Perhaps the best public commuter system in the world is the Japanese rail system. It moves people quickly and efficiently and is popular.

It is interesting to note that the Japanese rail system has been almost entirely private in ownership since 1987. It offers a model to the world on what management can achieve when politics does not dictate operating procedure.

To make the railways work we should look to Japan and consider privatisation Japanese style. Although we certainly should not privatise along the lines of the failed British model with its multiple levels of forced ownership separation and verticle tier price controls

Given that Oil is in decline, and the first signs of this are a rise in pricing. The next step must then be a period of rationing. Living in a provincial region in Qld, there is very little in rail or even bus transport, so unless programs to rectify this looming problem are soon implemented we are going to be caught short.
But surely we could glean a better idea by studying 3rd world systems in regard to a preview of a time of shortages and the strategies used to overcome these problems.
This of course does not take into account, for a time of conflict which is another sign of shortages.

I'm not sure that you can just substitute cars with public transport, in our sprawling suburban cities. Cars give the flexibility that allows us to manage our busy lives: people, after work, pick up their kids from school, take them to sports training or music lessons or whatever, and while they're there, do some shopping .... lots of trips are multi-functional and multi-directional.

I used to commute to work by train until the system was electrified with new sealed railcars, which were too crowded and stuffy; so I tried the buses, which were hopelessly unreliable. Here in Perth we've also seen some horrific, brutal attacks on people waiting at suburban train stations. So now I drive into the city and pay a small fortune to park - but it allows me enough time to have a swim before work (I take my life in my hands and ride my bike to the beach), do the shopping on the way home ....

I would like a lot more spent on public transport, and on proper cycleways, and happy to see that money come from a higher fuel excise, but there are other steps we could take to reduce pollution: why not a real incentive for people to have small, efficient cars? why is the car registration for a Landcruiser not 5 times that of a Corolla? In other countries they have strict emission controls for vehicles - we don't have them in WA. The traffic lights are ridiculously unsophisticated - we could do a lot better at keeping traffic flowing.

"Let's get serious about public transport"

I think "public transport" should first get serious about itself - from what I see "public transport" is the epitome of poor performance, wasted opportunity and a millstone around each and every community which attempts to provide it.

It consumes huge amounts of private resources in the pretence of providing a fourth rate monopolistic "service" (ha) - when it decides (regardless of what any timetable might say).

Its single benefit is to provide sheltered workshop employment for the cognitively challenged – I guess it is better than having them destitute – at least it provides, at a price, a diversion for otherwise wasting minds.

If we took the resources presently frittered away on “public transport” and directed them into better road ways for those of us whose licences, taxes and registration fees presently subsidise everyone else ride in “public transport” we would all be better off including too the public transport users who presently expect us to subsidise them in what seems to be a filthy, defective, unreliable and in some cases plain dangerous form of penury.

When “public transport” can either “compete” on a level playing field or better still actually “pay for itself” then “public transport” will have something to offer the consumers / users it pretends to service but simply running round with a begging bowl and demand for public and private funding is arcane, non-sustainable and morally reprehensible.

Let's be clear, there is absolutely no direct link between a transport service's efficiency and its ownership - only a difference in management capability. If we had a government courageous enough to put effective management in place, and then arm them with the same tools that private companies have, industrial-relations-wise, there would be an immediate and permanent improvement. And no need to sell out to private enterprise at all.

No-one can convince me that a business - any business - is inherently more efficient in the private than in the public sector. However, it is in the interests of the capitalist movers and shakers to promote this fiction so that they can take over the assets built up over the years using taxpayers' money and exploit them for the benefit of themselves and their shareholders

If we are not careful - and we certainly are looking at the problem from the wrong end of the telescope here - we will end up paying private enterprise every time we move, car, bus, rail, whatever. User pays is a fine concept, so long as you own the asset being used, and I'd rather not give any more of our common wealth away right now.

Lubs. Sorry for the late reply. No.