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> 1. Bus passengers are not rational actors in the free market. They'll get on the first available. Strongly disagree. That may be true if there is no good way

> 1. Bus passengers are not rational actors in the free market. They'll get on the first available. Strongly disagree. That may be true if there is no good way of getting information, but once there is a website/app that lets you enter your source, destination and departure time, and which clearly lists all the options with their prices, people do effectively shop around and make rational choices about their routes. This has been shown to work pretty well in Finland.

amaccuish 8y ago
Not anywhere else I know, and I've lived in many places. 99% of the time people get on the first bus that arrives. Only if it's their commute bus might they look at times and prices. The free market really doesn't work well with public transport, as shown by the mess that is our train system (UK).
- ChrisSD 8y ago
  The UK train system isn't exactly a free market. The trains and tracks are all owned by the government. The government also decides who gets the contract to operate trains.
  - amaccuish 8y ago
    True, but I don't see how you can have a "free market" on a train track otherwise. You've got to schedule trains, you can't have them coming and going as the market reorganises. And there's little possibility of choice, there's usually only one reasonable route to get somewhere, people don't want to add 6 hours of their journey time, to go via an alternative route.
    - gsnedders 8y ago
      There are competing operators in various places in Europe, the UK included. The clearest example is probably Hamburg-Köln-Express in Germany, which operates trains that take around the same time as the state-owned incumbent (DB Fernverkehr), but on older rolling stock for a lower price. The hard part is "how do you divide up the capacity on the infrastructure", but this is a problem that has clearly existed throughout the EU since 2007 (when there's been open access freight operators), though has in reality existed much longer (most international services, for example) hence track access and allocation being the subject of an EU directive all the way back in 1995.

amaccuish 8y ago

Not anywhere else I know, and I've lived in many places. 99% of the time people get on the first bus that arrives. Only if it's their commute bus might they look at times and prices. The free market really doesn't work well with public transport, as shown by the mess that is our train system (UK).

ChrisSD 8y ago
The UK train system isn't exactly a free market. The trains and tracks are all owned by the government. The government also decides who gets the contract to operate trains.
- amaccuish 8y ago
  True, but I don't see how you can have a "free market" on a train track otherwise. You've got to schedule trains, you can't have them coming and going as the market reorganises. And there's little possibility of choice, there's usually only one reasonable route to get somewhere, people don't want to add 6 hours of their journey time, to go via an alternative route.
  - gsnedders 8y ago
    There are competing operators in various places in Europe, the UK included. The clearest example is probably Hamburg-Köln-Express in Germany, which operates trains that take around the same time as the state-owned incumbent (DB Fernverkehr), but on older rolling stock for a lower price. The hard part is "how do you divide up the capacity on the infrastructure", but this is a problem that has clearly existed throughout the EU since 2007 (when there's been open access freight operators), though has in reality existed much longer (most international services, for example) hence track access and allocation being the subject of an EU directive all the way back in 1995.