There must have been no incentives to succeed
Giving it to one or many is the same thing if there is no incentives to succeed and no consequences for failure
Oh, they had incentives alright. I can’t remember which firm it was (Arriva or First Group probably) that handed back the franchise before its contractual due payment to the government... After posting decent profits. If they hadn’t had huge subsidies they would’ve posted losses.
The consequences of failure are nonexistent. If anything, losing a franchise and the subsidies needed to make it profitable doesn’t hurt the company at all. Bailing out can actually reduce risk.
Which is the purpose of this thread. Over many decades the political right in Britain has attempted multiple approaches to privatisation in all manner of sectors like gas, water, airlines, telecoms, steel. The industry that just cannot. EVER seem to stand on its own two feet in private hands without enormous subsidies is the rail system. The UK has been trying to keep it commercial for decades.
In effect the only reason they keep trying to privatise it and chunk it so different firms run different lines, despite having to constantly take back the franchises into public management is a dogged determination to prove that a fragmented market really can run a competitive, modern railway in a small country like ours.
I don’t think the franchise model can work. Maybe a single train operating country could be profitable without subsidies, but can ten or twenty different operators do it? Obviously, no.
It might make sense to do what Labour pitch - bring ended franchises into the “operator of last resort” and eventually privatise that. But if history repeats itself, the service will improve, and costs will come down.
Back to square one. The people will say the only thing that’ll happen if we privatise it (for the third if not fourth time) will be, same as before... the private companies will demand subsidies because it just isn’t profitable if broken up, pocket the subsidies, degrade the service, squeeze a profit for a couple of years. In other words, balls it all up yet again.