefully under serviced by public transport. Government incentives to change this will not be given or forced due to political barriers (of varying types) and the PTV boffins have only highlighted their inadequate understanding of the needs for many many years. There is no perfect solution, but the hybrid system is failing and full government systems around the world are mostly (not all) poorly operated. Lots of room for good discourse regarding this topic. Way more than a UA-cam comment can allow. Pity.
Is there any publicly funded infrastructure/projects you support? for transport i just can't see that being good for anyone but the owner.
In what world would it being solely private benefit anybody? Running a transport service like this is only profitable because the government provides subsidies for doing it.
@@tobesxd a good point. However, with the push towards the reduction of cars in city centres etc., the options are opening up. Like any commercial operation, flexibility and adaptability to changing conditions is crucial. Government interference by default limits the ability to respond to changes. A private company would respond faster and to survive, it is important that dead weight government processes do not block them. Only food for thought.
@@jk-xm7fi good question. When it comes to roads, the fully government or hybrid approach generally seems to work ok. The big difference with roads for me, is the lack of revenue by everyday users (unless it is a toll road). Trains by default are ticketed and thus revenue is raised. A small but critical distinction that can be the difference between the possibility of profit vs survival/maintenance only.
@paintbrushguy maybe that would be the case (?). However, in Australia we pay taxes and ticket costs to use the rail now. Thus, the actual cost of a ticket (although indirectly related), is the tax plus the ticket - so it is already not cheap for what are fairly average rail systems at best. Also, maybe a higher ticket price if that were to occur, might deliver a much higher standard of reliability and general user satisfaction? Again, just food for thought.
Because it doesn't make money. There, you dont have to watch this 11 min video that could've been answered in a few seconds
Privatisation has led to an overall decrease in costs and an increase in supply for most places where public transport was privatised. This video is simply spouting a lot of nonsense. Everywhere in Europe it has been a major success.
"Major success"🙄, sorry but I have to argue aganist it. Civil servant in Germany are not allowed to strike, is your car if you good maintained it allowed to strike every one to two years for weeks? I guess no. Private Companies will calculate as low stuff as possible, that lets to train shortages in case of illness, just happened so often on my daily commute to university or work, in a big state company they easily could ask another worker to run the train. Public transit needs good funding and politician that are willing to spend the needed money on it. What was the reason to make the DB a private company? To let it go to the stock exchange. How to you get there? Switches are expensive, so lets rip them out.(Hartmuth Medorn) Oh, the trains are so delayed how could that happen?
@@f.r.4329 DB is essentially state owned. The German state owns 100% of the shares. So how on earth is that privatised? What private companies do is to try to increase their revenue line and to work more efficiently. This means that privatisation leads to lower costs, better quality and more ridership. In the Netherlands this worked very well and in Scandinavian countries also. So I don't know what you're on about.
@@91Durktheturk Well its more complicated than that. Germany differentiate between long and short distance trains. Long distance trains have to run for profit, there currently two big Companies DB Fernverkehr AG and Flixtrain GmbH. For short distance trains private companies bit such as National Express GmbH, Mittelrheinbahn GmbH, GoAhead, DB Regio AG. Those companies all compete for workers, as well as getting the bids from the local governments, therefore it long was a nightmare to get the lowest train fare between two cities. Germany has a shortage of train drivers. The DB Netz AG is running the tracks and the DB Station&Service AG for the stations(both companies should be known in future DB Infra GO AG) , where private train operators leasing the services from them. In the Nederlands most trains are run by NS, but personal opinion, the IC train sets need a replacement. I already been to Sweden and Norway but i could not say much about their train system.
Public transport is a service and not a business
A communist could justify anything to be run by the state like that. Then absolutely nothing will exist at all.
It’s a business that offers a service, at the end of the day. Private or publicly owned.
Because privatisation never works.
When the previous (LNP) NSW Government privatised city runs, the government encouraged the private companies to cut back on services to save money. Priviatisation does not help anyone but the wealthy who own these companies. It may cut costs for the government but it increases the costs for the people who now need to spend money that covers the government's pockets and the private company's pockets.
I oppose all privatisation of public essentials(ports, public transport, international & domestic airports, schools, health systems). Not purely from an ideological point of view but that it serves the people instead of going happening if the rich person can make money at the expense of the majority. Privatisaion is the tranfer of public wealth into the hans of the rich. This should not be allowed and it should be protected by constitutions government at Federal and State levels of government, requiring a referendum seeking permission.
Your claim that the Tokyo metro is "private" is a very weak argument. The Tokyo Metro is a joint venture of the Government of Japan and Tokyo Metropolitan Government. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Metro#Organization
True, but the Metro's a very small player in the grand scheme of things in Tokyo, amongst all the private train companies.
Also the Tokyo Metro was “privatized” in the 2000s. I think he’s mistakenly referred it to the National Rail and freight services which was privatized in 1989.