The Public- versus Private-Transport Debate

Abstract

The debate between the proponents of public and private transport has passed through two main phases. In the first, the argument was that, simply in terms of the capital and operating costs of the transport system, the institutional arrangements gave too much encouragement to private transport as opposed to public. Originally the debate was seen largely as one concerning the correct recovery of the ‘track costs’ incurred in the provision of roads, in order that road transport should not benefit from the fact that the state provided its track whereas railway companies were responsible for the provision of their own track. This argument was influential in the controversy which led to the introduction of licensing systems for the operation of public road goods and passenger services in the 1930s.¹ However, at that time, the rivalry was seen largely as one between public road and public rail services. Thus licensing did nothing to prevent the spectacular rise of private transport to a situation where it accounted for 80 per cent of passenger-miles and 26 per cent of freight ton-miles in 1972.¹ Indeed, by hampering the growth of public road services, the licensing system may actually have encouraged the trend towards private transport.

For a fraction of the money the nation is currently spending on the maintenance of private cars and on the Government services necessary to keep the traffic moving ... we could provide a comfortable, frequent and highly efficient public transport service.

(Mishan [1] p. 128)

Since 1945 it has been the policy of successive British Governments to subsidise rail transport and to tax road transport.... It is difficult to justify this policy on economic grounds.

(Roth [2] p. 22)