(10 Apr 2013, 6:47 pm)Andreos1 wrote Has anyone seen or read this article which appears in the latest Passenger Transport?

www.passengertransport.co.uk/2013/04/eagle-vows-to-take-on-operators/

Without being too political, it seems Labour are keen on bringing back public transport into a Government backed Co-operative values type scheme, rather than the private enterprises and PLC's running train and bus services as they do now.

(10 Apr 2013, 6:47 pm)Andreos1 wrote Has anyone seen or read this article which appears in the latest Passenger Transport?

www.passengertransport.co.uk/2013/04/eagle-vows-to-take-on-operators/

Without being too political, it seems Labour are keen on bringing back public transport into a Government backed Co-operative values type scheme, rather than the private enterprises and PLC's running train and bus services as they do now.

(11 Apr 2013, 3:38 pm)Andreos1 wrote Haha, I didnt want to get into politics, but seeing as you asked...

Seriously though, it might not be a vote winner, but the author seems to have some valid ideas and points.
Seeing as de-regulation hasn't really worked and privatisation of the trains hasn't been a roaring success - seen more recently with the failure on the wcml contracts and the insistence on putting the ecml back into private hands, coming up with alternatives like this makes interesting reading

(11 Apr 2013, 4:40 pm)cbma06 wrote

(10 Apr 2013, 6:47 pm)Andreos1 wrote Has anyone seen or read this article which appears in the latest Passenger Transport?

www.passengertransport.co.uk/2013/04/eagle-vows-to-take-on-operators/

Without being too political, it seems Labour are keen on bringing back public transport into a Government backed Co-operative values type scheme, rather than the private enterprises and PLC's running train and bus services as they do now.

I think there are only after peoples votes for the next election, there do it all the time, its always the opposing side saying if we get in we will do blah blah blah etc..., and when there do get in then its a different story, all politics and promises that never gets fullfilled.

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Dont forget that when the government built the motorways and no one was using it then there decided to take freight off the railways and onto roads as there said it will be quicker to transport the goods where the railways dont go to and when the railways was losing money from this there decided to hit the public passenger by taking the trains off and tear up the rails, and now the councils wants these rail services back in the counties but it will cost and arm and a leg to pay for these which at the end of the day is not viable as it will take about 50 years for it to start paying into profit. Even though there must of forseen the population boom as there were handing out more cash to households who has more than 1 child for an incentive. Joining the EU was another barrier lifted from the gates of this country to welcome non british nationals. Dont forget for this country to join the EU, there was at least a couple of conditions that had to be made which was to give the fishing grounds to them across the water and also to give up the ship building so them across the water can build ships and not us.

(11 Apr 2013, 9:47 pm)Andreos1 wrote Both may be government lead initiatives/screw ups - but it is the private sector operators who have screwed up on more than one occasion.

Bus de-regulation was supposed to increase competition. Where locally has that happened? Who is at fault for that? The operators or the government?

On the railways, operators have jumped ship, had contracts cancelled or performed so poorly, that on renewal they are ignored from the bidding process.
Some operators don't even have enough staff to run services.

Your thread on the new Lord Adonis scheme mentions that the ferry should be reinstated back to Norway. Who cancelled that?

At the end of the day, unless there is some sort of benefit to shareholders, these private organisations are not going to break their neck to run services.
Several of the rail and bus operators are foreign owned, so the country see's very little of the profit.

DOR have made a fantastic success of the ecml and in turn generated £500m in profit to the Government. If managed properly, that is then reinvested into the service and other parts of the country/economy.
If DB or RATP win the next contract and make the same sort of profit, who benefits?
If Virgin win it, who benefits?
If things go wrong like it did with GNER or National Express, who picks up the pieces?

Froth or not, it needs looking at.

(13 Apr 2013, 3:41 pm)Andreos1 wrote The government can't be blamed for an operator deciding not to operate in an area. What are they supposed to do, force Arriva to operate in Washington?

As for the railways, you cant blame the Government for National Express putting in a massive offer and then realising they aren't making enough money. As a private enterprise, National Express are big enough to forcast profit and loss and determine their bid accordingly.
London Midland arent the first and wont be the last private operator to have staff shortages and cancel services.

As for DFDS, Im not sure they actually ran the service long enough to judge on profit/loss. Looking at how long the service ran for compared to the period of time they ran the service - as well as the books they will have analysed prior to purchase, Im not convinced the decision to cancel it was based only on economic reasons. Especially when they needed a ferry to accomodate the increasing numbers on the Amsterdam route and did so by selling the existing ferry and moving the Norway one to the different route...

(13 Apr 2013, 6:08 pm)Andreos1 wrote By deregulating services - which was supposed to increase competition, the Government were giving the new operators the chance to operate wherever they wanted.

(13 Apr 2013, 10:44 pm)V802EBR wrote I can assure those doubters that the report is far from 'froth' or an election ploy.

As a party member the issue is being debated significantly within the party, and those pessimists forget that the last Labour Government continued the de-regulated consensus.

The proposals in the manifesto being drawn up over the next year, will offer a significant change, a radical one if you may want to call it that.

Competition has failed as monopolies have been accepted, the 'socialisation' or 'mutualisation' of buses will probably become a reality. It has done in London and nearly did in Manchester.

At this stage it's much better to look forward rather than back.