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Isn't Japan a counterexample? While government was essential for establishing the initial feasibility and cultural proof of concept, private competitors grew so
by drak0n1c 5y ago
Isn't Japan a counterexample? While government was essential for establishing the initial feasibility and cultural proof of concept, private competitors grew so much more successful than JNR rail that 30 years ago they decided to privatize the entire rail system. Since then, there has been unabated upgrades and additions of lines and regular train car improvements. The only major inefficiencies and decline has been in remote extremely low ridership areas.
The trains are still pretty affordable, and everyone uses them.
- sudosysgen 5y agoEven the JR group in Japan does not build the lines themselves. The actual infrastructure is built by the JRTT, which is a state agency. It's complicated because JRTT owns many companies of the JR Group and is a shareholder in others so one may get the impression the JR group is building the infrastructure, which it's not. The JR group itself is only profitable because the Japanese government took on the vast majority of the debt from actually building the infrastructure. So no, the JR Group is not a counterexample. It's still unable to actually build infrastructure without government power despite having inherited so much of it, and it's not able to profitably pay off that infrastructure which is instead paid by the government.