Harry S Truman

President Truman famously kept a sign on his desk that said “The buck stops here”, a gift from an avid poker player. Yet whilst we might appreciate the imagery and the sentiment, should we really rely on there being a ‘buck‘ to pass? Is there always a man in charge, someone with whom the ultimate responsibility lies? The public at large like to believe so. Having someone who is nominally in charge provides a feeling that there is some level of control over daily events, that there is some direction to the madness that seems to govern our lives. It isn’t particularly important whether that person you believe in is God, the president, the Führer or Chuck Norris. Nor does that responsible person need to be an individual, it can just as easily be taken as being particular position, a group of people, or an organisation.

Yet having someone to look to as the ‘Man in Charge’ also entails having someone to blame when things go wrong. In general, people are not willing to look at events as the result of complex systems of uncountable interconnected threads. Such systems lack palpability, they invoke confusion and lack obvious conclusions. Much easier to view events as the result of simple inputs and outputs, revolving around the decision-making roles of important personages. When the proverbial hits the fan, the easiest response is to find those at the helm, whether particular individuals or a group, and lay the blame as thick and fast as the cement mixers can provide it. It’s a simple and effective reaction, since any person that can be held culpable must have made decisions, and any decision can be deemed retrospectively fallacious. Ergo any individual can be made and held responsible.¹

Take a quick flick through the history books, and you can find countless examples of this kind of scapegoating. The individual in question need not be reprimanded or even blamed, but we can see how the complex events of history were pinned on the actions and decisions of this one great personage. Take the failed General Strike of 1926, which occurred because Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin went to bed early, for example. Or the Battle of Borodino, was lost because Napoleon had a cold that day. There are any number of examples strewn throughout the historical literature, which describe the passing of major events through the actions and ideas of great individuals. Such writing of history maybe frowned upon, but it makes for a simple and entertaining discussion. How often have you seen a history of Europe in which whole peoples are summed up in such remarks as “the Germans believed” or “Russia felt”? How often are the courses of nations described as if being the personal hobby of one or other historical personality? Or how many people would recognise the name Gavrilo Princip as belonging to the man who started the chain of events that apparently led to the First World War?

Responsibility for events perhaps never takes a more crazy turn than in the realm of economics. For all the bales of paper used exhorting economic theory, for all the man-hours and computing power spent documenting the ticking of our economies, the complexities of a system that relies on the psychologies of six milliard people factored up by any number of other inputs, outputs and interactions remains as difficult to predict and describe as it perhaps ever will be. And yet the ups and downs, the dippings and divings, the riding of Kondratiev waves and Kuznets cycles, can all be pinned on the policies and opinions of a group of individuals. As William Easterly wrote in this post on Aid Watch,

Why do we all fall for the Man in Charge fallacy? We like to anthropomorphize a complex system of multiple power centers, bottom-up social norms, and spontaneous markets, innovators, and entrepreneurs, because it is scary to think of such a complex system with no Man in Charge.

Perhaps fear is exactly what prevents us from acknowledging the complexity of such systems. Though a certain level of convenience must also be acceded. Opponents of the government can argue that in the face of an economic crisis, it is clear that they overspent in the preceding year(s). Others argue that they spent too little. Some that they interfered too much in the market, yet others that they were too lax. It is the greatest position for the opposition to be in, since every argument they use is right. For the government was responsible at the time, thus the government must have been in error, therefore the government made the wrong decisions, and in that experimental laboratory of history there are no control tests and no repeat conditions.

Yet whilst the truth of what Easterly writes is fairly evident to see, for all who stop and think for more than a few seconds, the illusion of anthropological authority will always be with us. Set aside the angst ridden problems of an existentialism based on chaos and unrule, we need the chimera of the reprehensible individual as an idea we can understand and utilise. A complex system with more factors than we can conjure may be something to study in an ivory tower, but it isn’t something we can talk about, argue about, and shout about in the streets. Man is the centre of Man’s universe, and his self-deification continues to this very day. When Man created God, he had God conveniently recreate Man in his own image. Now that God has for many become optional, Man is left to fill the gap of responsibility. Despite the evidence of his exploits staring him in the face, Man continues to distance himself from the world around him. Extinctions almost always have his actions at root, global warming is a result of his ignorance or greed. Even the very products of his toil are labelled as man-made, counterpoint to all that is natural in the world. We take responsibility onto ourselves as a species – and then we play pass the buck.

