[sustran] FW: The Private Provision of Public Transport

[Paul Barter]

A book that focuses on the US situation but probably has wider relevance and
of interest for sustran-discussers.
Paul

-----Original Message-----
From: Jonathan E. D. Richmond [mailto:richmond at ALUM.MIT.EDU] 
Sent: Friday, 25 January 2002 4:12 AM
To: UTSG at JISCMAIL.AC.UK
Subject: The Private Provision of Public Transport


[posted with permission from Frank Montgomery]

"...should be required reading for all researchers and practitioners
involved in the delivery of urban mass transportation. ...promises to become
the definitive coverage of the current state of affairs in transit
privatization in the U.S. at the opening of the 21st century."

So goes the review of my book, "The Private Provision of Public Transport,"
in the Autumn 2001 issue of the Journal of the American Planning
Association. I'm writing this note because a UK distributor has just been
arranged. www.profbooks.com is carrying the book, and the title is in fact
currently the "Editor's First Choice" in their Transport and Logistics
Bookshop on their website. Since airmail postage for single units shipped
from the States is prohibitive, it will be cheapest for those in Europe to
obtain copies from Profbooks.

The book started out as a project to see whether decision-making on
providing services in-house or by outsourcing was the result of financial
analysis or political ideology. Interviews conducted in eight cities for
seven case studies indicated the latter, with data analysis generally
doctored to favor the prevailing political view. Republicans and Democrats
were equally to blame for unreflective thinking, whether in the uncritical
pursuit of the private sector or its unqualified rejection. In framing the
debate as a public vs. private one, no attention is paid to the possibility
that public operations could be reconfigured to take on some of the
advantages of private services while retaining those features that make
public operations desirable.

A book by someone writing from a planning perspecive will, of course,
ultimately need to focus on the client, and it is the public transport user
who has no voice in a process where developing any notion of good service is
subservient to obedience to political motivations and beliefs.

There are five chapters covering bus operations, in Denver, Indianapolis,
Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and San Diego. Looking at privatization from a
different -- community -- perspective, I also included two chapters on
jitneys, generally run by low-income, minority operators catering for their
local communities in Miami and New York. Urged on by union pressures as well
as self-preservation, local planners and Democratic politicians have tried
to close down operations which offer a level of service the public sector
has never provided, and have shown little interest in integrating it with
their own. Planners impose their own values in deciding what service ought
to be, failing to appreciate that local users might like the very
reggae-playing non-air conditioned and not always terribly safely-driven
vans that they find scary, and regard the refrigerated but hard-seated and
infrequent and impersonal government-subsidized monoliths that ply the
streets as the undesirable and inferior good.

While the book focuses on American examples, its content is relevant to
debates about privatization around the world. It has, indeed, been featured
in The Economist, and was presented as part of a programme I arranged at MIT
to brief four members of the London Assembly visiting the States on
transport financing and service delivery issues.

If you are interested in reading the conclusion before purchasing, the final
chapter can be found on my web site at http://the-tech.mit.edu/~richmond.
A related article I wrote for the Los Angeles Times is also available there.
The order form on the site should only be used for ordering directly from
Harvard (which requires $9 shipping for orders to Europe, but is postfree
within the United States and to Canada). The book can also be ordered
through any US bookseller. If you are in a part of the world not yet
mentioned, please verify shipping costs at www.barnesandnoble.com or
www.profbooks.com as against directly from Harvard.

I'll be pleased to receive any comments from those of you who read the book,
and would also appreciate recommendations for purchase by university
libraries if you feel this is appropriate. Thanks!

                                                --Jonathan Richmond
-----

Jonathan E. D. Richmond                               (617) 864-6394
79 JFK St.
Cambridge MA 02138-5801
USA

e-mail: richmond at alum.mit.edu http://the-tech.mit.edu/~richmond/