Taking a poll here among my readers, paltry few there may be:
Do you think public transport companies should aim for profitability or public good?
And don't give me the gigg style answer of "both are equally important".
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Baseball
7 comments:
Its actually a very complicated question of economics and competition. Obviously if it is a monopoly or an anti-competitive market then profitability is out of the question.
This is the age old question of whether government or private sector will run public services better. In the US,if you are republican, you will probably believe the latter. In the specific case of singapore's public transport, I am puzzled that they are actually talking so much about profitability when it appears to be a rather anti-competitive market, and prices are almost arbitrarily raised to give shareholders "profit".
Vengadesh also wanted to say,"In singapore pub transport case, it is a little disconcerting that they are even talking about profitability when it is such an non-competitive market. They raise their prices by edict, and give their shareholders profit, and from what I hear, a lot of profit. They shouldnt even be talking about profit in such a small non-competitive market. My vote is that singapore's public transport should not be run for profit and should be run by the government "
I really like venga's point that Singapore's public transport space is not competitive, and hence any talk about profitability is really quite ridiculous. I strongly believe that the system should be made a pure public good.
i do admit that singapore pub transport is relatively cheap (in fact very cheap) compared to say NYC or worse, london.
but thats not my point. my point is questioning their operating rationale of "profitability". i understand that the public transport companies are now mostly publicly listed companies--> but should we have allowed that anyway? they were listed in the hope of opening up the transport sector, encouraging competition etc... but any idiot would have already realised that singapore is way too small for a competitive public transport sector! i mean, even NYC does not have a competitive public transport sector let alone singapore!
chengdu, china (where i am) has a private public transport market, i think. like there are different bus companies plying the same route e.g. bus no. 16.
(i say "i think" because i can't confirm)
anyway, here's the outcome, when you have 2 buses form different companies on the road at the same place at the same time, these buses try to beat each other to bus-stops because they want to pick up more passengers. it becomes ridiculous to see the buses racing (and trying to overtake each other) to bus-stops.
and the same buses come a pack at a time, not that well spread out.
then they pack so many people on the bus like sardines. and if you thought singaporeans on the bus were sweaty and smelly, you should come check out the smells here. it feels so gross when they bump into you too.
they don't take care of their buses either. the buses screech everytime they brake, fart everytime they stop, sometimes produce black exhaust, roar when they accelerate.
over here the engines of the buses are located at the back and the bus usually overheats, so the back cover is constantly left open and sticks out at people and cars behind it. they don't care to fix the bus
you tell me if pte sector is good or not.
thats why public transport should be a public good i.e. we should not privatize the sector if standards cannot be assured.
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