Actually a review of most privatised services done not from a cost perspective but a delivery perspective would show exactly that. The service very rarely remains as it was, it normally becomes more expensive or we get less delivery or it fails to cover the whole of the country from Shetland to Cornwall. The delivery is very rarely consistent across the whole of the UK as the companies make profit decisions not citizen delivery decisions. So in your part of the world, you may have efficient rubbish collection, transport systems, and outsourced council services but many parts of the Country do not as the private sector cannot deliver at a cost effective price if they have to put the bin lorries on a ferry to collect the rubbish once a week.
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UK for sale
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Actually a review of most privatised services done not from a cost perspective but a delivery perspective would show exactly that. The service very rarely remains as it was, it normally becomes more expensive or we get less delivery or it fails to cover the whole of the country from Shetland to Cornwall. The delivery is very rarely consistent across the whole of the UK as the companies make profit decisions not citizen delivery decisions. So in your part of the world, you may have efficient rubbish collection, transport systems, and outsourced council services but many parts of the Country do not as the private sector cannot deliver at a cost effective price if they have to put the bin lorries on a ferry to collect the rubbish once a week.
Typical Craig. Let me help you, using very short words. The army isn't a business. OK so far? No one is talking about anything other than businesses. Still with us?
Got any more straw men?
Here's some short words. Stop being nasty.
I was referring to this, from PhantomWolf
Now the issue is this: what things should be considered to be businesses? We seem to agree that the military should not. What about health? Education? Prisons? These are real issues of principle. To say simply, no one is talking about anything other than businesses, begs this question.
ddt
Mafia Penguin
Ever heard about mercenaries? I mentioned Blackwater above. There are more like that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_military_company:
Blackwater are as much not mercenaries as waterboarding is not torture.
The issue is I think, that nobody should have a financial interest best served by going to war. In a similar way, nobody should have a financial interest in putting people in prison. If these interests exist, they will want to bribe governments to adopt aggressive or punitive policies simply to enhance their own profits. It is alleged that prison companies have done this in the USA. See http://www.salon.com/2014/04/15/ame...private_prison_industry_is_exploding_partner/Ever heard about mercenaries? I mentioned Blackwater above. There are more like that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_military_company:
Blackwater are as much not mercenaries as waterboarding is not torture.
That is to say, there are certain things that are "not businesses" because even if the private sector can do them cheaper, they must not become objects of commercial enterprise.
No, you quoted me, not Phantomwolf.
Actually there are lots of reviews of these services and a simple FOI request to a number of local councils or government department would get you isolated results. however on a larger scale the review of PFIs carried out by the government on page 4 states
"We have not seen clear evidence of savings and benefits in other areas of PFI projects which are sufficient to offset this significantly higher cost of finance. Evidence we studied suggests that the out-turn costs of construction and service provision are broadly similar between PFI and traditional procured projects, although in some areas PFI seems to perform more poorly. For example we heard that design innovation was worse in PFI projects and we have seen reports which found out that building quality was of a lower standard in PFI buildings. PFI is also inherently inflexible, especially for NHS projects. This is in large part due to the financing structure and its costly and complex procurement procedure.
There remain significant incentives to use PFI which are unrelated to value for money:
• The majority of PFI debt still does not appear in government debt or deficit figures;
• Government departments can use PFI to leverage up their budgets without using their allotted capital budget—the investment is additional and not budgeted for".
For full report see
Http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201012/cmselect/cmtreasy/1146/1146.pdf
The demand for reviews of all types of privatisation has been growing as can be demonstrated by a quick scan of the Press and Government and Union sites
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...tions-in-wake-of-botched-Royal-Mail-sale.html
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/aug/22/sale-of-century-privatisation-scam
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/07/09/britain-politics-cable-idUKL6N0PK4HB20140709
http://www.pcs.org.uk/en/noms/campaign-issues/petition.cfm
Similar distance (174 km) in Denmark 313 DKK = €42.05 = £33.34. So I don't know what you're complaining about
Then again, the Danish railways have thrown out billions trying to get the IC4 units running, so I suppose they have to recover the costs somewhere.
ddt
Mafia Penguin
And similar distance in the Netherlands: Maastricht-Utrecht is 180km, price €22.90 = £18.16.Similar distance (174 km) in Denmark 313 DKK = €42.05 = £33.34. So I don't know what you're complaining about
So they can deliver working trrams/trains in Italy but not to northern European countries like Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands. Maybe it's an issue they're totally oblivious about climate? About the Fyra:
Did they really not know it freezes in winter?
Indeed, although the Dutch were wise enoguh to dump the train on A/B rather than trying to fix them.
It all seemed so grand back in the early 00's when the order was originally placed. I believe some managing director even called them Ferrari-trains. A big step-up from the 'boring' IC3 units.
