so just accept that private companies must run rail for ever more?
Surely the entrepreneurial, agile, flexible, capitalist supermen of the private sector have nothing to fear from the bloated, slow, inefficient, lazy, public sector. They would win easily. Wouldn't they? I just want a way to end this argument once and for all. Which is best? Public or private. Lets commission an independent report on a public sector franchise & a similar private sector one and see.
None of the issues you suggest are insurmountable ( the hardest actually being the finding of the cash) I would suggest setting up an arms length company and transferring in or buying in suitable resource to run those companies along with an increased budget to allow for a bid. That way the risk is on the government body suggesting the idea.
We have just found £1bn to buy of the DUP. £5m is nowt.
Can I remind members that this thread is for discussion of the Scottish Government's proposal for a public sector bid for the next ScotRail franchise. General discussion of nationalisation versus privatisation is off topic.
In line with
IanXC's comments, I'll try to keep this specific to Scotland (I don't think that we could ever settle the privatisation argument "once and for all" anyway - people always have their prejudices and will find a way to ignore inconvenient data).
I've no problem with a "public sector" bidder for ScotRail, I'm pragmatic enough to go with what works - there's good and bad in all types of bid.
The problem I do have is how you'd set that up. And the most practical way of doing this would be to find up to five million pounds of public money to give to CalMac - ten percent of their annual farebox revenue - to put together a bid so that a ferry operator can speculate at running trains?
How do you explain to people in the Orkneys/ Shetland/ Western Isles etc that Holyrood has found millions of pounds for the ferry operator to spend on something that will be of precious little benefit to the islands?
That the ferry operator will be taking their eye off the ball so that they can play trains?
If the bid is a failure then it'll be seen as a waste of millions of pounds of public money.
Regardless of whether Calmac "wins", any ferry cuts/ fare rises/ failure to upgrade older ships during the next few years is going to be used as evidence that "our money was used on central belt trains" - it'd be political suicide.
So, whilst it's a nice idea to have some public sector bid, I can't see a practical way of doing it - and if you are going to go to all of this hassle/expense then you probably want to pretty much guarantee victory.
But, whilst Stagecoach/ First etc may accept losing to each other, they are more likely to submit a court bid to review being beaten by a public sector bidder, since that threatens their future incomes. I'm not saying that it'd be right for them to do this, just that there's got to be a decent chance that they'll get the courts to check for any improper practices... which may delay the winning bid from starting, will add to the costs.
It's not that I don't think a public bid should happen, it's that I can't see a realistic way of how you could set one up in the modern world - maybe in the 1980s you could do things without so much scrutiny but not so feasible nowadays.
It's unarguable that 6tph creates a 10 minute service, while 4tph creates a 15 minute service; ergo the benefit is not just the 5-7 improvement in journey time but also the 5 minute decrease in wait time
Well, six trains per hour means a ten/twenty minute wait at Falkirk High, whereas four trains per hour means a simpler fifteen minute frequency.
It's not all bad.
It's widely recognised that 6tph is treated as a "turn up and go service" and that this brings significant benefits.
It's unarguable that the biggest economic benefits by some margin come from reducing the time from Edinburgh to Glasgow and not the intermediate stations.
That being the case it's certainly arguable that the change improved the BCR.
I'd rather have the full package, but there are a lot of routes where you can get a lot of the benefit for half the price - a lot of people would rather go for the full package with double track/ grade separate junctions/ diversionary routes... lots of "nice to have" stuff - we let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
It's unarguable that spending twice as much would bring more benefits, but it is arguable that spending so much would bring twice as many benefits. And, if we can use that lower price to keep the project alive, or use the money "saved" on other rail projects then I'm comfortable with that.