Most businesses have a cost and set a price for their services in line with costs. That is everybody except the rail services in Sydney. Check out this article:
It's been revealed that NSW Premier Nathan Rees is being urged from within his own government to make public transport free for everyone as part of a radical bid to win the next election.
The Daily Telegraph says it's also learned the government is doing extensive modelling to make ticket prices fairer for outer suburban commuters if the free transport move does not go ahead.
The paper says that if public transport were to be completely free it would cost the government about $1 billion a year.
But fares only cover just over a quarter of the $3.8 billion total cost of operating public transport.
The move could save hundreds of millions in staffing costs and ticket-machine operations, and abolish the trouble-plagued smartcard.
Blacktown MP Paul Gibson has lobbied Mr Rees to consider the idea, and says it would take pressure off the roads, shore up Labor's western Sydney heartland and help win the green vote.
Mr Gibson told the Telegraph Mr Rees gave him an undertaking to cost the proposal when he last raised it several weeks ago.
The paper says Mr Rees is unlikely to back such a move at a time when the budget is already in the red.
Get that? The amount of money paid by the public only goes towards about a 1/4 of the annual cost of running the thing. Clearly the price hikes they've been carrying out have been largely irrelevant attempts to raise more money to cover the 2.8billion that's never going to be covered.
At the same time, you'd have to say that they're actually charging too much for their services which in turn is driving people to just drive their cars instead. As the article points out, if the PT system goes free, they also cut out the cost of ticketing and the execrable smartcard system.
I doubt the NSW government would ever give public transport away for free (although they might if it won the ALP an election), but they could afford to slash the prices radically to about 1/5th. They might be pleasantly surprised at just how many people would go back to braving the PT system.
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