It's curious but unsurprising that privatization of public transport is considered an answer to congestion when existence of good (or great) public transport is the working answer one can find in many places around the world.

When I visited NYC two years ago, I was blown away by how unbelievably bad public transport infrastructure is.

The most flabbergasting thing was the absence of Metro ring lines around the center. The fact these have not been built, in 2025, when Metro transport networks in most cities are now over a century old, is telling.

IMHO the real problem is cars. The US still can't imagine itself without cars.

I live in Berlin center. The only reason for me to own a car is prestige. So I don't.

During rush hour any destination I go to, even outer city, would take me the same time by public transport as by car. At least.

During non-peak hours going by car can be from 25-40% faster than by public transport if you trust Google Maps & co.

But these estimates only consider travel time. When you add finding a place to park at the destination (and walking to the destination as the place may not be right in front) this shrinks to either negative numbers or max. savings of maybe 25%.

My average travel time is around 30mins by public transport. This includes walking to and from the station.

Why would I own a car to save maybe, on a lucky day, 5mins?

At the same time bike infrastructure is being improved. Lots of side streets have been declared bike streets, cars may only enter if they have business there (you live there or deliver something).

The city has enforced this with blocking off intersections on such streets with permanent structures that let only bicycles pass.

Big streets have bike lanes that are often separated by a curb or bollards from car traffic.

This makes it also less nice to drive a car. You can't use Waze any more to guide you through side streets to avoid congestion because these streets can't be passed through any more by car, only on foot or by bike.

Which means the chance of being stuck in traffic increases. When at the same time you have options to be there just as fast with public transport and almost as fast but more healthy and with less likeliness of being ran over by a car, by bike.

These ideas are not new. And there are many more things other cities do to reduce car traffic/need for cars.

If you think of private mini busses, the best examples IMHO is actually ridepooling, e.g. Volkswagen's Moia in Hamburg and Hannover.

Growing up in Jersey we called them jitneys. And no, they don’t have them in other cities.

In Japan there are almost only private buses. many are run by and around the private train companies as a way to get their trains to be more useful to more people like when a 25 minute walk from the closest station is a 10 minute bus ride and the busses come often enough to be convenient

In Moscow there are 2,5 cases of commercial buses: routes that differ from city-owned ones (both local and between parts) and downtown-to-satellite-city_name where there is no other public transport. Both mini and normal buses are being used, as you might guess they are still operating because they fill the niche and are faster than public buses because those have stops each 2-3 minutes. Subway there is far more preferred if it's even remotely an option, due to congestion and reliability.

A lot of the UK did this in the 1980s and it’s turned into such a disaster, most mayors and local authorities are trying to move to the London model: companies can bid a flat rate to deliver a bus service (effectively, they commit to providing drivers to deliver the timetable). TfL collects all fares. They also - I think - supply most of the buses to ensure they are of a certain standard, but the companies need to lease them, and maintain them.

This means you get private companies trying to lower costs and so costs are privatised, but the profits (if any) are socialised into a public authority.

This then allows TfL to offer system-wide passes making bus travel over all 43 boroughs cost effective.

I don't think London has private mini buses like that, just a huge amount of buses.

They are operated by companies for TFL (though they are all red, you can read the company name).

I'm not sure at what point that arrangement happened, somewhere between the outright privatisations of the 80s, or the stealth ones of the black years, which used PFI.

In Ho Chi Minh City (and probably Vietnam in general but not 100% sure). Our commercial district is very concentrated.

The busses in general are some form of public-private partnership. Several private bus companies operate the city busses. There are some annoying edge cases. For example, pre-purchased tickets are a mess -- better pay cash. If another operator takes over your route, even temporarily, your tickets can't be used.

Mostly it seems to work though, I take the bus fairly regularly and it's quite nice. It's clean, has OK air conditioning, and arrives frequently enough that I don't have to check the schedule. There's someone to help elderly people and children on and off the bus. Elderly people ride free, reduced price for students, etc. It's pleasant.

Some of these busses are mini-versions for less popular routes. I think I've even seen a couple of other vehicle types, like some form of van (rarely). One or twice a sort of truck with benches.

>>> I'm curious, do other larger cities where commercial is concentrated into one area not have a private mini-bus(es)?

Hong Kong has public and private mini busses. They are distinguished by the color of their roofs, green or red.

The parent is almost perfectly timed with Uber's announcement. Suddenly it's a hot topic, though without mentioning Uber.

>>> I'm curious, do other larger cities where commercial is concentrated into one area not have a private mini-bus(es)?

It turns out, there are some private buses. Take for example, Santiago, Chile. It succeeded in terms of profits and customer satisfaction. The problem is they do not survive. There comes a time when they don't pay sufficient "political capital" and get taken over (nationalized) by local politicians.

The result of the private bus system nationalization by socialists is macabre, at least this the Santiago case. First, the newly minted public bus service went from $60M USD profits, to massive $600M in losses [1] overnight. That is a negative 10x return. And service declined as well. [1] But that in itself is not a new story.

Now, fast forward ~12 years. The system bleeds so much money that the govt is forced to increase bus fares. The increase in fares activates the biggest riots the country has seen in decades [2]

Out of the riots, one young protester rises to the top. He comes with ideas of a new constitution. He is a young socialist leader. A certain Gabriel Boric [3], who had ran and won for president of University of Chile Student Federation against the leader of the Communist Party of Chile [4]

So now we come full-circle: A working private bus service was replaced by socialist politicians into a public bus system that hemorrhaged 10x more money than it earned previously in actual profits. The public bus funding crisis and subsequent fare hikes led to massive riots, which were a direct on-ramp for a socialist to ascend to power as president of Chile. In short, successful private local bus enterprise was replaced with a socialist bus system, which then proceeded to implode. This implosion of a socialist idea led to the spread of even more socialism, but now at a national level.

This chain of events from beginning to end, only took 20 years.

[1] https://www.econtalk.org/munger-on-the-political-economy-of-...

[2] https://www.scmp.com/news/world/americas/article/3033688/cha...

[3] https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-03-12/gabriel-...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel_boric#Role_in_the_Esta...