Wolfgang Schwanke wrote:
Oliver Schnell wrote in
:

Am 01.01.2012 16:16, schrieb Wolfgang Schwanke:
Oliver wrote in
:

This rotten company in Berlin should be closed. Tendering the S-Bahn
services could be the first step.

Re-nationalise it. A different commercial operator will squeeze it
for profit just like the current one.

Sqeeze for profit?

It has been well document in a number of press reports that the service
disruptions of 2009/2010 were caused by a lack of rolling stock, which
was in turn caused by a lack of maintenance, which was in turn caused
by a closedown of an important workshop, which had been ordered by the
management to reduce costs, which was in turn done to transfer higher
profits to the owner company DB.

So the root cause of all the problems is the desire to make profit in
the management,

The desire has been to convert the S-Bahn Berlin GmbH into a company
showing comparable efficiency than other S-Bahn Systems in Germany.
Is this a mistake? Is it a law of nature that public transport in Berlin
under all circumstances can not be as efficient than elsewhere in Germany?
If yes, please explain, why this is the case.

instead of the desire to deliver a service which they
lack. That is quite normal for the management of a private company. You
can be asured they don't think of themselves as failures because they
achieved _their_ goal, which is to send a profit to the owner.

Even after this cut the S-Bahn Berlin is still quite unefficient.

If they
provide a transport service as a side effect or not is immaterial to
them. However this mentality is disastrous if applied to a public
service, as we can see.

The mentality to run something efficient is "disastrous"?

Conclusion: Do not run public services as private companies, the Berlin
S-Bahn being a good - but by far not the only - example what happens if
you do. Therefore transferring it to a different operator while not
removing the profit making paradigm won't change a thing.

Please tell me then, how Deutsche Bahn manages to do well in other S-Bahn
systems in Germany like Hamburg. Munich or Stuttgart.

How to make profit with a company with a lack of
50% in efficiency compared to other ones, when all bidding for the
same tender?

The subsidies are coming in regardless.

Do they? Why are there significantly less subsidies needed per
passenger or train kilometre elsewhere? I would really like to have an
answer on this to understand why the situation in Berlin has to be
considered different from the rest of Germany.

The management achieve their
profit targets without having to deliver a good quality service. And
they're not interested in the service out of their own mentality,
because their background is not rail. Their background is a managment
carreer. That is what you get when you privatise a public service.

It's the taxpayer who pays for keeping that last socialistic company
in Germany alive.

The taxpayer keeps alive _all_ railway systems in the country,
regardless what labels you choose to attach to them, because they
cannot be operated at a profit. So what's your pint?

That the specific subsidies needed in Berlin to provide public transport
are higher than elsewhere in Germany.

The relevant question is, what conclusion do you draw from this fact?I
presented mine above.

My conclusion is, that the taxpayers money should be used in a responsibly.
And I would like to have that with the same efficiency in Berlin like
in other parts of Germany.

Alternatively I would like to have an explanation, why public transport in
Berlin has to be so much less efficient.

In 2008 the S-Bahn received 294 mill. Euro of public money for running
the train services, meaning a subsidy of 7.5 Euro Cent per passenger
kilometre in addition to the fare revenues.

The fact that it has to be subsidised sounds normal to me, it's being
done in all cities I'm aware of. What's your point?

Once again: the *specifc* amount of subsidy needed.

And its the same with other public transport in Berlin (metro,
tramway, buses). Its level of cost coverage is at 36% (2008). This is
sigficantly lower than for very other big city in Germany, where the
average cost covergae in public transport is at about 60% (2007).

Berlin public transport has somewhat better service and higher usage
(due to low car ownershihp) than most German cities, that may be part
of the explanation.

Nope. The specific subsidies (per passenger kilometre and train kilometre)
are higher then elsewhere. This benchmark already includes the level
of service existing and its usage.

Cost coverage of public transport in Berlin is at 36%, while in Stuttgart
it was at 57% (2011), in Munich 80% and in Hamburg at 75%.
http://www.bkz-online.de/node/317089
http://www.tz-online.de/aktuelles/mu...rer-66123.html
http://www.hvv.de/aktuelles/presse/p...broschuere.pdf

While cutting cost is certainly a good idea, it
should not be done by reducing service or rising fares (which they're
doing though, so you can sleep well).

That is another point. The fares are not that low, that this could be taken
as an explanation for the amount of subsidies.


Oliver Schnell