I don't know about the rest of European countries but in Sweden the regional governments purchase the service from private companies for a fixed price over a 4 year contract. Every time the contract is up for renewal they ask for bids from all eligible companies so there is competition to place the lowest price based on requirements.
We have this in the UK, at least for trains. Companies just end up bidding the lowest, knowing there's no way they can provide a reasonable service at that price. They then cut back on trains and quality, and eventually the contracts are cancelled.
The complete fucking fiasco that new thameslink bidder is a good (bad) example and good only knows its doing to the Siemens brand due to the crappy cheap trains they have brought from them.
The Uk system is also skewed by the bidders also having to say how much £ they will return to the government.
From what I can tell, something similar happens in Norway.
If I recall correctly, the city busses, airport transportation busses, and the long-distance busses are different companies (or at least theoretically can be). The taxis are another company altogether.
True, but it gradually consolidates with time. There used to be several city bus companies here in Bergen, then just two, then they merged into one. Municipality was major stakeholder in both and encouraged the merger. City tram is a separate company but also owned by the municipality.
Taxis are a different story, most of them are private franchizes and it's working pretty well. Part of the reason ridesharing services were unable to gain any foothold here I believe.
This seems to be an uninformed statement, I have to say after reading some of the already existing replies and what I know about one of the largest markets:
Germany's railway (DB - Deutsche Bahn) has been privatized and they make a profit on long-distance high-speed routes. Local routes are purchases service from a variety of smaller local train companies that sprung up, and also from DB. Ticketing can be very messy, and you have to read the small print to know where some special applies. For example, some regional ticket (one or two states) may restrict you to certain providers and routes.
> Germany's railway (DB - Deutsche Bahn) has been privatized
This… isn't true.
Deutsche Bahn AG is a private company, yes, but its 100% owned by the federal government.
> they make a profit on long-distance high-speed routes
DB Fernverkehr AG (the long-distance subsidiary) do this by operating them on an entirely commercial basis: they make a profit in part because they only run services that are profitable. The same is true of the companies competing on long-distance services (which are admittedly relatively few and far between, undoubtedly in part because of the huge start-up costs).
> Local routes are purchases service from a variety of smaller local train companies that sprung up, and also from DB.
Here's where it gets complicated: this depends on the state (within Germany) and how they arrange public transport. The primary services are typically put out to tender (and how differs between the states) and these aren't necessarily run by DB (through its Regio subsidiary) as DB Regio has lost a number of bids.
At the same time, even on track, there's far more competition when it comes to profitable routes, as various local train companies as you mention have started competing.
> Deutsche Bahn AG is a private company, yes, but its 100% owned by the federal government.
Which does not change the fact that it's been made into a private company, and that their mission is profit. Ever since that happened we've been hearing it in the news whenever they announced their results, apparently the whole country, or at least media and the government care very much about it. So they are not like a government agency at all, they really are a business.
So OPs statement is not true, competition (on the local routes) and profitability very much drive DB. That was my point, in the context of the comment I replied to.
OK, to me it being a private company doesn't in and of itself imply that: a private company generally acts in the interests of its shareholders, and when the sole shareholder of a company is the state, it doesn't necessarily follow the primary interest is profit (see many of the various companies wholly held by the UK Government for example, Network Rail being an apt one here).
As I said, the DB's mission is profit. That is what they make a big fuss about every year, and according to all news reports since making it a company that is what their CEO is meant to look after first of all even if it means worse service. You can see that in the discussion of preceding years that maintenance was neglected and too much "optimization" (e.g. work force size) was done so that they now frequently run into problems. It's all been discussed in German media for years.