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Comment by dnautics | Hacker News Reader

Singapore's public transit system is run as a for profit (two competing companies, in fact), and it's one of the best and cheapest in the world.

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It's operated by two for-profit companies, but the government paid the massive bill for the construction, sets the fares and even owns the rolling stock (trains) now:

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/transport/government-...

...and of course, this being Singapore, the companies in question (SMRT Corp and SBS Transit) are themselves largely owned by various government entities (Temasek etc).

They are, however, responsible for upkeep and maintenance.

Comfortdelgro is not largely owned by the Singapore sovereign wealth fund, and I personally like its lines a bit better than the smrt lines.

Considering that you can't just buy a car in Singapore and need to get a permit to buy one, it better should be the best in the world.

Damn, that is the way it should be in the rest of the world.

That is an outlier. Almost all public transportation systems runs on deficit.

Maybe we should learn from them.

There may be lessons to learn, but profitability in state supported railways-metro (publicly owned or privately operated but government subsidized) is almost impossible. Singapore is a tiny place and property prices are astronomical. Singapore Metro earns money from property rentals (some state coercion helps too). This does not work for most cities in the world.

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