4.1 London, England In 1996, Britain privatized its railways, contracting private companies to operate trains and maintain the rail lines. The argument for privatizing public transportation is that private companies pursue cost-minimizing strategies, which means that public transportation can benefit from the more efficient outcomes. This has proven to be the case in London, where the central government’s spending on the railway is mainly payments to franchised train-operating companies and Network Rail, which is a semi-public body. Overall, costs for the railways have been lowered in London “reducing operating costs by about 10 per cent” (White, 2009). Private companies tend to shift the main focus of public transportation from service to profits, which may compromise the original purpose of providing public transport. This has been proven tragic in Britain, where privatization had caused more cost than benefits. These private companies simply focused on profit maximizing and cost-cutting, compromising the safety of the public transportation systems that were already set in place. For example: "Employees took cost-cutting shortcuts when replacing the rails, including skipping a necessary step that would prevent the new track from cracking in cold weather" (Tomchick, 2003), “falsified maintenance records on 40 miles of track” and had "cost-cutting layoffs by London Underground had led to deterioration of the rails." This in turn led to many accidents that cost the lives of citizens. In fact, following Britain's privatization of its public transportation systems, the privatization instead caused more cost than gains. Reports have shown that the public transport's profits had plummeted, "Network Rail has, it is true, slumped from a... ... middle of paper ... ...private, among which two are private and one semi-private (Yvrande-Billion, 2006). Privatizing the transportation systems in France allows for development of new technology. As the private companies aim to be cost-minimizing and competitive, they would pursue developing new and more efficient technology, which would then benefit society as a whole (Amaral, 2013). The French government manages the Urban Public Transport by keeping the number of bidders low, with 3 main French transport operators. The adequate regulations from the French government had aided the public transportation system to work efficiently. It benefits from the competitiveness of the private sector, in cost reduction (Chen, 2013), advancement in technology, etc. Yet, its regulations and contracts ensure that the private companies operate effectively, transparently, with better management of risk.
Municipal control or an alternative delivery method? This is the question that has intrigued all levels of local government and created intense debates between taxpayers across municipalities. The services that municipalities provide are often vital to the existence of a local area. The issues of accountability, cost savings, quality of service and democracy often arise when choosing the best options to deliver services to a municipal area. In recent years the concepts of privatization, alternative service delivery and public-private partnerships are often promoted as ways cut down on overburdened annual city budgets and promote a higher quality of service to citizens. Municipalities have historically always provided basic services such as fire protection, water purification/treatment and recreational facilities. However, would private companies or another municipality be able to better deliver the same services more efficiently or at a lower cost? The city or town often provides a political grass roots approach to most local problems. Municipalities are better positioned and have a wider scope to provide services to their constituents in order to ensure quality of service that does not erode accountability and transparency, or drive the municipality deeper into debt.
The growth of the railroads would then lead to the improvement of the transportation networks. Moreover, it was obvious that the railroad system would be a large structural, engineering and financial feat and given Canada was not in the best position to afford such a system, “the promoters [of the railway, therefore] turned to Britain” and the United States for help in funding the railway system (including the Grand Trunk Railway and the Victoria Bridge). Given Canada’s economy was not strong enough to fund the entire railway system, they scrambled for capital to finance it and politicians also passed laws that guaranteed companies who invested in them would be funded.
In the domestic level, CSX in terms of the capacities for train traffic is to a certain restricted as per the Environmental Code that is set by the Transportation Rail Ministry where the companies are supposed to reduce their shipments due to ecology and environmental concerns (Patty, 2015). The legal regulations mandate CSX Corporation to accommodate both the shortened stocks and short line railroads that might lead to reduced productivity and the efficiencies of domestic and intermodal operations of the freight. The political intentions of systemizing the rail routes so that they can be able to gain additional taxes depict CSX corporations cost managements with regards to the expenditures on the obligatory equipment.
Peratta, Ed. ?Despite bumps in the road, privatization races on.? American and City and County Oct 1995: 50.
Automobiles play a major role in today's society. Almost every American owns at least one motorized transportation vehicle. Some say they make our lives better by reaching places faster than before. Others say they are a harmful to the environment. Have they made our society better or worse? They may be fast, but do we as humans want our environment to suffer because of time. Face it, cars pollute. And they release destructive chemicals into the air. Air pollution can threaten the health of many subjects in the environment including human beings.
