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People who know everything...
Was talking to a lady at the bus stop this morning. The bus was late, which is pretty common on this route and she was moaning on and on about how terrible the bus company was and how they deliberately cancel buses and how they won't let OAPs on board before 9:30 even when there's only a few minutes to go and how the drivers never help people, etc.
No interest at all in letting facts interfere with her general conviction that the entire company is incompetent and probably crooked.
The bus company aren't perfect, far from it. However, the general myth that a fortune is made from OAP passes is just that - a myth. Legally, they aren't allowed to make a profit on them. Which means they are just a whisker away from making a loss. For instance, when passengers paying full fare can't get on buses because they're full of people on passes for which the company only gets paid a fraction of the normal fare.
Our particular bus route tends to run late. That's because it takes a bus half an hour to get from Poole to Wimborne with very little margin for error. People like services that run the same time every hour, so the company try to run it every half hour. This means that any delay at all caused by traffic jams or an accident will throw the timetable out and the driver has little chance of catching up again. There isn't an easy solution to this one. The service is subsidised by the council as it doesn't make a profit, so adding extra buses isn't going to happen as they'd simply lose more money.
Taking buses and drivers from a busy route running every ten mins (because it's actually profitable) and moving them to a loss-making route out in the suburbs is never going to happen, no matter how much people moan. My companion's response (of course) was to insist that the Poole-/Bournemouth route couldn't possibly be making a profit because the last time she personally went on it, the bus was nearly empty.
One data point clearly outweighs the entire logic of a company doing something that they know they make money on...
Why is it that people seem to view it as wrong for bus and rail companies to make a profit? (which isn't always the case anyway)
Why does everybody seem to think that the companies would make a massive profit if they only ran a service that went past the complainer's front door?
Why does everybody 'know' that when the bus is late, it is never due to traffic jams, accidents, waiting for lots of pensioners to get on the bus or any other obvious cause, but always due to lazy drivers or incompetent management and that the solution is entirely obvious and so easy that the entire thing could be solved overnight?
Am I the only person to feel that the railways have been much better since they were privatised? (although the increase in passenger numbers would suggest they are clearly getting things right)
No interest at all in letting facts interfere with her general conviction that the entire company is incompetent and probably crooked.
The bus company aren't perfect, far from it. However, the general myth that a fortune is made from OAP passes is just that - a myth. Legally, they aren't allowed to make a profit on them. Which means they are just a whisker away from making a loss. For instance, when passengers paying full fare can't get on buses because they're full of people on passes for which the company only gets paid a fraction of the normal fare.
Our particular bus route tends to run late. That's because it takes a bus half an hour to get from Poole to Wimborne with very little margin for error. People like services that run the same time every hour, so the company try to run it every half hour. This means that any delay at all caused by traffic jams or an accident will throw the timetable out and the driver has little chance of catching up again. There isn't an easy solution to this one. The service is subsidised by the council as it doesn't make a profit, so adding extra buses isn't going to happen as they'd simply lose more money.
Taking buses and drivers from a busy route running every ten mins (because it's actually profitable) and moving them to a loss-making route out in the suburbs is never going to happen, no matter how much people moan. My companion's response (of course) was to insist that the Poole-/Bournemouth route couldn't possibly be making a profit because the last time she personally went on it, the bus was nearly empty.
One data point clearly outweighs the entire logic of a company doing something that they know they make money on...
Why is it that people seem to view it as wrong for bus and rail companies to make a profit? (which isn't always the case anyway)
Why does everybody seem to think that the companies would make a massive profit if they only ran a service that went past the complainer's front door?
Why does everybody 'know' that when the bus is late, it is never due to traffic jams, accidents, waiting for lots of pensioners to get on the bus or any other obvious cause, but always due to lazy drivers or incompetent management and that the solution is entirely obvious and so easy that the entire thing could be solved overnight?
Am I the only person to feel that the railways have been much better since they were privatised? (although the increase in passenger numbers would suggest they are clearly getting things right)
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<< Am I the only person to feel that the railways have been much better since they were privatised? (although the increase in passenger numbers would suggest they are clearly getting things right) >>
You're barking up at least two wrong trees.
(1) Giving privatisation sole credit for the results of tripling (!!) the public subsidy that BR used to get is wrong on so many levels. How would unfragmented BR have done, given three times more public money to do the job? A *damn* sight better than the present mess. The colossal cost of operating the privatised railway is a scandalous ongoing waste of public money, right up there with bombing Afghans and Libyans.
(2) Using passenger numbers as the only criterion for success is also very wrong. You're only looking at half the picture. What about freight? Its decline since privatisation has been a disaster, and the lorries pounding our towns and countryside to bits and choking our lungs are the direct result (not to mention the time it takes to rescue failed passenger trains these days).
Grrrr!
-D.
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But private railways in Britain don't make much sense, there's no actual competition. If I want to get a train from London to Bournemouth it's no use North West Trains bidding for my custom, they don't go down there. Similarly if I want to go to Glasgow then Chiltern Line won't take me. In almost all cases they are effectively a monopoly, and they know it. Indeed, ther was a period where you couldn't even buy a through ticket, or get timetables to see what connections there were (the web solved that to a large degree by aggregating the information).