Responsibility is an interesting phenomenon, when we step and look at it a little more objectively. We deal in it as currency, taking it when it suits, gladly passing it on where it doesn’t, and when things go wrong, laying the finger of blame on anyone we happen to find carrying it. Finding the roots of this psychology would be a difficult quest, though an interesting one, and one that no doubt shows fundamental equivalents in other members of the animal kingdom. But I cannot in any event imagine a future in which responsibility will not play a part in everyday society, qualming angst before unpredictability, providing the illusion of control over the unaccountable, and affecting change through the apportioning of blame and the running of scapegoats.

1. We should not forget, of course, that as much as we enjoy seeing certain individuals as being responsible for the workings of the world, both for the comfort it gives us whilst things are ticking along smoothly, as well as the convenience of having someone to blame when they don’t, the individuals themselves also enjoy a level of revelry in the illusion that they are the ones with all the answers.

Before I start my rant, let me plainly state that I am great supporter of the principles of public transport. That is not to say that I don’t see the use or take advantage of private transport, merely that I feel the balance in society is generally wrong, particularly in the first world, or whatever the preferred term is these days. These societies should be perfectly capable of providing for the vast majority of man’s annual miles, with our regular combinations of buses, trams, trains etc. and private transport being available to fill in the gaps where required. Being able to pack your bags, grab the kids and hit the road for a weekend away seems like a reasonable thing to do, but where is the logic of moving a ton of metal to work and back five days a week?

For probably the majority of the world’s population, public transport is the only option, certainly the only affordable one. In more privileged societies it seems, that logic is largely turned on its head, with many simple journeys costing as much as would the equivalent travelling via private transport, and indeed being more expensive if the journey is shared. Car pooling saves more money than bus pooling.

Yet some of the key problems afflicting these public transport services, is that having lost even the semblance of being a service (and who can deny that they are nothing more than businesses operating within a service field?), the companies involved only through obfuscation manage to run within the guidelines no doubt prescribed by governments. Planning a trip across the country, one could easily spend hours trying to find the cheapest combination or the quickest route. The privatisation of the industry has not exactly resulted in the competition of service and price that the government suggested, but a proliferation of competing and confusing systems which has resulted in a drop in passenger numbers, as a committee found last year. And the confusion, of course, isn’t restricted to the paying customer. Pensioners in the UK can now enjoy the benefit of free bus fares, but at least according to one relative of mine, this is restricted to the local borough, outside of which a mere discount is available partially due to the competing companies – after all, why should you wish to travel away from the one shoddy town?

Paying customers, of course, have the hardest time of all. Unless you are a genius at figuring the ins and outs of the system, public transport never comes particularly cheap, what with all the advance, economy, super, mumbo, banana and toffee flavoured tickets, not to mention all of the student travel cards, young person cards, old person cards, gay person cards, regular user cards and drug abuser cards which can be used for discounts on most, but certainly not all services, particularly any of the ones you might be tempted to use in conjunction with the first. And of course, as there is rarely any integration in the transport system, you’ll probably need at least two varieties of discount card to cover your journey via bus and (shock horror) train, and these rarely come too cheaply. One begins to wonder who on earth was paid money to design the backend pricing systems to some of these services. I remember one particular journey using First North Western trains, where I was sold a Day Return ticket because it was actually cheaper than the single I required. Go fathom! Just how the train companies can manage to create something as complex as a train timetable, and yet can’t produce a viable pricing plan borders on the criminal.

In fact, it gets to the stage now where I’m becoming suspicious that the baffling arrangements aren’t actually designed to confuse customers and reap the benefits of their lack of patience or lack of knowledge to find the right deals. There is no sense of service here, only pandering to government requirements for companies to create offers for the underprivileged. Take the various varieties of student travel card, and Britain isn’t alone on this account. Or click on the image and take a look at how asking for an earlier train on thetrainline.co.uk can result in a previously unavailable ticket magically appearing. Indeed, the manner in which such offers seem to disappear and reappear lends one to conclude that such websites are designed to hide offers from those who might actually take advantage of them. This screenshot even begs another question, that being of how the Value Advance tickets are still available whilst the Advance Standard C¹ appears to have sold out – would some customers voluntarily pay almost thrice the price of the cheapest ticket for exactly the same service?

