BE strike [Read 1st post before posting]

n97 mini

Summarising this page about the impacts of rail privatisation in the UK. I chose that as it's not from one side (e.g. unions) or the other (operators).

Since privatisation:
Customer service is up (customer satisfaction is the 2nd highest in Europe)
Level of service is up 117%
Fares are increasing at a slower rate than when nationalised
Average age of trains is still around the same (~20 years old)
(Rolling stock manufacturers are omitted as they're a separate industry)
Punctuality roughly the same (88-90%)
Safety greatly improved. Safety was declining under BR and that trend continued for the first few years of privatisation. A couple of serious crashes result in significant investment in safety.
Investment is up 9 fold. Mostly safety related, but some for service improvements.
Subsidies are up overall, but are down per passenger from GBP3.30 per journey to GBP1.90 per journey.
Efficiency operating costs per passenger mile down 20%
Profitibility of 3.4% return
Political inferference has not stopped and is possibly worse
Ownership is not diverse enough (though still better than one monopoly)

Interestingly the Imperial College London did research into safety and concluded that 150 people have probably lived who might now be dead as a result of crashes if pre-privatisation trends had continued.

devnull

Lets not say the UK system is not without issues though, the one thing that Bus Eireann has is a proper supply of vehicles by the NTA, we should be thankful of that because that simply doesn't happen on the UK rail system.

The problem with rolling stock in the UK is that the Government have a veto on rolling stock orders and get to decide how many carriages are ordered by an operator, which has meant that the average age of stock hasn't changed much, because whilst there is more newer stock than under BR, there is also more older stock that is having to be kept in service because of the fact the operators cannot order anything to replace it because they are prevented from doing so.

Therefore you've had silly situations where an operator may want to order 200 carriages and the government cuts it to 150 saying that 200 would be too many, only for a few years later for the government to complains about overcrowding on the lines and asks the operator publicly to do something about it, whilst tying it's hands behind it's own back and blaming the operator for something that was the result of government policy. This is now beginning to change with several thousand carriages on order, but it took too long.

The thing about BE is that there are inefficiencies that could and should be removed to give better value for the taxpayer, I don't necessarily want BE to vanish, I'd like them to stay, but at the end of the day if they can't give good value for money to the taxpayer, we as a country I believe owe it to our citizens and all of the people who are suffering because of the health crisis, to find a better system that can provide value for money to ensure as much money as possible can be used to look after our sick and needy.

murphaph

pilly wrote: »

You've seen nothing to dispute your points of view EOTR because you don't do any research, you merely make things up.

Not once have you provided any back up for any of your random "statements of fact".

Yep. He never ever provides evidence for anything he says. It's not fair on posters like devnull who've taken the time to educate him when he simply waves evidence base fact away as it doesn't sit with his view that transport services should be in state hands.

jackofalltrades

murphaph wrote: »

Yep. He never ever provides evidence for anything he says. It's not fair on posters like devnull who've taken the time to educate him when he simply waves evidence base fact away as it doesn't sit with his view that transport services should be in state hands.

Backing up factual claims with proper sources should really be a minimum requirement in a forum like this.
Posters should be infracted for repeatedly failing to do so.

Graham

jackofalltrades wrote: »

Backing up factual claims with proper sources should really be a minimum requirement in a forum like this.
Posters should be infracted for repeatedly failing to do so.

+1

The same should apply when refuting facts.

Unfortunately there are posters whose MO goes like this

1) State something as fact without evidence
2) When presented with actual evidence to the contrary the response is either
- I disagree
- vanish for a few hours and ignore the evidence
3) State exactly the same thing as fact without evidence 6 pages later completely ignoring the actual evidence presented in 2).

Apparently the above process is particularly good for pretending free busses don't count as a transport subsidy and is quite handy for suggesting the UK public transport system regularly grinds to a halt when all those private operators go on strike at the same time.

monument

Locked until I have the time to clean it up.

monument

monument wrote: »

Locked until I have the time to clean it up.

As there has been no great demand for this thread, for now, the debate on this issue has run its course. Please do not start a new thread on this subject unless there's something radically new happening.