Much the same with the buses, it's rare to find an area with more than two bus operators covering the same routes (often only one), so there's little incentive to be better unless they are bad enough that their licence gets pulled.
On the other hand, taxicabs (private) are competing. Unfortunately they often operate as a cartel because of local bylaws setting standardised prices, so they can only compete on services (speed of response, luggage capacity, cleanliness, etc.).
The increase in pasenger number on rail is likely more due to the unavailability of parking at the far end, at least where London is concerned (the congestion charge helps as well), not because people like it. As far as commuter trains are concerned that are mostly standing these days, because of the extra passengers, and no way is that a preferable service.
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My main problems are the appalling lack of accurate information. We have electronic signs on a lot of the bus stops but they are never working properly and seem to be a huge waste of money. If a bus is late it says it is on time until the time is past when the info switches to the NEXT but in 10, 20 or 30 minutes time. Five minutes later or so the bus turns up. The info on the bus stops is invariably wrong and when there is a change (like a bus being re-routed and so not stopping at a particular stop), there is an A4 poster it 12pt text telling you so and everyone standing at the bus stop as they cant see the notice. These ARE the faults of the bus company.
The other problems are the doing away with fare stages meaning all journeys cost the same which is ridiculous for short journeys (although I don't use the bus for these) and combined with the phasing out of the cross town routes mean you often have to get two buses to get somewhere when you used to have to only get on. Now they are re-introducing special fares on some routes meaning that some people get cheaper fares than others which seems unfair on everyone else. Together with the abolition of the return fare, this now makes it quite expensive to travel by bus. If I go to town it is cheaper for me to take the car which seems ridiculous.
Of course the 9:30 limit on concessionary passes is not the rule of the bus company but a change in the government rules for bus passes. We now have the same restrictions here. That I don't mind, why should the retired who have more free time, fill up the buses and cause problems for commuters. However the restriction of the concessionary passes to before 11pm seems nasty. Why should the elderly be home by 11? the previous bus on our route to that is 10:15. This just seems unkind and disrespectful to the older people to suggest they should be in bed with a cup of ovaltine by 11pm.
So, yes I moan about the local bus company and government policy towards the bus companies. But then again, I have a superb service compared to many country areas (one of the reasons I prefer to live in a town) and all in all it is not too bad (but I don't let my friends hear me say that :) )
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It's a bit cost on local councils, especially the costs are covered by the council where the journey is made, not where the pensioner lives.
Down here, where we have a lot of elderly tourists, it's a massive cost for the councils. There have been court battles between bus companies and councils over the money. The councils don't have the cash, but the bus companies can't afford to lose that much money. It can be a real killer.
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I am not sure I follow this as I would have thought those people will still travel but travel after 9:30 so how is this any different in cost to the council? Anyway, as I say, it is the evening restriction I would resent most if I qualified for one.
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There is a problem of perception. Too many OAPs make younger people avoid buses. It's not just occupying commuter seats, it's discouraging people from using buses to commute in the first place. (which is prejudice, but none the less real for that)
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Do you have a link for that finding? I'd be interested to see the details of how it was surveyed.
(When I was younger I got the bus when I had no other choice, so the age of the other occupants wouldn't have made any difference. What are today's fussier young doing instead of bussing?)
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And the one train company ALWAYS has a totally empty first class carriage, and I have NEVER been able to get a seat in cattle class. Which was fine until I hit about 30 weeks pregnant.
So all in all, I think the trains are absolutely dire. I've felt this even more strongly since travelling by train in France and Switzerland earlier this year, where the experience was nothing but a pleasure (although I do acknowledge the scaling issue). The one thing I can't complain about is the price, because as a f/t time student I have a rail card. I'd be complaining plenty if I had to pay full price, though...
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Instead of their being the public option OR privatisation, I think there should be a public option running the less profitable lines. Commercial interests leave out smaller locations, so a public sector interest should keep something going for the people who would need it.
Of course, I could be talking drivel :)
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And then the contracts said the companies could run it 5% worse than when it was public, which they duly did. Labour did exactly that with the London Underground PPIP. And now the maintenance firm is back under LU control after they fucked it all up and still lost money!
Like Happytune I often see empty first class carriages on trains where standard class is jammed like a cattle truck to Auschwitz. And the train companies don't care. They get the rabble's money as they have to use public transport and the rich's who can buy comfort.
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Virgin takes a shorter time, by about half an hour, but the fare is £35-£40 plus, not both ways, but one way. It comes to £70-£80 both ways at the time I usually have to travel. I'm working and I can't afford that.
London Midland, on the other hand, takes absolutely ages - and is always packed and has no snacks or drinks to buy so take your own or go thirsty - but costs £15. For some reason it's £9 one way and £6 the other. Go figure. So I sit on London Midland with my M&S sandwiches and drink and fume about the time it's taking me.