Of course, the European dream of integration can’t even get a toehold when national systems aren’t even adequately in place. Experiences like this might leave us feeling embarassed, but why should the consumer have to work so hard to pay the best price for a service that the economy cannot survive without? Public transport is not perceived to be the vital economic keystone it really is, the likes of which education and health care are often fully or partially covered through public funding. Competition in the marketplace is the basic principle behind the diversification of the public transport system, but it doesn’t really take a genius to work out that competition cannot thrive in such a market. Go onto the high street to buy a television, and not only is there a variety of worldwide manufacturers to choose from, but there may be half a dozen shops eager to offer more competitive prices and accompanied services. In theory, the consumer can make an informed choice, and vote with his wallet to get the best deal.

Now try to convert that situation into a public transport ‘market’. Queue for a bus on Manchester’s Oxford Road, pick a bus, and depending on your situation you might find yourself getting a 60p student ticket. Get on the wrong one, and he’ll tell you there’s no such thing as a student ticket, and the fare will be £1.20. So you either wait, and barge past the angry queue of people waiting to get on behind you, or more likely just throw the extra fare in the bin. And of course, just like when Dixons rip you off over that warranty on the television, you are just as able to boycott the train service which caused you to be 2 hours late for an interview, except that they’re the only train operator in the entire region.

I often try to make a distinction between individual and social rights. By this I mean to highlight the difference between what each individual by virtue of his very existence has the right to, and those rights which are bestowed upon him by the society in which he lives. One example of this is the individual and personal right of movement. By his very being, man can relocate himself, using his own body, harnessing the power of the animals around him, and since early periods used his knowledge to craft certain forms of transport from the world around him. This does not, however, stretch to man’s ability to travel by any means possible; no single man built the Volkswagen Touareg, no number of harnessed animals would equal an Airbus A380. My point in this instance is that man has the right to travel, and our rich, modern states and societies should be enabling factors to his movements, not restrictions. In return, man must relinquish his demands for the right to travel how he wishes, for these are privileges empowered by his society. Yet society must also acknowledge that a transport service should not be marketed off in chunks to the highest bidder, since which modern economy could survive without it?

Ideally, one should be able to get a route between two locations, across borders, boundaries or whatever divisions, using whatever forms of transport, for a single, logical price, without having to cross reference various travel cards and special routes. He might even be able to relax in the knowledge that his taxes or his annual, universal travel card has it all covered already. But such a dream is only possible with the enforced integration of the various transport systems, and some realistic and public oriented pricing models. Wouldn’t it be worth paying £500 a year to be able to travel anywhere in the country on any form of public transport at any time? And if that were the case, wouldn’t half of the other 60 million on the island find it equally useful? £15 milliard a year plus public subsidies says it’s not.

1. Slightly cheaper than the Banana and Toffee Mix I mentioned earlier.

The key here of course is cash, that anonymous key to the monetary house. Some have pointed out that the age of using cash as a medium is gradually drawing to a close, and the establishment is beginning to see the benefits of expediting its demise. This includes the government, banks, financial markets and big corporations. For an example, we need only consider the recent charges introduced by BT.

According to the government watchdog Ofcom, in recent years BT have had a residential market presence of 70-80%, with the latter figure roughly representing the number of residential lines. This totals roughly 20 million landlines, which using the traditional quarterly bill paying system makes 80 million payments a year. So how much does it cost BT to collect these charges? Well, consider the options.

• An old-fashioned method such as paying your bills at the Post Office should involve little detriment, the money being transferred electronically into BT’s bank accounts, with presumably some small handling fee for the Post Office.
• A cheque made payable to the company, which given the scale of their operation should also be a simple matter for the giant to deal with.
• Online credit card transaction, which would incur charges from the credit card companies, though I’ll admit I don’t know if BT passes these on to its customers.
• Electronic Direct Debit payments direct from customers’ bank accounts.

BT’s preferred method is clear, and as their website points out:

Many of our customers now pay by Direct Debit which is an ideal option if you find it difficult to get out or worry that you will forget to pay your bill on time.

The arguments are dressed up and sugar coated to make the idea of giving BT direct access to your bank account seem to be a rather agreeable proposition. The icing on the cake is that it costs customers less to pay via this method. BT have introduced a scandalous ‘payment processing fee’ amounting to £4.50 (plus VAT) per transaction, paying via cheque or cash.

