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I'm one of those (many) people that don't believe in that 12B figure. It is only based on "we used to pay X for this route in the old model, and now we pay Y",

I'm one of those (many) people that don't believe in that 12B figure. It is only based on "we used to pay X for this route in the old model, and now we pay Y", but that's two different things to compare and ignores lots of new costs as well. All the offers were also based on traffic growth, meaning subsidies for the tickets in 7-8 years would go down. This would have happened irregardless of the bids (except the contractors have budgeted with it and now carries the risk). And before when it was the government paying the government owned NSB, it was basically the government giving themselves money. Now whatever profit the new companies make are instead going out of the country. Government takes the cost, others take the profit. So unless this happens to result in a much better experience for the customers I think it will be a net loss for society. But time will tell, hard to say too much based on the last year.

Skinney 5y ago
Considering most train routes operate at a net loss, «we used to pay x but now we pay y» is really the only interesting metric, no? Profits from subsidies aren’t really profit when you’re the one paying the subsidy. Keep in mind, that before any profit, the government still makes money taxation (sales tax, employee income tax etc.) and several companies are going to operate at a loss for a few years until trafic picks up. I think government saving money on this isn’t unlikely. That’s not the same as customers saving money, though. I agree that time will tell. Until Norway has more double-tracks and can have proper competition, this could go either way.