Dublin Bus privatisation

stehyl15 · 22-02-2015 5:31pm #1

I think that the proposed privatisation of DB is scandalous. I know this is a larger scale but look at how bad British Rail was privatised the fares are riddulous and what is the NTA on about talking saying that this will increase competion look at the private train and bus operators in england charging what they like because there is no competition theyre the only company running the lines. If this went ahead and its a big if and private operators started bidding for bus routes who'd want them a private company may think the 46a or the 145 is profitable but these are not the routes being privatised and routes such as the 59 or the 111 are not at all profitable ok it may work with the luas (veoila-transdev) but only because the luas serves a profitable route these buses certainly do not serve profitable routes.

Also a few questions about the proposed privatisation

· Will leap cards and other DB tickets be valid
· Will buses still be owned by DB and just rented out to private operators
· Will byelaws vary if the buses are operated privately
· Will travel pases still be valid

January · 22-02-2015 6:03pm

Moved from Dublin City to Commuting & Transport.

thomasj · 22-02-2015 7:53pm

stehyl15 wrote: »

I think that the proposed privatisation of DB is scandalous. I know this is a larger scale but look at how bad British Rail was privatised the fares are riddulous and what is the NTA on about talking saying that this will increase competion look at the private train and bus operators in england charging what they like because there is no competition theyre the only company running the lines. If this went ahead and its a big if and private operators started bidding for bus routes who'd want them a private company may think the 46a or the 145 is profitable but these are not the routes being privatised and routes such as the 59 or the 111 are not at all profitable ok it may work with the luas (veoila-transdev) but only because the luas serves a profitable route these buses certainly do not serve profitable routes.

Also a few questions about the proposed privatisation

· Will leap cards and other DB tickets be valid
· Will buses still be owned by DB and just rented out to private operators
· Will byelaws vary if the buses are operated privately
· Will travel pases still be valid

From what I'm reading of it the NTA owns the routes, they set the prices and frequency and they collect the farebox. The NTA will pay whoever wins the contract to run the routes. Private companies will NOT be able to dictate the pricing of routes.

Aard · 22-02-2015 8:26pm

DB isn't being privatised the way you seem to think it is. Comparisons with British rail privatisation are incorrect.

LXFlyer · 22-02-2015 8:30pm

A package of routes is being put out to tender. Dublin Bus can bid for them as well as private operators.

The NTA will still be responsible for network planning, setting fares, and specifying frequency that routes have to be operated.

LEAP and SW passes will still be valid.

The NTA own the buses that will operate these routes.

punisher5112 · 22-02-2015 9:02pm

All buses 2012 on are NTA.

What happens when these are not snapped up as some seem to think people will be running to get the likes of 59, 185 etc etc.

Honest question if db dont put in for these and nobody else, do they still have to keep them?

NTA are the boss now.

n97 mini · 22-02-2015 9:24pm

With careful planning rail prices in Britain are way better than BR days. I paid £3.50 last summer for Birmingham to London. Three fifty! I don't think I've paid more than about £13 for any journey since privatisation.

corktina · 22-02-2015 9:27pm

lxflyer wrote: »

A package of routes is being put out to tender. Dublin Bus can bid for them as well as private operators.

The NTA will still be responsible for network planning, setting fares, and specifying frequency that routes have to be operated.

LEAP and SW passes will still be valid.

The NTA own the buses that will operate these routes.

similar to the buses in London?

etchyed · 22-02-2015 9:37pm

corktina wrote: »

similar to the buses in London?

Yes, except that TfL don't own the buses.

etchyed · 22-02-2015 9:45pm

n97 mini wrote: »

With careful planning rail prices in Britain are way better than BR days. I paid £3.50 last summer for Birmingham to London. Three fifty! I don't think I've paid more than about £13 for any journey since privatisation.

Yes, but you presumably don't live in Britain, so you're there for leisure, or even if on business, your flight lands after the peak. This means you plan in advance and take advantage of Advance fares, which simply isn't an option for many people.

In terms of revenue maximisation, British rail (small r) has probably the most agressive fares policy in the world (obviously I'm open to challenge on this). There is a vast range of fares available for any one particular journey, where in many other European countries you might just have the option of a single or a day return. British Train Operating Companies charge a fortune to travel at busy times, and then fill up emptier trains with cheap Advance tickets.