Now one can understand the complexities of dealing with payment methods such as the cheque. Assuming BT have no automated procedures for dealing with cheques, manually inputting the figures, such as dates, sums, account numbers etc., requiring an hour’s labour for 100 payments, one can see how a wage of £500 per hour is justifiable. But to charge such extraordinary fees for cash payments that are dealt with by another body, where is the justice in that? The levy represents around a 10% increase on the average customer’s quarterly bill. Add to that the fines for late payment (which are avoided with Direct Debit by having your bank balance overdrawn instead), and it becomes clear how BT are dictating the payment methods of their victims customers.

This isn’t the first example of prejudice against traditional payment methods, nor is it a precedent for cash payments being made financially unsound. But it is surely an example of the way in which the demise of anonymous paper money is slowly being exacerbated by that interlinked establishment of government and big business.

No smoking

They all roll over. What else can they do in the dictatocracy? Smoking is bad for you. It kills! And according to recent adverts on British television, passive smoking is even worse, since the smoke comes from the ‘bad’ end of the cigarette. Is it any wonder the state becomes nanny when society acts so wimpish?

But society’s seemingly burgeoning fear of death isn’t the issue here, at least not to me. That issue is freedom of choice. The ban on smoking in public places perhaps has a right to be enforced; there is no choice about which train or bus station you use, after all. But when it comes down to banning smoking in all bars, pubs and restaurants, one has to ask why we are no longer allowed to choose. Are we so incapable of rational thought? For a long time now, many restaurants have had exclusive smoking sections, and many bars too have proven capable of sectioning off areas for different clientele. One might question therefore, the need for a blanket ban.

When smoking was banned in public places in California, Eddie Izzard remarked “Yes, no smoking in bars now, and soon there’ll be, no drinking and no talking!”¹ It got laughs. Now, of course, the idea has spread so far as to become part of the accepted wisdom. But does anyone stop to question the accepted wisdom any more? The majority of people I’ve spoken to on the issue support the ban. Why? Because they won’t have to worry any more about getting that smokey smell out of their clothes. They aren’t worried about the health risks, and that probably shouldn’t come as a surprise when statistics appear stating:

Smoking is said to cause 3,000 deaths in NI each year, with one death every fortnight due to second-hand smoke.²

By my reckoning, and you’ll have to check that because I’m not too hot at maths, that’s just under 1% of ‘said’ smoking related deaths caused by second hand smoke. All that from the ‘bad’ end of the cigarette. A fantastic saving for the health service there, assuming of course that these people will then go on to live forever. If governments have decided that smoking is too expensive in terms of potential health service requirements, then they should legislate on that side of the wedge. But of course, denying even heavy smokers access to health care for respiratory or cancer related ailments would infringe upon their human rights, as any court worth its salt would testify. Which leaves the only liable course of action for eradicating this filthy habit that of working from the other end. Tobacco taxes (we’ve seen those), education campaigns (aplenty), support for anti-smoking groups, and now bans to take smoking further outside the public sphere.

However, one swift aside here. We all know that the main beneficiaries of this blanket ban was designed to be those working in public places. Given that the alternative to such a ban could have been to allow premises to choose to operate as a smoking or non-smoking venue, or else section off areas for each type of customer, and staff the premises accordingly, it appears that a much more wide-ranging effect was sought. Which begs the question about what governments next plan to do about those who are most at risk from second hand smoke—young children and infants. An innocent baby brought up in the home of two smokers is at a much greater risk, and a much more unavoidable risk, than any publican employee or casual evening drinker. Is the next step then to legislate in the home?

Until that time, smoking in public places will now be illegal in Northern Ireland. The response there has been like that which occurred over the border when the Republic banned smoking in March, 2004, with special heated outdoor smoking areas being constructed in preparation. Goodness knows how much energy is wasted just to heat up a section of beer garden so clients can go and smoke outdoors in comfort. Of course, this now becomes an area of competition between the venues, as smokers and their friends choose establishments based on the comfort of their smoking areas. Previously, pubs on the border in Northern Ireland had seen a massive upswing in revenues, as pub-goers in the Republic voted with their feet. If ever there was evidence that freedom of choice is in demand, that was it. But they will roll over just the same. They all do.