The economical advantages are those that are most evident in our nation these days. Consumers want products, products need delivering, deliveries require logistics, and logistics cannot be performed without the proper road network. It is here that EU grants have helped, being instrumental in the upgrading of our road infrastructure, allowing them to cope with the increased flow of traffic create...
Finding ways to move goods from one point to another at a reasonable cost and within an acceptable time frame is a growing challenge for global businesses today. The costs and risks associated with transportation are increasing with the advent of globalization and low-cost-country sourcing. Even for companies with local operations only, they have to supply their products to various parts of a country which increases the costs and risks. Since the cost of gasoline has been on an upward trend, high level of efficiency in transportation is required to lower the costs involved and the risks associated with the costs. Costs concepts in transportation include economic, social and accounting costs. The risks and costs involved increases if the various modes of transport are used. There has been concern over many businesses failure to strategically think when they employ multimodal transportation services. Many businesses prefer the least expensive multimodal model instead of choosing the most effective; this trade-off is very expensive with hidden costs and risks increasing significantly (Molenaar, Anderson, Schexnayder, National Research Council (U.S.)., National Cooperative Highway Research Program., American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials., & United States, 2010).
Lack of market discipline. Governments have chosen to keep certain companies/industries under public ownership because of their strategic importance or sensitive nature.
Public transportation is an essential part of a city. A good public transit can encourage a city’s economic activities and can provide its citizen a convenient life. Does our Phoenix public transit work well? Does it provide sufficient service to the citizen? From my experience, the answer is no. This November I tried to attend the popular State Fair in Phoenix. However, I found that there were not any buses or metros could take me to the fair directly. It means I need 2 hours or more spend on the public transits. As the sixth most populous city nationwide (“Phoenix Quick Fact” 1), compared with Los Angeles and other big cities in America, Phoenix’s public transportation is indeed subpar. Due to Los Angeles has 154 bus lines and 30 metros (“Schedule”), New York has 316 bus lines and 28 subways(“Maps & Timetables”), while Phoenix only has 98 bus lines, and the number of metro line is only one! (“Route Schedules & Maps”) The problem is
Should students take advantage of the public transportation more seriously than owning a car? The public transportation can solves to numerous problems; the bus transportation can be a universal antidote for bigger issues such as global warming. By taking the bus can save students’ time and money, rather than students who have a car have deal with traffic and expensive parking fee. Students who own a car might experience sitting in such a long traffic, where during the traffic cars may produce noxious gases relieving particle of air that can contribute the affect to human health. The public transportation is the best solution for an enormous population of students, so students’ needs to get on the transit a try. The transition system in the
For formulating a more efficient transport pattern, there are some specific strategies. Firstly, government can encourage people to pay more attention to public transit. The actual data about transit use from most cities indicates that transit use is growing in many cities, in addition, some developed cities have been reducing their car use and pay more attention to the public transport (Newman, 1999). Encouraging urban citizens use more public transit is effective in reducing the quantity of private cars. It is generally known that private cars have brought great pressure on urban traffic. Secondly, government can restrict cars based on the “odd-and-even l...
First of the difference between public transportation and private car is convenience in travel. There are many type of transportations that people can choose to travelling such as bus and van. People can save time to go work in morning and to back when they finished working. Even though, people have to go to work in a crowded bus, people can avoid and also less traffic jams from using their own car on the road. If they go to work or somewhere by private car, they will get serious when they get stick in their car for a long time. People do not have to find parking when they go out to work or shopping. Moreover, public transportation saves environment because it helps people decrease air pollution from using private car.
In this article we are going to look at public transport via the private vehicle. There are advantages and disadvantages to both, yet routine and personal circumstances will often define which is the most appropriate to your lifestyle.
...er commutes. In analyzing all the traffic congestion policies, I believe this policy alternative will have the greatest impact in reducing traffic congestion. It properly prices the roads in which supply will equal the demand. In addition, it generates revenue for the local government which can mitigate the costs in maintaining the roads and infrastructure.
Confronting the challenges of the future will often require the adoption of new business models. The majority of urban transport business models are at the growth or maturity stage. These models embrace technologies developed for both individual modes of transport and collective modes such as bus, tram and train.