However, it is not entirely fair to blame this on privatisation. Peak fares and season tickets are protected by regulation, and are only allowed to rise as much as the government allows. It has been the policy of successive British governments to increase regulated fares well above inflation, thereby increasing the premium they receive from TOCs and reducing the required taxpayer subsidy.

British policy has long been that insofar as possible, rail should pay for itself, and this predates privatisation.

EDIT: most of that post not addressed at you, n97, just in case it seemed like it was.

n97 mini · 22-02-2015 9:49pm

My usage pattern is broadly the same as home. Car for work, train is used for leisure. So comparing leisure use, privatised trains in Britain win hands down over public run trains in Britain or Ireland, for me anyway.

stehyl15 · 22-02-2015 10:16pm

So bacically it goes like NTA>CIE>DB/IR/BE

antoinolachtnai · 23-02-2015 10:16am

etchyed wrote: »

Yes, but you presumably don't live in Britain, so you're there for leisure, or even if on business, your flight lands after the peak. This means you plan in advance and take advantage of Advance fares, which simply isn't an option for many people.

There are many problems with rail privatisation in Britain, but it has succeeded in getting more people onto the railway:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_in_Great_Britain#mediaviewer/File:GBR_rail_passenegers_by_year.gif

Dravokivich · 23-02-2015 11:37am

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

There are many problems with rail privatisation in Britain, but it has succeeded in getting more people onto the railway:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_in_Great_Britain#mediaviewer/File:GBR_rail_passenegers_by_year.gif

How much of that can be said is due to privatisation? A lot of it could be due to people needing to travel on the trains more regularly for commuting longer distances. Particularly with those working in London.

antoinolachtnai · 23-02-2015 11:45am

UK GDP growth wasn't anything special those years.

http://www.google.ie/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=ny_gdp_mktp_kd_zg&idim=country:GBR:USA:FRA&hl=en&dl=en#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=ny_gdp_mktp_kd_zg&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&idim=country:GBR&ifdim=region&hl=en_US&dl=en&ind=false

House prices in London certainly did go up in those years, but house prices also went sky high in the mid-eighties, with no corresponding increase in rail passengers.

http://moneyweek.com/uk-house-prices-will-plummet-look-at-this-scary-chart-14664/

BoatMad · 23-02-2015 4:33pm

While its mainstream to sneer at british rail privatisation and theres no doubt that a lot was done incorrectly ( aka RailTrack), it is clear that both passenger and freight traffic are up. BR as a nationalised company was going nowhere. If you look at BR today, its a kind of public - private partnership, rather then a true privatisation, since in practice Network Rail is essentially is a publicly owned body ( rather like our Semi-states)

end of the road · 23-02-2015 6:31pm

n97 mini wrote: »

With careful planning rail prices in Britain are way better than BR days. I paid £3.50 last summer for Birmingham to London. Three fifty! I don't think I've paid more than about £13 for any journey since privatisation.

special offer or just book way in advance?

etchyed wrote: »

Yes, except that TfL don't own the buses.

who does then? i thought they owned the fake route master ones?

Dravokivich wrote: »

How much of that can be said is due to privatisation? A lot of it could be due to people needing to travel on the trains more regularly for commuting longer distances. Particularly with those working in London.

privatization might have helped a bit, but there were many factors that increased numbers. BR apparently did experience good growth toards the end. the one good thing privatization has done is that it now has made the government realize they have to invest in the network (all though more does need to be done)

end of the road · 23-02-2015 6:49pm

BoatMad wrote: »

While its mainstream to sneer at british rail privatisation and theres no doubt that a lot was done incorrectly ( aka RailTrack), it is clear that both passenger and freight traffic are up.

certainly the freight aspect of it is a major success which is great to see. the passenger growth had a lot to do with other factors while privatization may have helped. the passenger set up is a bit more complicated and it has a lot of problems.

BoatMad wrote: »

BR as a nationalised company was going nowhere.

i don't think that is necessarily fair to say. while they had a lot of faults they did get a lot done, and with a bit more funding they could have delivered some revolutionary projects. of course their rolling stock procurement at least in the early years was a major problem that definitely didn't help. they made good strides for improvement later on and had they been left maybe things could have worked out but we'l never know. remember funding was a problem along with governments who saw the railway as a burdin rather then as a benefit, and people put in charge who shouldn't have been, all didn't help either.

n97 mini · 23-02-2015 7:05pm

end of the road wrote: »

special offer or just book way in advance?