Then the deliveries started slipping. It had been agreed that EIS (entry into service) would be in april 2003, with the full fleet being operational in 2006. The first unit wasn't delivered until august 2003, when it was delivered by ship to Aarhus. And I would've loved to have been there, just to watch the faces on the engineers when they discovered that, not only was the first unit 23 tonnes overweight, but the build quality was horrid, with various shoddy fixes being used to patch up problems.
And then the deliveries really started slipping. First test run with passengers wasn't until 2007 - and they soon discovered that a key part of Danish train operations wasn't doable with the train units. A single train departing Copenhagen Central Station might have 2 or 3 destinations, which is only doable because of the layout of the Danish railway system, and because the trains are designed and built to be uncoupled 'on the fly'. The train might start out with 3 or 4 electric/diesel units (IC3/IR4 respectively, they can be coupled together), and as the train passes variours railway branches, a unit can be decoupled to serve that branch. Saves space on the busy mainlines, while still allowing for direct passenger service from the capital to smaller cities. Clever as hell. And the IC4 can't do it. They can be decoupled at a depot just fine, but the 'Press two buttons and the rear unit decouples'-trick of the IC3/IR4 just can't be done.
And then the serious issues started showing up. IC4 units that failed to brake when commanded. And the public starting getting suspicious. A particular serious incident, where a fully loaded passenger train failed to brake, continued past a stop signal and only stopped some 374 metres behind a stopped cargo train, was waved off as being due to leaves on the tracks. Which was interesting as the incident happened in an area of open fields and no woods around for miles.
All this trouble and we can't dump them, because the Danish Railways had a very poorly written contract with A/B. Intead we got discounts on spare parts, a discount they failed to fully utilise to absolutely no surprise. No need to buy spare parts when the trains aren't running in the first place!
Oh, and then there was the time A/B took one of the IC4 units from the factory and gave it to Colonel Gadaffi(!): http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showpost.php?p=73028985&postcount=8
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I've been on an Italian train doing that, stopped at Cassino station. And I agree it wasn't a "press two buttons" operation, but lots of hammering and clanking for about ten minutes, as it was done manually by workers on the track. Unfortunately I can't remember what model of train it was.
Is this discussion a "derail"?
In the case of IC3/IR4 it really is a two-button job. As the train approaches the station where the decoupling takes place, the train conductor will close the passage between the units, push the engineers console into place, and press a button requesting decoupling, once they're at the station and the speed is low enough. The engineer at the front of the train sees a button light up on his console, and at the required spot at the station, pushes the button which completes the uncoupling and activates the brakes on the rear unit.
Or, the illustrated version:
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ddt
Mafia Penguin
Well, the Dutch Railways (NS) tried to play ostrich for a while, after the Belgian Railways had already publicly dumped A/B and there was mounting criticism from the Dutch public and government.
The Dutch railways could learn from that, they operated such a system in various lines for decades - but AFAIK, never with the "press two buttons and presto" system you have. For instance, the slow trains from Zutphen and Nijmegen would combine in Arnhem, then continue as one train to Utrecht and Gouda, and split there into two trains again going to Rotterdam and The Hague. The star shape of the Dutch railway grid lends itself for that too.
I thought the Danish Railways tried to fix the trains themselves? But yes, it still surprises me when such situations are not well exploited - especially with the public outcry about it.All this trouble and we can't dump them, because the Danish Railways had a very poorly written contract with A/B. Intead we got discounts on spare parts, a discount they failed to fully utilise to absolutely no surprise. No need to buy spare parts when the trains aren't running in the first place!
They are, since the IC4 units continue to be delivered as defects from the factory in Italy, but that's mainly because they haven't got a choice. With the IC4 now running 10 years late and still unable to perform its core task, this has had a knock-on effect on the whole plan behind buying them in the first place.
The idea was for the IC4 units to take over the mainline intercity runs, replacing the current IC3/IR4 units who would then be freed up to run on the regional routes, replacing the rapidly aging mix of rolling stock (a combination of Class ME (currently under fire for being very polluting) pulling some leased (since bought) Swiss Bombardier doubledecker coaches and some old 1970's/80's DMU's which noone really likes). However, with the IC4 being very unreliable and only able to operate certain routes, the IC3 instead plows on on the mainlines.
The government meanwhile, has launched a plan to electrify the rest of the mainline by 2020, which throws a spanner into the whole mess. Since electrification means the IC4 won't be first choice for intercity routes (the intention is to buy proven rolling stock 'off the shelf' from a manufacturer), dumping more money into fixing them isn't exactly the popular choice. Of course, noone can say for sure if the government can actually pay for the proposed electrification in the first place, so the Danish Railways soldiers on.
They're damned if they do, damned if they don't.
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