1. Eddie Izzard, Dressed To Kill, 1999.
2. NI smoking ban comes into force, BBC News, 30 April 2007.

CCTV

As if holding the title for most spied upon nation weren’t enough, CCTV cameras in England are to be updated to add something of a bark, according to the BBC. Arguing the new cameras remonstrating with petty offenders will help to prevent problems before they really start and reduce bureaucracy (by magic presumably), Home Secretary John Reid also mentioned that competitions would be run in schools in local areas to provide a voice for the cameras, which if it is true would presumably mean that the ‘talking’ ability would be limited to a choice of pre-set phrases. We can only hope that whilst these competitions are being carried out, it will be noticed how effectively such vocal coercion works in the classroom, without even a whiff of potential punishment to follow it up. After all, is that not where the problems of anti-social behaviour which these measures are designed to counteract originate?

Of course the opposition, whose main argument against such measures at the moment is that it avoids the principle totem of getting ‘more bobbies on the beat’, should well bear in mind that the ‘Peelers’ were no more popularly received on their inception either. Now they want more of them.

But wait—can anyone else hear something?

Smith! 6079 Smith W.! Yes, you! Bend lower, please! You can do better than that. You’re not trying. Lower, please! That’s better, comrade.

Where your next tankload is coming from?

Just where is the EU going with its agricultural policy? With the European Commission endorsing a plan to up the previous goal of a 5.75% market share for biofuels in the overall transport fuel supply by 2012, to 10% by 2020, one has to wonder which part of the EU’s goals is being pushed hardest. From the EU website:

The EU is supporting biofuels with the aim of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, boosting the decarbonisation of transport fuels, diversifying fuel supply sources, offering new income opportunities in rural areas and developing long-term replacements for fossil fuel.

Certainly all of these goals would be furthered by such a move by the EU, but which has prompted this raising of targets despite the estimate that most member states will not even achieve the original goal. As a long-term replacement for fossil fuels, the biofuels movement would appear to be unsustainable. Whilst it does offer a new ‘energy farmer’ role to those particularly in the developing world, the biofuels movement will likely set back the move towards sustainable agriculture, and has the potential through furthering intensive farming and monoculture techniques of causing greater environmental damage than the potential harms of global warming.¹ Technically the move may ultimately reduce greenhouse gas emissions, at least insofar as it prevents the further introduction of carbon deposits in fossil fuels from being added to the atmospheric carbon cycle, yet at the moment many biofuels in the market are so inefficient as to be net pollutants.²

All of which leaves the diversification of fuel supply sources. For the greatest efficiency, there is little doubt that biofuels should be burned in power stations rather than mobile internal combustion engines, yet that would appear to be only a secondary aim of this directive. Perhaps the recent EU spats with Russia offer a greater clue to the hasty attempts to diversify fuel supply sources, and leading the charge in this regard is Sweden. Their aim, to make Sweden an oil free society, and to break their dependence upon it by 2020, may seem outlandish. But it is not motivated by the fear that oil is running out.

In the earth’s interior there are very extensive coal-based energy resources, from methane hydrates deep in the oceans and in northerly permafrost areas to unexploited deposits of oil sands and shale oils. The superficial deposits of coal, oil and gas that man makes use of today are the tip of the planet’s enormous energy pyramid. Thus, oil will never run out, neither in a theoretical nor a practical sense.

Sweden’s aims are very similar to those of the EU:

1. To reduce Sweden’s climate impact.
2. To secure Sweden’s supply of energy in the long term.
3. To become a leading nation in the development of new technology for sustainable use of energy and more efficient use of energy.
4. To strengthen our international economic competitiveness.
5. To use and develop the energy resources from forests and fields, “Sweden’s green gold”.³

It would appear then that the true aim of this EU directive has less to with cleaning up the economy through greater reliance on renewable energies, than an attempt to reduce the EU’s heavy reliance on the volatile world oil market. Burning (inefficient) biofuels in combustion engines is not an answer to carbon emissions, long or short term. Will logic intervene and see support for the use of biofuels as petroleum replacements decline? Or will the EU continue to intervene in the hopes that the big buzzwords climate change will allow them to push through seemingly popular policies, ultimately in the name of power politics?

1. If these are indeed caused by carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels.
2. And quite what is meant by ‘the decarbonisation of transport fuels’ is best left to the PR people.
3. Making Sweden an OIL-FREE Society, Commission on Oil Independence, 21 June 2006, p. 11. Highlights added.

