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Originally Posted by Maynooth_Line
Air travel is a completely different ball game.
1. There are many different competitors on the same route. If I want to fly from Dublin to London I can fly with Aer Lingus, Ryanair, Cityjet, BMI etc.
Commuter transport is totally different. You can't have competitors on the same route. And as it stands it would be madness to split up train or bus routes to different operators as there is no form of integrated ticketing. If they can't get something simple like this right it doesn't look promising for advanced issues.
2. People who say how great Ryanair are and use them as an example of how competition works don't seem to realise that Ryanair are mainly based in Stansted. That is where they really grew and where they became a European rather than an Irish airline. The Irish market is just too small for breaking up transport companies.
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This is sort of right and mostly of wrong at the same time.
1. It is indeed correct that you have a choice in flying. However it is indeed possible to introduce choice on rail lines. there is no reason why on the dublin to cork line say , one company runs trains on the hour, one at tweny past the hour and one at twenty to the hour. This is afterall how planes work.
2. history is entirely on my side. The first suburban rail line was built in dublin by private money.
3. at it's peak ireland had some of the most densily serviced trains in the world thanks to private money.(not to mention 20 odd tram lines, admitedly not comparable to the luas).
4. There is a huge difference between free marketing, why i don't believe in , and competitive markets. if you want integrated ticketing all the minister has to do is make it law.
5. the dublin to london route is the busiest in the world. And it is from this route (sanctioned originally by wee brennan) that ryanair made most of it's money for a long time.
6. to argue that ireland doesn't have a big enough market flies in the face of reality. Aer arann , currently subsidised, is doing so well that it actually plans on operating without subsidy in the future.
we could have 2/3 train companies running on irish tracks competing with each other. we would of course keep the network and the stations.
We could have 7 bus companies moving entire multiples more people around than is currently possible. I believe that the bus company is so poorly run that competition would actually reduce fares. and completely remove the need for an underground.
Undisputable fact is that where companies compete prices come down or stabilise which help the poor most of all. A true socialist would be a pdier. Even in the flawed sale of eircom and subsequent opening of the market , prices have crashed. Our phone bill was once hitting 250 pounds and now does not pass 120 euro despite the fact that some of the family live abroad.
looking to france one can only conclude that unions act in the interest of those who have jobs working against those who would like jobs. Smash them!!