No, I don't think privatisation of the railways did the travelling public any favours at all.
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I've a lot more sympathy for bus timetablers/drivers, but little for the finance side who don't allow tickets to be transferred between buses or companies. Again, competition means confusion, and a nagging feeling you got a raw deal because you didn't quote the correct passphrase to the driver.
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Yes, that is a glib response, but I've found it to too true too many times to completely ignore. Indeed, I've found that the larger the group of people the more likely they are to be stupid. cF the Northern Rock bank run: if everyone had held their nerve everything would have been fine, but enough people panicked to panic the others and it all collapsed in a heap with everyone much worse off.
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The Big Four (Southern, Great Western, LMS & LNER) worked because their routes were essentially intact from when they had been created in the grouping in 1923.
British Rail worked (more or less) because it had all the routes and that was the framework that Beeching had worked within. However, with privatisation two things didn't work out very well. Firstly as I've alluded to, the routes didn't work properly. Secondly, the way the other aspects of the rail network were split also didn't work properly.
As an example: Network Rail, or whatever they were called initially, having sole responsibility for the track, signals etc. and no income other than selling services to other rail companies. Not a good way to run a business: too many eggs, not enough baskets. Also it didn't have proper reporting structures or accountability in place. Also the legislation wasn't properly in place: I think it was the Potters Bar rail crash that caused the Corporate Manslaughter law to be brought in.
Yes, some things have improved after privatisation, but that doesn't mean that it was privatisation that caused the improvement. Also lots of things, some cited above, got worse afterwards, some of which can be directly attributed to privatisation.
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Beeching may not have liked the railways, but the Minister of Transport at the time Beeching wrote his report was Ernie Marples.
The Marples construction firm made quite a profit on building the M1 shortly after the Beeching report came out.
Ho-hum...
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I also remember the food getting a heck of a lot better almost overnight.
Both of these factors have remained better than they were before.
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As far as food quality I think you're right, it has improved.
However I think both those are actually quite small in the scheme of things. In contract the ticket price for many routes has gone up astronomically. And the complexity of ticket options has become quite bewildering; there is no good reason for inflicting this on the travelling public.
What has improved is the rolling stock. Virgin, in particular, have invested many, many millions of pounds in state of the art trains (within the limitations of the trackwork). We're never going to be able to run French or Japanese style super-high speed trains on the rail network we currently have; to be able to do that sort of speed new purpose built routes need to be built: cF. the Channel Tunnel route and the proposed London to Birmingham route. Also quite a lot of the smaller, regional operators have also invested heavily in new trains.
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I find it ridiculous that it costs more to travel by rail than by plane, and that the cheap tickets appear to be issued on the basis of about one per service.
On the other hand, round about the time of the Kings Cross disaster (I think), I recall hearing one spokesman complaining that London Underground had been consistently too under-funded for essential maintenance for fifty years running, and I can imagine the national network is as bad. That's the kind of infrastructure repairs that should be covered by taxes, but for a private company, the only option is via fares.
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I do that all the time without problems. I don't know what we're doing differently.
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"Why is it that people seem to view it as wrong for bus and rail companies to make a profit?"
I have no problems with companies making a profit *IF THEY DESERVE IT*! Unfortunately I do not consider them (especially the rail companies) to be deserving of taking our money to give to their shareholders when they cannot provide a decent and reliable and worthwhile service.
Once a month I travel to London on a Sunday morning for the LFF and several times a year my journey is disrupted by engineering works meaning either the train from Portsmouth to London via Guildford is diverted via Eastleigh, Winchester and Basingstoke instead (adding over 45 minutes to the journey time) or, worse, having to change to a rail-replacement bus.
Why don't Network Rail do the engineering works at night when the trains aren't running? Because that would cost too much money and thus affect their profits (ie bonuses and shareholder dividends) so, instead, the customers get screwed.
Meanwhile the Government allows them to run a shoddy service and jack up their prices by more than the level of inflation and then the train companies have the barefaced gall to demand increased subsidies because (for some strange reason) they haven't managed to increase passenger numbers!!!
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Another thing about working at night, it can be disruptive to the surrounding area, so tends to be unpopular in areas which are largely residential.
However those don't prevent all night-time working, and it is a practice which can, in my view, be increased, but it isn't a total solution.
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I view it as wrong because imo public transport services are a natural monopoly that should therefore be provided communally. I think the involvement of profit-making entities in this sort of market inevitably leads to exploitation, however hard the govt tries to regulate against it (and in this case, they didn't try very hard).
And as for railways being better now, that I think has more to do with the vast amounts of subsidy the govt has poured into them than it has with privatization. Had they not been first privatized, that money would all have gone to improvements, rather than much of it being taken out as profit as has actually happened.
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I agree with your comment above that food is much better now than it was in BR days, though: and that's certainly very welcome.
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This is what annoys me about the privatization -- it was predicated on the premise that markets are wonderfully financially efficient, but in practice it's no kind of market at all, just a web of subsidies and perverse incentives that ends up sucking money out of the system.