Lessons from Seoul's controversial privatized subway line
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Lessons from Seoul's controversial privatized subway line
1–10 of 71 posts
Re: Lessons from Seoul's controversial privatized subway line
#2Fascinating story that highlights the issues with privatised transport systems (or worse: mixed private/public). Reminds me of the clusterfuck that is the British rail network.
That said, the Northern and Central tube lines (London) are often crowded/hellish like this and are public, I dread to think how awful the tube would become if privatised!
Re: Lessons from Seoul's controversial privatized subway line
#3Great article.
Introducing privatization into networks and expecting solving the centralized government laziness by markets ia a bit naive since on networks you won't have competition. You are only introducing a market of 1 monopolistic player. At that point thr outcome is the same - the uncompeted excess profits being eaten by a corrupt government or by a monopoly company.
If you want competition on networks then compete with other countries, not within your country.
Easier said than done in political systems with 'bosses' with only 4 year stakes and no long term ownership. But at least it's evident that privatizing networks is not the way to go.
Re: Lessons from Seoul's controversial privatized subway line
#4Great article. Introducing privatization into networks and expecting solving the centralized government laziness by markets ia a bit naive since on networks you won't have competition. You are only introducing a market of 1 monopolistic player. At that point thr outcome is the same - the uncompeted excess profits being eaten by a corrupt government or by a monopoly company. If you want competition on networks then co…
If network time were bid on at time of usage, would that begin to move things in the right direction?
Re: Lessons from Seoul's controversial privatized subway line
#5Great article. Introducing privatization into networks and expecting solving the centralized government laziness by markets ia a bit naive since on networks you won't have competition. You are only introducing a market of 1 monopolistic player. At that point thr outcome is the same - the uncompeted excess profits being eaten by a corrupt government or by a monopoly company. If you want competition on networks then co…
Well Singapore also has privatized subways (though recently one of the operators has been re-nationalized) so we will see what happens as a "natural experiment"
Re: Lessons from Seoul's controversial privatized subway line
#6I am firmly against privatisation of essential services such education, healthcare, public transportation, etc. Not everything can operate under such conditions to everyone's benefit. Pretty straightforward stuff, imho
Re: Lessons from Seoul's controversial privatized subway line
#7I don't understand why the operation of the line wasn't tied to performance along certain metrics, like "percentage of cars at overcrowding", customer satisfaction, etc. Annual review, Drop below acceptable threshold on any of these metrics and it triggers a rebidding process and someone else gets to run the line.
Re: Lessons from Seoul's controversial privatized subway line
#8I am firmly against privatisation of essential services such education, healthcare, public transportation, etc. Not everything can operate under such conditions to everyone's benefit. Pretty straightforward stuff, imho
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Re: Lessons from Seoul's controversial privatized subway line
#9I have a hard time following this article because it's so obviously one-sided and ranting.
FWIW the Stockholm Metro is also privatized in the sense that operation, planning and maintenance is done by MTR Corporation, the same company that owns and operates the Hong Kong Metro. MTR also operate a lot of other subway systems in the world, for example Sydney. I don't see any problems inherit in the privatization: Stockholm is excellent and so is Hong Kong.
Tokkaido Line in Japan runs at 187 percent capacity according to a quick googling.
Re: Lessons from Seoul's controversial privatized subway line
#10Great article. Introducing privatization into networks and expecting solving the centralized government laziness by markets ia a bit naive since on networks you won't have competition. You are only introducing a market of 1 monopolistic player. At that point thr outcome is the same - the uncompeted excess profits being eaten by a corrupt government or by a monopoly company. If you want competition on networks then co…
If network time were bid on at time of usage, would that begin to move things in the right direction?
Argentina tried to do this, lost 20 years of maintenance and development.
And remember that you can loosely correlate price with energy usage. Bid at time of use would be energy hungry. I also have exemples of why consolidated actors coming into a new market is actually worse than a govt taking care of the market, and that's make bidding a poor way of privatizing networks.