Action for Public Transport (N.S.W.) Inc.

New report challenges privatisation of public transport

posted Thursday 4 May 2006

John Stone of the Institute of Social Research (Swinburne University, Melbourne) together with Paul Mees, Patrick Moriarty and Michael Buxton, argues in a new report that the privatisation of Melbourne’s trams and trains has been an expensive failure.

By June 2006, the privatised system will have cost $1.2 billion more in public subsidies than continued operation by the former Public Transport Corporation; by 2010 this difference will blow out to $2.1 billion.

The report, Putting the Public Interest Back into Public Transport (http://www.sisr.net/publications/0604transport.pdf), argues that the Victorian state government should replace the franchise agreements with a new public transport agency modelled on the very best in the world, such as those in Vancouver, Zurich or even Perth. It makes detailed recommendations about the best way of establishing a dynamic, efficient, accountable public body to spend the annual $1.2 billion budget.

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