Re: [Vic] Age: Train fare pledge dumped

[mauried@tpg.com.au (Maurie Daly)]

On Thu, 04 Jan 2001 23:28:40 GMT, "Daniel Bowen"
<dbowen@custard.REMOVE.net.au> wrote:

>"Maurie Daly" <mauried@tpg.com.au> wrote in message
>3a54f9c1.4291054@can-news.tpg.com.au">news:3a54f9c1.4291054@can-news.tpg.com.au...
>> On Thu, 04 Jan 2001 11:32:47 GMT, "Daniel Bowen"
>> <dbowen@custard.REMOVE.net.au> wrote:
>> >But as we know, rail doesn't need to compete with itself: it needs to
>> >compete with the private car, which holds the vast majority of the state
>> >travel market. That should be the motivation to drive prices down and
>> >improve services.
>
>> Not so.
>> Monopolistic providers of services be it rail,airlines or even Telcos
>> have no interest whatsoever in reducing prices of their services until
>> their is direct competition within the same market.
>> We didnt see any reduction of airline fares until the introduction of
>> Impulse and Virgin , likewise Telstras prices only fell with the
>> introduction of competitor Telcos.
>> NXP wont reduce prices unless the Govt forces them to ,or there is
>> direct competition for the rail market.
>
>I agree that this is how it works now; it's not how it should work though.
>
>We don't need public transport providers competing against each other. We
>need public transport providers co-operating to provide a go anywhere,
>anytime, cheaply, quickly and safely, network that works as well as the road
>system does with the private car. Then we'll see real gains in patronage,
>and profitability.
>
>Melbourne has had public transport competition before: think of the Upfield
>corridor. Result? Train line worth billions that gets few passengers because
>it's parallel to (the winner in this case) a highly used tram line. That's
>wasted resources.
>
>> Trains have been competting with cars for the last 80 years but this
>> hasnt brought rail fares down, they just keep on going up.
>
>In suburban areas for radial trips in peak hour trains provide effective
>competition. For any other trip, public transport in Melbourne does not
>provide reasonable competition to cars. They provide only the kind of
>service that people with no choice will use. Very few people with cars of
>their own will use public transport for non-radial trips. If that is
>competition, it's clear who the outright winner is at the moment.
>
>
>Daniel
>--
>Daniel Bowen, Melbourne, Australia
>dbowen@custard.REMOVE.net.au
>http://www.danielbowen.com/
>
>
All true but it simply isnt the way that the world works.
Wouldnt it be great if all the Airlines cooperated with each other and
didnt waste their time and effort running planes on duplicated routes
and trying to poach each others passengers.
In the Telcos case ,rather than having mass duplication of telephone
exchanges that arnt needed or 3 sets of mobile phone infrastructure
when one would do wouldnt it be great if they all got together and
came up with a single fantastic cheap product that would make everyone
happy.

The sad fact of life is that the private sector exists to make money
and for no other reason.
If public transport is privatised ,then the effect is to simply turn
it into a money making scheme for the operator.
The issue of providing an affordable quality form of transport for the
public is simply lost.
The private sector doesnt exist to provide public infrastructure
at its cost , although its fairly obvious that some Govts think that
it does.
If the Vic Govt is unhappy with the way that NXP or indeed any of the
private operators are runing the railways ,then they can always buy
out the franchises,and go back to the good old days.

Its quite amazing that when in opposition the existing Labor Govt in
VIC totally opposed the rail privatizations of the then Kennet
Govt,but when in Govt wont do anything about it.

MD