Go-Ahead Win 10% of Dublin Bus routes for tender

IE 222 wrote: »

Their is no plans for an extra 125 buses most are fleet renewals meaning a small pool will be for expansion.

As far as I'm aware the NTA has not announced it's plans for additional buses for 2018, other than the fact they have said that there will be additional buses coming in 2018 in the media briefings today.

Your seem to forgetting your own statement that GA will offering more frequencies on these routes so if the current fleet can't meet it now I can't see how GA can without a large investment.

New buses arrive every year, they have arrived in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, whoever won the tender there would be new buses ordered in 2018 so I'm not sure what relevance GA is to this because there are always new buses coming every year.

Surely other major DB routes will get expansion first so again extra buses will be rrquired which is vwry much the opposite of what the NTA were telling us today.

There are 30 buses for expansion this year that will no doubt be used for that, when GA take over the routes they will recieve buses, if they will be from the 2018 order or from Dublin Bus, nobody knows, but the NTA has said that the resources freed up by routes going to GA will be redeployed in increasing frequency fro the DB routes.

I really do think the NTA have thrown you a bone here and can't get enough of it. If it's as easy and simple as you seem to think it is this would of been years ago by DB themselves.

With a bit of look this goes tits up and the NTA themselves are scaled back.

You might want a development which will result in more frequent services, new bus services, more reliable services from increased PVR, more people using public transport and less congestion to fail, but I don't because I want a service to suit the people of this city and serve them as well as possible.

I do find it astounding and can't comprehend why someone would want such things to fail, unless they just believe that ideology being met is more important than the public transport users of this country.

IE 222 wrote: »

Mask slipped seriously were have I mentioned CIE at all. Nothing has changed the NTA are the new CIE same bunch of pen pushers who probably have little to no experience of the transport industry.

The NTA have done more for intergration and providing a proper intergrated system in their time than CIE have in their history, CIE are a parent group, the NTA are a regulator, there is a huge difference.

All we get is crayons and drawings from them and even then they outsource any transport planning to foreign companies. Tell me one ground breaking world exclusive piece of infrastructure the NTA has introduced. The way of the world has brought most changes into the transport network WiFi, real time, charging ports ect these are basic items that are cheap add ons or even offered free to secure a deal when purchasing new products from suppliers don't be fooling yourselves thinking this was the NTAs brainchild idea.

They integrated a lot of things where the state companies were trying to prevent integration because of the fact they see their own brands as more important than the public service and integrated transport overall. The state companies were all pulling in their own direction and not considering the wider system which is why the NTA were needed.

There are many people who benefit from the Leap Visitor Card, fare capping, Real Time Information Screens, an increase of double deckers in regional cities, re-designed networks in Towns and cities outside Dublin, the increase in inter-city transport which has encouraged massive modal shift, Leap Card, Wifi, proper integrated journey planning and mapping just to name a few.

Dublin bus made a €2 million profit last year the NTAs response is to strip them of funding rather then letting them use that money to reinvest in some of their own initiatives.

Instead we are now going to put that 2 million towards paying GA to run a few minor services.

But didn't you say previously public transport companies are not designed to make a profit? Besides that money was given to Bus Eireann who had a budget over-run who needed it far more than Dublin Bus did.

That's before we discuss the fatal flaw in your argument yesterday that you claimed that the operators can do nothing anyway because the NTA controls something, now you contradict yourself saying if the operators keep the money saying they could have reinvested in their own initiatives, something yesterday you said no operator can do.

I doubt the people who reply on those services call them minor, but since you've said that you want them to fail and the whole thing goes tits up, I guess you couldn't care less about the people who use them to travel to work, university and school.

Ever since the NTA have come in disputes have increased strikes have become more aggressive and that's across all sectors. Get the timetables, routes and journey times right before adding the little extras like WiFi after all it's a bus route we want.

Indeed, unfortunately the unions and the transport workers don't like the fact that there is a body that is going to stand up for the public transport users in this country rather than sitting back and passively watch the service be run on behalf of the staff and the state companies like it did in the past.