Example student card

How do you identify a student? Sounds like the opening to a joke, and in many ways this isn’t far from the truth. A great number of services and products come with discounts to students, and discerning who is eligible therefore requires a little more care and attention than simply looking out for tousled hair, hangovers, piercings and berets. Most higher education institutions produce student identification cards, which might double as library cards, security cards and/or university credit cards, amongst other things. However, the vast range of designs and stamps means that identifying a student card could prove as difficult as trying to identify a student by the first glance rule.

Or at least, that is essentially the only excuse applied by the transport authorities of the UK and Ireland in the use of discount travel cards to recoup some of the losses incurred by students availing of discounted services. In Ireland, despite the much reduced number of higher education establishments, the lack of any body similar to the UK’s NUS to provide an all-encompassing identification card allows CIE to demand that students buy a €12 student travel card¹ to avail of their discounted student tickets.

That should surely leave UK students in a much stronger position, since the availability of an NUS card and its associated entitlement to numerous other discounts should surely prove sufficient to identify students as being eligible for student prices for public transport services. Surely. But then it would be folly to forget the twisted logic of the islanders – particularly where red tape and money are concerned.

As a rule, there simply aren’t any student discounts available. Since there is already a suitable national student card available², which covers 98% of all UK students, and already includes a flurry of other discounts on goods and services, there would appear little reason to demand an entirely separate card which qualifies the holder for student travel fares. Hence the discounts offered are in the form of Young Persons’ Railcard, and in the case of London’s Student Oyster photocard are limited to certain establishments and cost £5. Whilst this approach to providing a catch-all discount using age as the discriminating factor is perhaps more logical, and can be found across the continent, the relation born to age actually becomes disconnected by the fact that proof of age is no longer proof of eligibility.

So how do you identify a student then? Does it have anything to do with them actually being a student, or being able to manifestly prove the fact? Where the discounts are available to young persons, does identification bear any relation to them being under the allotted age, or able to prove it? Not where the transport services are concerned.

1. Generally at a cost of €15 to the student, to avoid having to take passport photos and post the application form.
2. Already at such a cost to the beholder that any hike in price might cause some level of protest from the student bodies.

Yet what was only mentioned in passing was that government initiatives to improve the transport network in the country can only be spent once, and ultimately further improvements to the road network must necessarily mean public transport receives less funding. One of the interesting statistics cited was that in Dublin, the only large urban centre, around 70% of commuters travel to work by private transport. Although unduly unfair, for the sake of comparison just consider the figures for the centre of London, which show the figure to be as low as 10%. Is Ireland’s public transport system underperforming?

Public transport

Let us limit ourselves to a consideration of the public transport services in the Dublin area, and exclude those varieties either non-terrestrial or unshared (i.e. planes, ferries, taxis &c.). If we were being unduly critical, the very constitution of the services in this area could be called into question, but in truth the combined services provided by Dublin Bus, the DART and in recent years the LUAS offer in most cases a decent coverage, reasonably rapid transit and under normal circumstances a regular service. Just where then is there a problem in the government and CIE‘s attitude to public transport.

For this we need only look at the price. If we assume an average car achieves 35 miles per gallon, (it can be conceded here that this figure is not representative of general urban driving conditions) and using a price of 105 cents per litre we get an average price per mile of 13-14 cents. Now taking an average annual mileage of 12,000 miles, if we then add on to this price per mile figures for insurance, tax, NCT and servicing, some sundries and double this figure for vehicle depreciation, we come to a figure of approximately 40 cents per mile travelled. Think you could get that kind of value for money on Dublin Bus? An average 3 mile journey on the bus would cost €1.55 i.e. just over 50 cents per mile; a shorter journey would probably be even less value for money.

Of course comparing the value of public and private transport side-by-side is a difficult task, but as the above little calculation shows, public transport is certainly no cheaper than owning a car, and in fact might be a good deal more expensive. Consider the added convenience of owning a car, being able to nip in to the shops or take a detour, without needing to wait for another bus, and worse, buy another ticket to continue on the same journey. Perhaps most importantly of all, take a passenger on your journey and you virtually double the economy, something you can’t do on a bus. Certainly there are disadvantages as well, such as that the bus often avoids the rush hour traffic to some extent using their dedicated lanes, or that there is a matter of parking space in the city centre, but as soon as you take the car outside of these confines these disadvantages soon evaporate. For example, Dublin Bus has an extensive network, but as soon as you operate outside these limits, cars again show their advantages. Further if you want to travel out of peak hours or on the weekends, you may find the journey by car more direct, comfortable and just as fast, and all this with a saving to boot.

