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Lessons from Seoul's controversial privatized subway line

seungylee14.substack.com

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Re: Lessons from Seoul's controversial privatized subway line

#21

Post by hackeraccount »

I can understand the privatization maximalists and - though it's harder - the minimalists.

What's harder for me to get a hold on is the people who say some things - transportation, education, healthcare, housing - should be public and everything else should be private. I'd like an argument for why those things and not everything. Why buses and taxis? Why trains but not planes? What about boats? Why people but not goods?

I guess I can take "politics" as an answer but that is a bit disappointing.

Re: Lessons from Seoul's controversial privatized subway line

#22

Post by ciphol »

ammmir wrote: post #17

Although I'm not a peak rush hour user, I love Seoul's Line 9. It has the best logo, the best station arrival jingle, and the stations are generally clean and sparkling new. Sinnonhyeon station, right in the middle of Gangnam, curiously has an entire unusable mezzanine/cavern level that you pass every time you take the escalators down to the tracks. Seems the station was overbuilt for capacity, but the line itself ca…

Every subway line is effectively a monopoly, because for most people one line is much closer/more convenient than the others. If there's one thing that's worse for consumers than a public monopoly, it's a private monopoly.

Re: Lessons from Seoul's controversial privatized subway line

#23

Post by Hokusai »

ammmir wrote: post #17

Although I'm not a peak rush hour user, I love Seoul's Line 9. It has the best logo, the best station arrival jingle, and the stations are generally clean and sparkling new. Sinnonhyeon station, right in the middle of Gangnam, curiously has an entire unusable mezzanine/cavern level that you pass every time you take the escalators down to the tracks. Seems the station was overbuilt for capacity, but the line itself ca…

> if it's all publicly operated, then what's the incentive to keep improving things since your only stakeholder is the public and you're a monopoly anyway.

What is the incentive of a private company to improve anything when they get a monopoly?

Most of these companies have a high incentive to let the infrastructure rot, cut on maintenance cost and let tax payers chip in huge invoices when - years or decades later - it breaks or becomes unsafe. And they create the illusion of 'efficiency' as not maintaining things reduced the cost of operation, meanwhile the government was paying for that.

It's a complex situation.

Re: Lessons from Seoul's controversial privatized subway line

#24

Post by aga98mtl »

I'm confused by the article. The main problem is that the line is too popular because the government under estimated ridership? How does this have anything to do with it being privatized?

When they tried raising prices the city fought them? Should you not raise pricing when you have more customer than capacity?

Re: Lessons from Seoul's controversial privatized subway line

#25

Post by secondaryacct »

bjeds wrote: post #9

I 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: Stockh…

Yes MTR here in Hong Kong is quite respectable: the subway works well, the price is cheap, the company redevelop a lot around stations, it's a model of proper corporate management of public infrastructure.

The only snag they faced in my 7 years here is when they were caught in the crossfire during the protest: at first they would help evactuate protestors during police intervention but then the police asked them instead to help them capture them which led to widespread destruction by protestors.

My own anti protest stance is mostly due to the wanton destruction of MTR properties which I found distracted from the original issue by the angelic democrats turned subway destructors.

Re: Lessons from Seoul's controversial privatized subway line

#26

Post by JacobJans »

hackeraccount wrote: post #21

I can understand the privatization maximalists and - though it's harder - the minimalists. What's harder for me to get a hold on is the people who say some things - transportation, education, healthcare, housing - should be public and everything else should be private. I'd like an argument for why those things and not everything. Why buses and taxis? Why trains but not planes? What about boats? Why people but not goo…

The nature of some things require a monopoly or quasi-monopoly. In those cases, there is an argument for public ownership.

Re: Lessons from Seoul's controversial privatized subway line

#27

Post by scaramanga »

Fizzadar wrote: post #2

Fascinating 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!

I can tell you that line 9 is nothing like the the privatised transport system in the UK (I have lived most of my life in UK, and 7 years in Seoul). It costs about 65p to ride, 75p for the express train, it's clean, safe, comfortable, modern, spacious. The stations are accessible, welcoming, and full of conveniences. Transferring to or from a bus is free. Ticketing is contactless, convenient, uniform across the whole country.

It's like a cheap, modern, less cramped version of the best lines on the tube.

All the other lines are mixed private/public and they run very well.

The story here isn't as simple as "public good, private bad, mixed worse." As with many things in life, it all depends on the actual details.

Re: Lessons from Seoul's controversial privatized subway line

#28

Post by xtiansimon »

bjeds wrote: post #9

I 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: Stockh…

As far as by privatization goes, I don’t much care for it with busses. But I’m having trouble seeing the issue here with the train, other than the financials which seem favorable to the corporation.

Re: Lessons from Seoul's controversial privatized subway line

#29

Post by scaramanga »

chalst wrote: post #13
cheschire wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If network time were bid on at time of usage, would that begin to move things in the right direction?

This is the idea of introducing a complex bureaucratic layer in order to introduce elements of competition into the system. In principle it can work, but such a system was tried with British rail privatisation and resulted in lots of situations where the incentives for the private operators led to really bad service on key lines for many years.

Britain is a perverse example of staggering incompetence and corruption.

Re: Lessons from Seoul's controversial privatized subway line

#30

Post by barry-cotter »

hackeraccount wrote: post #21

I can understand the privatization maximalists and - though it's harder - the minimalists. What's harder for me to get a hold on is the people who say some things - transportation, education, healthcare, housing - should be public and everything else should be private. I'd like an argument for why those things and not everything. Why buses and taxis? Why trains but not planes? What about boats? Why people but not goo…

Things have different properties so they can (and should be) treated differently.

What things should be nationalised and what privatised has been extensively argued. We also have a lot of real world examples of what happens when you nationalise companies. The UK nationalised all its heavy industry and most of its light industry after WW2. It didn't go well. French nationalisation of its finance sector in the 70s didn't work great either. The things that are commonly nationalised are those that aren't huge, enormous, obvious, fast fuckups. Some countries do this better, some worse. But mostly it's kludges based on experience, not principles.

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