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How Private Services Work
BillieTheBot
Posts: 8,722 Bot
First Group (annual profits: £210m) run school buses in Devon that are so full and over-crowded that children are having to stand upstairs, and the buses are tilting going round corners.
Story.
"Safety is paramount" to them, of course, but their "hands are tied" because they "can't afford" to run more buses without "subsidy". I didn't realise it cost £210million to run and staff a double decker bus, its a wonder they make a profit at all. Maybe thats why it costs £2.50 for a three-mile return on First Group buses.
I can see the benefits of private companies running commercial buses (and also the disadvantages, but buses are better since the NBC was abolished), but school buses shouldn't be run for a profit at all.
Story.
"Safety is paramount" to them, of course, but their "hands are tied" because they "can't afford" to run more buses without "subsidy". I didn't realise it cost £210million to run and staff a double decker bus, its a wonder they make a profit at all. Maybe thats why it costs £2.50 for a three-mile return on First Group buses.
I can see the benefits of private companies running commercial buses (and also the disadvantages, but buses are better since the NBC was abolished), but school buses shouldn't be run for a profit at all.
Beep boop. I'm a bot.
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Once upon a time, travel to school was free you know.
Apparently three miles is a suitable walking distance for young children...
I lived 2.9 miles from my upper school (shortest route, through woods, a rough area of Bradford and a deserted industrial area) but the bus went the other way, it being more like six miles. I got charged adult rates (£1.20 each way at the time), and then the school continually moaned about all the parents picking their kids up in cars. I can't think why my parents did...
But yes, bus services=wank
*awaits right-winger to arrive and tell us how wonderful a job private companies do running public services*
Ah, it's not so straight forward. My nearest school is a mile away, the school he was allocated is six miles away. However, because the further school was one of our choice options (as was the local school I might add) we have to pay.
Which is why I am pissed off...
In 20 years time we will look back and say "did we really think things through".
It's like the NHS, we'll pay for an OAP to have a hip operation after they fall an break something, but we won't pay £50 for them to have protective "Pants" which stop the hip breaking if the person falls...
Here we won't pay for the kids to get to school, but we will build roads, put in traffic calming measure etc to cope with the traffic...
They do an absolutely fantastic job at running public services.
Look at the profits they make. Shame they aren't set up to have providing the service as their main aim.
Yes, i've never understood why services we NEED should be run for profit. It is no different to privatising the NHS. Luxuries we don't need? Ok, I won't approve but will tollerate that. Things we need being priced up for profit? Wrong. Exploitation.
Which is why I am fucknig fuming at the prices of train fares and busses these days. Gonig up and up, pissing me off and making me poorer.
As has been well documented however this has rarely been the case due to inept govt handling of many contract and the inate difficulties of instilling competitive mentalities into companies which are often in positions of monopoly and on ridiculously long govt contracts.....
To be fair some private frims probably do a good job sometimes but that is unlikely to be reported, there are a lot of big failures though.........
I'm sometimes right wing, and though I agree that the private sector seems to be fucking up royally
...however, I would agree that by itself it doesn't work, because market failure isn't accounted for. If someone can't afford to get to school, they're losing out far more than their £2.50 it costs them, but what do the bus companies care? Thats why I think it shold be run by private companies, but the bill should be by and large footed by the government. And none of this wishy washy 'you live so far away but not this far away so you have to walk'.
And toadborg brought up a good point with the long contracts and effective monopolies. We have a catering service in our school which is crap according to all the students (and the students are the school, surely?) which also coincidentally does cleaning services for the school. It's a 5 year contract, and even if they serve us shit we have to put up with it. Because of the lack of direct competition (i.e. a burger king across the road from a mcdonalds) then naturally they position themselves at an output less than the equilibrium and price greater.
Still, I'm a right winger in the sense that private companies can and do get it right, just with public services in many cases the government needs to be more involved in the process, but not with red tape and such.
Governemnt can handle it better IMHO, it just takes an effecient governemnt to do so, willing to put in the funding. But then some twat will moan about how much the train services takes in cash each year. Well, money = better services. You can either let hte governemnt do this, or pay for a very expensive ticket with a private company. What is it? Tax or more expensive ticket? Plus, the government isn't twenty different companies who will pass the buck forever when an accident occurs.
The problem is operating for profit, and all companies- regardless of owner- do that. But without the incentive of profit then we have a bus every minute to rural areas with nobody on them, because someone else will pay for them.
I'd also point out how much bigger FirstGroup's turnover is to their profit, in the interests of fairness.
I suppose they could do what Arriva do when there is a shortage of buses for the school runs. Pull them off revenue services, leaving a huge amount of people waiting for the next one, leading to a crush on the one that finally does turn up.
sad thing is theyre maximising profits at the expense of safety, one more bus at schoolkids time will solve this
on the other hand, i just caught the bus home from school today, it was MEANT to go up to my road, but oh no....it dropped me off at the market place, about a mile and a half away from where its meant to.....bloody buses
Don't even mention FIRSTGROUP in devon they are complete utter money scrounging gits who only care about profits, i would not trust these people to take children to school safely or on time. They run the school runs in Cornwall too.
I was placed in an awkward villiage for my placement and whilst he LEA, and school I was in agreed to allow me free travel to the school the bus company would not allow it and i had to stay over night every week to attend school due to the service being 3 hours early or 30mins late!
It can never work when the main focus is money and profits. With local strike action recently disturbing the running of school services, I learned how ineffective and irresponsible these people really are.
Thing is, the government hands out the contracts, so if a bus company is grossly irresponsible then they will give the contract to another company. Thus bus companies have a profit incentive to provide a good service. There is a lot of arse whinging about buses everywhere, but in reality the majority of buses arrive on time at their destination etc.
Give tax relief on parents who pay as a group to fund their own buses to school everyday. i.e. parents hire them and fire them, guaranteeing a decent service.
The government/private sector overlap is the worst of both worlds. the unnaccountability of the public sector and the money grubbing of the private.
There is only one accountability worth having - those who pay for the thing should decide everything that it's possible to decide.
I would like to see a bus arrive on time down here First is the only private company until Exeter when stagecoach is the only company. The school in question in the article is nearer to Plymouth than Exeter anyway the fact is with only one company to chose from there is no option of withdrawing the service. We are all forced to use this compant and when there are strikes we are usually stranded without a way of getting to college under the price of £20 (taxi fare)
The bus I catch drives through the most poor/ low socio-economic backgrounds in Plymouth and I really feel for the children who have to pay their transport to school and maybe more taxes should be allocated towards this cause.
Yup. Best services I've actually been on is Anglia Railways. Their carriages are comfy. Shame they go nowhere I ever need to except Lowestoft.
Every other experience i've had with no-longer-public transport has been much the same old shite.
To put into perspective how moronic 'One' are, they are short of trains, yet they have one of their trains sat around near Leeds station that hasn't moved in weeks! Where is the sense in that?
Customers obviously don't matter to them at all.
Word.
I think it's a problem of financing. Nationalised public services can and do work incredibly well elsewhere (namely Continental Europe). So why not here? Well... mostly because they have been starved of money for decades on end, not only by Tories but by Labour governments as well. After many decades of under-investment the amount needed to put things right would be enormous. And the problem with this country is that many people have a surreal aversion towards taxes- which is what would have to be used to put things right.