Firstly, I have to agree wholeheartly with what Derek said and i concur with the points he makes.
Secondly, I am by no means a socialist. I believe competition can work, in certain areas. But I find EU imposed competition for competitions sake in certain areas as pointless and doing more harm than good.
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Originally Posted by why_does_planning_suck
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.
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As Derek said its all on one line and that causes problems. Due to the nature of trains people will get on the first one thats there. What is the point of having loads of different companies on the one route anyway? Prices would be regulated so they're not going to dash to cut prices.
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Originally Posted by why_does_planning_suck
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).
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Yes and why was it nationalised? People began buying cars and abandoning the railways. Sure how many lines that have been closed were built by private money? Nearly (if not) all. Different time, different circumstances.
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Originally Posted by why_does_planning_suck
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.
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Thats what he has the RPA doing but they can't seem to do it.
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Originally Posted by why_does_planning_suck
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.
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Thats when Ryanair were smaller, to expand they had to look beyond Ireland. Same with Aer Arann, they're developing routes outside Ireland between the UK and France. They're not limited to Ireland.
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Originally Posted by why_does_planning_suck
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.
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What actual improvements do you think a private company would make? Besides for no industrial relations messing how would the customer benefit? Threatening to take away their operators license for the route wouldn't do any good. The staff and rolling stock would remain the same, as would most of the management. You'd just be changing the bank account to where the money is paid and logo on the train. And even if there was positives to doing it I don't believe the civil servants would do it right. It'd be way too risky to mess around with a vital service.
There is already alot of competition on intercity bus routes, which is reducing costs and improving services. But saying it works on Intercity buses so it'd work on commuter buses is a too simple approach.
Just to clarify, I'd have no problem with the IE management being changed or even letting a private operator run the entire show once the appropriate safeguards were put in place. However breaking it up just for the hell of it so you can say we've got competition is something I don't agree with.
Posts merged. No need for two seperate ones, use the edit button. - Paul