A new report from Campaign for Better Transport has found that rail firms should be rewarded based on their value to the local area in order to maximise “the benefit to society that railways are able to provide”.
It claims that this should be so, not has found that it should be.
“Found” indicates something along the lines of scientific proof. Which ain’t what has been done here at all now, is it?
Ah, the Campaign for Better Transport. A five person operation run by an ex Greenpeace employee “advised” by former LibDem MP Norman Baker. Pretty much all of the advisory board are former civil servants or work in public transport/car sharing.
https://bettertransport.org.uk/what-we-do/how-we-are-run
“ts income was £900,000 in 2006-2007, coming from charitable trusts, transport operators, transport authorities, trade unions and individual donors”
Now, how might we measure the value that something brings to an area?
Could we use the folding stuff in peoples’ wallets, the way they distribute the jangly bits of metal in their pockets, to measure such value?
Or do we need a new committee of our “equals”, one that gets through lots of prawn sandwiches and expenses, to decide how much money to take equally off of those benefitting and not benefitting from the value created, to reward according to the value they believe is being created?
Can’t they just spend their own money on a nicer car? That’s how most of us get better transport.
National Socialist Campaign for Better Transport
Fixed it.
Isn’t the measure of value of a rail service to a locality revealed by the degree to which that service is used to carry passengers and freight to/from that locality, and thus the commensurate ‘reward’ will be revenue from fares and freight charges?
High revenue = high value; low revenue = low value.
That is the objective assessment the market gives, not the subjective one from a ‘report’ designed to propagate the eco-religion.
Yes, the value of a service is demonstrated by people willing to put their hand in their pocket and pay for it, but in all too many situations government gets in the way of the service provision. When I was a local councillor a group of us were fighting the council to allow a piece of land to be used as a bus interchange, and fighting the PTE to get them to put it there. All the bus companies desperately needed it, and were rewarded by their passengers when it opened, government was the obstruction.
“A new report from Campaign for Better Transport has found that rail firms should be rewarded based on their value to the local area in order to maximise “the benefit to society that railways are able to provide”.”
Which would be found in the profit they make, would it not?
“jgh
December 28, 2019 at 6:58 pm
Yes, the value of a service is demonstrated by people willing to put their hand in their pocket and pay for it, but in all too many situations government gets in the way of the service provision. ”
In such a situation then their net value is lower – even negative. Which would still be reflected in their profit.
Already happens doesn’t it? More benefit equates to higher demand and thus higher ticket prices – unless Gov’t meddles
Flatcap, that sounds like a passel of varmints, as Yosemite Sam or possibly Gamecock might say. If I were made Benevolent-up-to-a-point Dictator of the UK, day one would be giving the list of quangos a very serious haircut and making sure that any group whose remit was to provide Lefties with sinecures while trying to fleece the taxpayer was given extremely short shrift.
It’s not just this. Our conservative *cough* government is introducing a social good clause into all public sector contracts. Big firms now have to show how they are providing social good as part of the contract. I’m getting trained in it early in the year.
This means that as well as providing the services the contract needs, such as IT services for MI6 there must be something extra, obviously the government will be paying for, for social good.
So no longer the cheapest provider will get the contract but the one who meets their woke agenda. As it’s the government the saying ‘Go woke go Broke’ won’t apply. They will just dig deeper into our pockets.
So much for a conservative government.
Lord T: any electable, nominally-conservative government these days is going to be faute de mieux. Ideological purity sunk Labour and if they double down by choosing Mong-Bailey then they’re in for a long spell in the wilderness. That time can be used to nudge the Overton window in the right direction.
@Lord T December 29, 2019 at 1:33 pm
Worrying news, Boris needs to neuter Left SJW Civil Service. I pray Boris will do what Left & BBC/Groan say and lurches free market right to Thatcherisim, Reaganisim, Trumpism, Populism….
Please God, let it be so