&gt; The benefits to businesses,<p>Businesses, especially consumers, are helped more by the mobility of a car than public transport<p>&gt;improved mental health of passengers<p>1. This is not an external benefit. This, if true, should mostly be reflected in people&#x27;s willingness to take public transport. Of course, people taking public transport are in my experience usually of the most dubious mental health. So that&#x27;s concerning.<p>&gt; reduction in pollution and traffic<p>Fair points.<p>Traffic is by far the best case for running public transit at a loss, IMO. Though it must be weighed against spending that money on more freeways.<p>There are benefits, though not as many as you are listing, and we should be weary of running them at too much of a deficit.<p>In general the idea of running things as a business is not to say they should be run at a profit, it&#x27;s to say they should be run efficiently like a free competitive market typically does.