As soon as my travel plans are confirmed I tend to book straight away. E.g. travelling to Cork in April, already have ticket booked.

etchyed · 23-02-2015 10:34pm

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

UK GDP growth wasn't anything special those years.

http://www.google.ie/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=ny_gdp_mktp_kd_zg&idim=country:GBR:USA:FRA&hl=en&dl=en#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=ny_gdp_mktp_kd_zg&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&idim=country:GBR&ifdim=region&hl=en_US&dl=en&ind=false

House prices in London certainly did go up in those years, but house prices also went sky high in the mid-eighties, with no corresponding increase in rail passengers.

http://moneyweek.com/uk-house-prices-will-plummet-look-at-this-scary-chart-14664/

House prices are not a major driver of rail demand. GDP, employment and modal competition are. Rail privatisation in Britain coincided with increases in road congestion and respectable GDP and employment growth. It also exposed the levels of underinvestment under British Rail and resulted in a tripling of subsidy in real terms. Of course you can't discount the role of the private sector entirely, but few believe the current industry structure is responsible for anything like the majority of growth in UK rail.

etchyed · 23-02-2015 10:39pm

BoatMad wrote: »

While its mainstream to sneer at british rail privatisation and theres no doubt that a lot was done incorrectly ( aka RailTrack), it is clear that both passenger and freight traffic are up. BR as a nationalised company was going nowhere. If you look at BR today, its a kind of public - private partnership, rather then a true privatisation, since in practice Network Rail is essentially is a publicly owned body ( rather like our Semi-states)

Except that it's not a partnership at all. It's an adversarial, contract- and conflict- driven relationship with huge transaction costs. Not to mention the ever-spiralling cost of holding franchise competitions, and bidding in those franchise competitions.

Mainstream is not always wrong. It's clear that passenger and freight traffic are up, but it's far from clear that that's because of the current industry structure, and far from clear that it couldn't have happened under a nationalised system. I'd love to know the basis for your assertion that BR "was going nowhere". And I'd love to see what a nationalised railway could have achieved with a tripling in real-terms subsidy, which is what the Network Grand and TOC subsidies add up to.

etchyed · 23-02-2015 10:43pm

I'm aware that all this stuff about UK rail is horribly off-topic. A bus contract system in which the contracting authority retains the revenue risk and sets operational standards for the operator is a completely different kettle of fish, and if handled well, can lead to great results. It will be interesting to see how this experiment (and that's what letting some little-used orbital routes constitutes) goes. The risk is that the contract on offer is just too small, and that therefore the results of this experiment may be inconclusive.

etchyed · 23-02-2015 10:45pm

stehyl15 wrote: »

So bacically it goes like NTA>CIE>DB/IR/BE

Not really, the NTA agrees contracts for the provision of transport services with each of the constituent companies of CIÉ.

BoatMad · 24-02-2015 3:09pm

etchyed wrote: »

Except that it's not a partnership at all. It's an adversarial, contract- and conflict- driven relationship with huge transaction costs. Not to mention the ever-spiralling cost of holding franchise competitions, and bidding in those franchise competitions.

Mainstream is not always wrong. It's clear that passenger and freight traffic are up, but it's far from clear that that's because of the current industry structure, and far from clear that it couldn't have happened under a nationalised system. I'd love to know the basis for your assertion that BR "was going nowhere". And I'd love to see what a nationalised railway could have achieved with a tripling in real-terms subsidy, which is what the Network Grand and TOC subsidies add up to.

to try and stay generally on subject, Rail transport was a 100% private undertaking as was all Victorian public transport , canals, trams, busses, etc. No one could argue that the railways under its original private ownership were not run well. There is no reality that says nationalised or private is best. Either can be good, either can be bad.

Most nationalised transport systems were not created out of an altruistic desire to control and develop public transport infrastructure, they were created out of economic necessity because such transport systems were rendered uneconomic due to the rise of the motor car & truck and changing patterns of housing, and distribution methods.

Whether DB routes are privatised or not is entirely irrelevant, what counts is the the quality of the subsequent service and its costs.

For example , for years Waterford had a purely private urban bus operating company, widely regarded as doing fine job.

This is not a public/private debate, its about service levels and operational efficiency

Dublin Bus privatisation

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