[sustran] Re: The Private Provision of Public Transport

[BruunB at aol.com]

I am familiar with some of Jonathon Richmond's writing. He can not be 
characterized as "non-ideological" and therefore "objective". He is 
right-wing in his political viewpoint. Much of the benefit of the 
privatization follows only if you share his values.

I will be the first to admit that a dose of competition through contracting 
out could improve some of the big-city public transport operations in the US 
and elsewhere. I see it every day at my local agency SEPTA in Philadelphia, 
where nothing ever seems to improve. Even if the wages were about the same, 
competitive contracting would decrease the featherbedding and improve the 
manners of the large minority of rude employees who have contact with the 
public.

On the other hand, the benefits from privatization are often just from 
cutting wages, which should be distinguished from other efficiency gains. 
Believing that driving wages as low as possible is good and disrespecting the 
right of workers to collective bargaining is not "non-ideological". Richmond 
listed 5 agencies in the US to discuss as positive examples of private 
contract operation. I know something about 4 of them, and want to add some 
additional considerations. 

Indianapolis has rock-bottom wages but also has by any standard one of the 
worst public transport offerrings of any major US city. Does he show equal 
concern for the skeletal service being offered as he does for the high 
"cost-efficiency"? 

Las Vegas may keep costs down on a per service hour basis, but service is 
quite slow, unreliable, and minimal for a city its size. A faster service 
would serve the community better. At the same time, the efficiency of the 
system would go up. Does Richmond advocate public policy to favor buses with 
bus lanes, signal priority, etc. if he is so concerned about efficiency? One 
could pay higher wages yet still operate as many kilometers every day. 
 
Again, San Diego's efficiency stems largely from low wages including the use 
of prisoners to clean vehicles. But it also stems from light rail lines that 
operate on separate rights-of-way and from operating truncated bus routes 
that connect to it. This kind of network is not possible when there is 
free-entry market and deregulation. While Richmond may be right that there is 
room to fill service gaps with locally run smaller buses, the UK experience 
shows that deregulation causes uncoordinated and unconnected services and 
consequently large overall ridership losses. 

The Los Angeles MTA, like SEPTA, is an example of big-city operations where 
well paid unionized workers have opposed efficiency increasing measures. But 
Foothills Transit, the contract operator that was awarded part of the 
previous MTA service area, in my opinion, is going too far in the other 
direction. It is a low wage operation in a very high cost of living area. 

Furthermore, there are often hidden costs of low-wage operations. In London, 
Transport for London has taken to supplementing wages of bus drivers of 
contract operators in order to slow down turnover, since staff have a hard 
time living on the going rate of 350 pounds per week. My experience is that 
many agencies in the US are incurring high training and administrative costs 
from very high turnover rates. When I say "low wages" I mean wages that are 
so low that people feel compelled to move on when they have a chance, since 
the income is too low to support a family. 

My point is that public transport should be more viewed as an engineered 
system that requires some public investments and coordinated services, and 
less viewed as merely vehicles operating in mixed traffic that consume too 
much subsidy because of "high wages" while ignoring community needs. 

Eric Bruun