(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?
Government. They created a policy, implemented it and have failed to manage it's negative points effectively.
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.
These issues are contributed to by poor oversight. London Midland have failed to harmonise conditions and struggle now as staff leave for other operators
Your thread on the new Lord Adonis scheme mentions that the ferry should be reinstated back to Norway. Who cancelled that?
A private firm who cannot afford to run below certain revenue levels. If a connection is socially or economically vital, then there are options for the region to offer support. This has not been offered until now, so it has gone.
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.
If you fail to monitor the contract or create an inflexible system, then sadly you are not going to get the service that some may desire.
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.
Labour promised a few things in 1997 and reneged. This isnt even policy, so it is mostly froth.
Everyone benefits if the contract is specified and managed appropriately. It is a shame to see East Coast returned to the private sector because it is very profitable but it is even worse seeing a firm like Northern put back into private hands considering the amount of subsidy it requires.