Transport in quasi monopolist areas is one of these fields where markets regularily fail, to deliver the promised results as railway privatizations have shown. At least from a German perspective the single thing that did the most good for the mobility market were the actions of the national anti-trust institution, that brought us affordable inter-city buslines. The railway service is the typical mess. Privatization improved the service quality to some degree, but made infrastructure debt way worse, because the goal of the company isn’t to give us mobility, but to give their shareholders profits. So instead of maintaining bridges, they let them rot and collapse and then they ask the state to jump in and build a new one. The good old strategy: privatization of gains and socialization of losses.
Railways are one of these fields where markets regularily fail to deliver because you are in monopoly region and building another railway system to get some competition is unfeasable.
I don’t really see this as very ideological btw. I just have never seen a public transport market that developed much in favour of the general population without government intervention. So anecdotal evidence etc.
Railways can be privatized if you keep the infrastructure (rails) public. Public railway infrastructure then charge the rail companies for usage of the rails. This should work in theory.
About affordable inter-city buslines, I feel that the new companies (uber like) that handle buses brought much more affordability than any law before.
What happens then is that you get lots of service between big cities, but smaller cities and towns lose service. Unless there are subsidies, prices will also increase.
In Germany at least, rail is viewed as a public good that should provide mobility to people in both big cities and more rural areas. Making it available outside the most heavily trafficked routes at a reasonable price is incompatible with privatization, again unless heavy subsidies are involved.
Railways are one of these fields where markets regularily fail to deliver because you are in monopoly region and building another railway system to get some competition is unfeasable.
I don’t really see this as very ideological btw. I just have never seen a public transport market that developed much in favour of the general population without government intervention. So anecdotal evidence etc.