12 ms·

I agree with your first statement, but not the followip. Public transportation systems are woefully inefficient. If we made them operate more like private corp

• chipperyman573 9y ago
  >If we made them operate more like private corporations, I would agree more What specifically would you change to make them operate more like private corporations, and how would it help?
  • chrischen 9y ago
    The tokyo system seems to be a fairly efficient mix of public and private metros and train lines.
    • icebraining 9y ago
      Are the private metro and train lines more efficient than the public ones?
      • chrischen 9y ago
        Not really. There's a lot of interoperability involved (all transit systems can use each other's IC card and you can charge it at any company's terminals). The IC card can also be used at most merchants.
    • lmm 9y ago
      The tokyo system isn't really subject to market competition, because employers pay for employees' tickets.
      • chrischen 9y ago
        From what I've seen it's not any more subsidized by employers as it is in the US with commuter benefits. That being said, I'd say the NYC metro is probably the best subway system in the US and it's nowhere as good as the Tokyo area transit system.
  • Shivetya 9y ago
    many reasons, the first being that public entities would not be in a rush to spend a fortune on ill advised light rail systems which have run some systems into the billions with even more in deferred maintenance. light rail is great for connection distant suburbs or major points of attraction like an airport to the city center. however it cannot adjust for changes population needs. only NYC has ever shown real ridership increases in the last fifty years. US light rail has a nearly sixty BILLION dollar backlog of maintenance because it cost to much to build, run, and maintain. what private company would even be allowed into that mess while serving the public? it also probably would not take the NAACP for force a privately run bus line for a city to serve minorities but it did in LA against the government run system. want to extend it further, most public systems are bastions of nepotism where friends and families of politicians place them in positions they are not qualified for to earn big checks and pensions.
• mozumder 9y ago
  Nothing inherently more efficient about private companies over public ones. Private companies have all sorts of inefficiencies that public organizations don't have, like profit and other requirements. You can send mail across the country via USPS for $.50. Or, you could pay $8 to send it privately via UPS or FedEx.
  • nordsieck 9y ago
    > You can send mail across the country via USPS for $.50. Or, you could pay $8 to send it privately via UPS or FedEx. This is literally the worst example you could use. USPS has a legally enforced monopoly on first class mail.
    • CalChris 9y ago
      Usually monopolies enable higher prices rather than lower ones.
      • cwyers 9y ago
        It's a different service. USPS has a monopoly on letter mail. FedEx is allowed to ship documents but only as an express delivery (the USPS service that is as fast as FedEx at document delivery costs roughly the same).
  • icelancer 9y ago
    >>Nothing inherently more efficient about private companies over public ones. >>You can send mail across the country via USPS USPS has to service everywhere. This is usually the case with all publicly funded "companies." This is inherently inefficient. It is more fair, but that's not the argument. Private companies are absolutely inherently more efficient.
    • bildung 9y ago
      Effiency is about archiving a goal with the least amunt of resources, not about setting the goal. The USPS has the goal of delivering mail to everyone and is obviously pretty efficient at that.
• lhopki01 9y ago
  The UK is a good example of the difference between public and private corporations controlling public transport in buses. In London they are publicly controlled and very popular while outside of London they aren't and are terrible. London has service through the night and very high frequency while outside of London buses stop running very early and are very infrequent. They are also significantly more expensive outside of London.
  • rjsw 9y ago
    London isn't the only city in the UK. I can't compare prices but buses run all night in Manchester and at high frequency during the day.
    • lhopki01 9y ago
      Manchester also has publicly controlled public transport.
      • rjsw 9y ago
        Most of the buses are operated by Stagecoach though.
        • lhopki01 9y ago
          But they don't decide the schedule or price or anything like that. The key thing is that the people who decide that aren't motivated only by profit.
• stuaxo 9y ago
  In the UK we had public bus services which were privatised in the 80s. Prices massively increased. Services were removed from rural areas. Stagecoach engaged in unethical practices - Going into towns and putting free / low cost buses each side of the local ones until they destroyed the local service. At that point they would raise prices and reduce frequency.
• dogruck 9y ago
  Self-replying since I have many down-votes and a long multitude of replies. A few rebuttals: * it's not sufficient to evaluate the quality of service -- e.g. look at this nice public bus service -- you must consider QoS/Cost * you cannot simply look at the cost at point of sale -- e.g. a postage stamp is $0.50 -- you must incorporate the government subsidies paid for by taxes * I concede that merely being a private organization is not a panacea to optimal QoS/Cost