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Originally Posted by Chris
Because the profit incentive produces innovation and efficiency. Come on ... This was one of the key ideological arguments of the 20th century. News flash: Statism lost.
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I am talking about the specific application of the principle on the rail network. You can't just declare Statism lost and the argument as been won. France, Germany and even America have state run railways. We still have many services run by the state. It's not a question of if the state should run everything or nothing but the degree to which the state is involved. Pretty much every nation has varying degrees of it.
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It's not an issue of "track quality" - incidents at Ladbroke Grove, Potters Bar and Greyrigg demonstrated chronic safety issues, both in terms of the physical state of the track and the safety culture - or lack thereof - of those who were supposed to be responsible for its maintenance. These issues stretched back well before privatisation (see: Clapham Junction) but if the involvement of private companies is what it took to force the issue up the agenda, then that's all to the good.
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I would say the incidents themselves contributed to the awareness of the dire state of the infrastructure before rail companies complained. That and the increased amount of passengers on the rail networks as the country becomes increasingly centralised in urban areas.
I don't think we need to involve companies so we can have a contractual way of holding the Government to account for the state of the rail network. This wasn't even the intention of privatisation as the rail network was privatised and failed so now we do it. We're stuck with a situation that even those behind the scheme didn't want. A hybrid system where the major investment comes from the State and the companies run the service and the rolling stock - badly.
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A state owned and operated railway will always have to fight for an allocation of cash in the government's annual planned expenditure, and is as vulnerable as anything else that relies on same, namely everything else overseen by the DoT, the home office, foreign office, DfE ... You name it. Contractual obligations to third parties is what has allowed our railway network to first of all overcome its chronic safety issues, and now, to begin to address chronic capacity issues.
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This is already the case now. HS2 is being funded by the state. Voters can decide where it should be priortised, not third parties.
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This is nonsense. The Great Western and West Coast franchises outperformed East Coast in terms of passenger satisfaction and other key measures throughout its stint under DOR control. In any case, the best comparison will be between DOR and the next five years performance under Virgin, as there was not another operator running like for like services on the same track at the same time. Comparing DOR with a prior franchise whose operator conceded had failed is somewhat pointless. The fact is, national rail franchises do not routinely fail. This was exceptional, and comparing an exceptional and rare private failure with a brief period of state control in which nothing went wrong, but in which nothing was spectacular either, tells us nothing useful.
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OK I will concede East Coast may not the best example.
Still. It takes a lot of fail. You need to be really bad to have the franchise taken away from you. One I used was routinely late, 4 carriages instead of 8 at rush hour had the time, broken down train after broken down train, trains cancelled and refunds not materialising. It took years before they lost the franchise. The new one is better but still undependable and the cost insane.
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See above. Give people a profit incentive and they operate more efficiently and innovatively. The market, regulated where necessary, works. Simple as.
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Why? It's not as if they'll be kicked out of business by more efficient companies. They have a monopoly on the line as long as they meet the targets. Other than that they'll be encouraged to keep as much money as they can in profit before the tender is up for renewal. They will have to be doing some impressive job to do well enough to make a profit and still be cheaper than the state. I think that one of the central reasons privatisation works is competition which doesn't exist on the railways.