WP's Transportation Proposal

Much as I am in favour of free markets, the Workers' Party's proposal to nationalise bus services does have some merits given the situation that we have now in our public transportation system.

The current duopolistic situation does not provide no real competition and the Public Transport Council is seen by the commuting public, rightly or wrongly, to more often than not act in the interest of bus operators' profits. The present regulatory regime appears to guarantee the operators level of profits, and given the level of risks that they undertake, one can make a reasonably strong case that the rates of return are excessive.

Operating bus services as a public utility on a cost-recovery basis, as proposed by the WP, makes sense to me in that there is no overt subsidy involved, and there is little or no risk of over-consumption. In fact, even over-consumption of public transport may not be a bad thing if it means lower car usage, which helps to lower our overall oil usage and potentially allow us to cope better with peak oil. Once the effects of peak oil becomes apparent, and it comes both strategically and economically untenable to allow precious imported petroleum to be burnt in privately-owned vehicles, the nationalisation of public bus services may actually be an inevitable means of dealing with oil scarcity.

The argument that profits will motivate the transport operators to provide better service is a tired one that's not borne out by 30 years of evidence. I feel that we should not revisit this issue given the evidence, unless we change the regulatory regime to inject some real competition into public bus services.