Whilst price might not necessarily be the main reason for the prevalence of private transport in the capital, it certainly illustrates a disregard for the ideal of public transport. The institution of bus lanes and the so-called “Quality Bus Corridors” (QBCs) are obvious physical manifestations of the government’s commitment to quality public transport services. Unlike for instance the London congestion charges, however, this does not necessarily imply a real commitment; in fact Dublin Bus’ own findings in 2004 showed that only in 75% of the QBCs was the average bus journey at rush hour quicker than the same journey untaken by car. At any other time this benefit is negated, and fully a quarter of the time this benefit does not even apply at the busiest time.

Government policy appears to be ignoring the Lewis-Mogridge Position, something like transport’s answer to Parkinson’s Law: that traffic expands to meet the available road space. Take for example the Dublin Port Tunnel, due to be opened in December this year; designed to free up HGV traffic from the city centre, and in particular from the narrow Quays, this long vehicle amnesty will only be replaced by private vehicles in the heart of the city. Whilst the benefits of the tunnel should not be understated, the full ramifications of the government’s policy do not seem to have been considered. The implementation of the LUAS might similarly be criticised, in the nature of its overlapping, not necessarily complementary services with Dublin Bus, and that under separate governing bodies. The results of the Dublin Metro are, of course, yet to be seen.

Student fares

Of course, in terms of offering value for money, the government and associated bodies must always be seen to make concessions to those fringe groups, such as students and the elderly, and public transport is no different. CIE produced an advert in recent years which went along the lines of “You asked for more – and we listened”. Which begs the question – what exactly were they listening to? The playful crash of the euros as they collect in the bottom of the piggy bank? Students represent a significant proportion of public transport users, a fact reflected by the building of the LUAS line in close proximity to Trinity College’s residence buildings at Dartry, the number of Dublin Bus services terminating or servicing UCD’s Belfield campus, and the future extension of the LUAS to Grangegorman, the site of the new DIT campus.

But let’s just consider the economy of a student ticket. For €64 students can enjoy 30 days’ travel on all Dublin Bus and LUAS services, for example. Essentially this benefits heavy users of the service, but given that an average student might make the back-and-forth journey to college during the week and wish to make use of the Nightbus service at the weekends, the fact that this isn’t included in the ticket only adds insult to the injury that paying the fare box rate of €1.35 each way would in fact be cheaper. And we must not forget that in the eyes of Ireland’s transport network, students are not students because they are students but because they hold a €12 card which indicates the holder is in fact a student. Such a system would appear abhorrent on the continent; only the balmy Brits would also consider implementing such an abomination.

Public transport for the public

What, then, does this critic propose? As one of those scary proponents of free public transport, that would be seen as the ultimate goal in an ‘ideal world’. Nevertheless, the more immediate aim should be seen by everyone to institute a fair system of tariffs for the public, and that to mean everyone. The systems in place offer a service which whilst purporting to be a real alternative to the world of private transport actually offer a convenience for those with money to spend. The figures can obviously be twisted to support any viewpoint, but when we consider that the government subsidises public transport by only 25%, one of the lowest rates in Europe, the facts illustrated here are no longer much of a surprise.

The Irish nation is in a strong position to deal with the issue of public transport, particularly in the Dublin area, given its geographical benefits and the lack of significant vested interests in the petroleum or car manufacturing industries. In terms of the Dublin area, the economies are greatest of all; consider that a car with one occupant can average 35 miles per passenger per gallon, whilst a bus carrying just 9 passengers can achieve the same efficiency.

If the government wishes to improve the public transport system therefore, it must penalise those using private transport and simultaneously offer incentives to use the systems in place. No matter how good the service is, if it simply does not offer value for money for the consumers, they will look elsewhere. This can happily be achieved in a number of ways, and the QBCs are at least on the right lines here. Better value tickets covering longer durations would prove an incentive for many more people, and offering greater incentives to younger people can only improve the public perception of the service in the next generation.

So until the Irish government and the CIE holding company can improve upon their act, bring that dusty bike out of the garage and do your health a favour at the same time, or put that loose change for the bus aside for petrol money and take the car to work. Hell, at least that way you can have a smoke on the way.

Visit the Countryside Centre to find out more about the estate’s wildlife and conservation work before setting off to explore, perhaps to Threave Castle or the bird hides overlooking the River Dee and Black Park Marsh, a Special Protection Area for breeding waders and wintering wildfowl. If you’re lucky you may even see otters and osprey fishing in the river. Just make sure you leave enough time for a cup of tea and a slice of home-made cake.

Sound wonderful? A perfect day out for the family, wouldn’t you say? That is, until it comes to paying entrance fees. Bearing in mind the respectable discounts offered for families, simple admission to the gardens costs an impressive £5 per adult. Access to Threave House in addition (by guided tour only) brings the ticket price up to £9. In order to visit the nearby Threave Castle a further £3.50 need be added to the day’s toll.

Of course, these are more extreme price figures, and some people may even consider these prices to be good value. Indeed for families of the just the right proportions, the discounted family ticket prices offered by the Trust do make travelling with a family much more affordable. But that’s besides the basic principle. According to the National Trust’s annual review financial summary for 2005-2006, admission fees account for just £12.4 million of the £337.2 million total revenues – just under 4%. This proportion is not as low in the case of the NTS, but the figure begs the question: how can they be so low? The answer is simple; the prices are set to make the costs of membership all that more inviting. The National Trust boasts of membership exceeding 3.4 million. From the NTS’ website:

The National Trust for Scotland is the conservation charity that protects and promotes Scotland’s natural and cultural heritage for present and future generations to enjoy. With over 270,000 members it is the largest conservation charity in Scotland and it depends for its support on donations, legacies, grants and membership subscriptions.

That massive membership cries testament to the injustice of the National Trusts’ admission fees. Claiming to be an organisation run for the benefit of everyone, in truth the Trusts offer the preservation of the nation’s gardens, collections, stately homes, castles and sundry for the benefit of those who can afford the membership costs. In principle, through the National Trust Acts 1907-1971 which grant the singular right of the charities to hold lands in perpetuum, by declaring them inalienable, every member of the nation has paid their dues to the Trusts, by the foregoing of the inheritance taxes on National Trust lands which often directly precipitated their acquisition in the first place.

Whilst few would quibble with the way in which the National Trust and the National Trust for Scotland conduct their business, the issue of funding is in need of some redress. The Trusts’ current position on admission fees actually limits access to certain sections of the public, for the sake of gaining increased revenues through membership fees. Although membership offers good value for money for the regular daytrippers, it does little to assuage the image of elitism the Trusts project to the poorer sections of society.

You’re receiving this email around 30 days before your Skype Credit balance expires. Skype Credit expires 180 days after your last purchase or SkypeOut call. If you’re not using your balance we need to expire the credit sooner or later to comply with normal business accounting rules. Not very exciting, but true.

Even in today’s confused business world, where caveats and charges are hidden inexplicably from view, the very idea that Skype feels it obliged to rip its customers off in order to comply with ‘normal business accounting rules’ is staggering. From my meagre experience with mobile phone companies, this would appear to be anomalous to their standard practice. I have never been informed by PayPal that my account would be emptied because I haven’t used my funds, nor indeed have I come across such a statement from any of the other myriad of online services who use an online account system such as theirs.

Perhaps Skype would be well advised to comply with normal business operating rules instead of focusing on using cunning and thievery to earn themselves a few dollars. Take the much maligned Linux version of their program; the current official release still stands at version 1.2.0.18, released October 25, 2005. To their credit, the 8 months spent working up to the release of version 1.3 BETA on June 28th was not wasted, with full ALSA support, better chat features and numerous bugfixes, but this has not prevented issues with the ALSA sound system causing lockups: this is still just a BETA release. To suggest that this is symptomatic of Skype’s overall work ethic would be unfair; the Windows version of the program has come on leaps and bounds over the past 12 months, though it should be mentioned that many bugs at times seemed to have been put aside (such as memory leaks in the program, particularly in multi-user chats, or users in a person’s contact list disappearing sometimes at will) whilst new features such as video calls were scripted in.

No doubt being the most famous name in the game, Skype have found it difficult to maintain a lead, with sustained efforts to introduce all the features users demand whilst ensuring the package is solid and generally bug-free, and the service has maximum availability and quality. Nevertheless, it seems Skype’s “not very exciting” excuse for some small scale pilfering is an unnecessary blemish on the company’s otherwise fairly decent track record. Now, time to make some long distance calls to Tristan de Cunha…