Make the buses free

luckat

It's time to make the buses free, put them on the taxes.

This would end the traffic problems in cities at a stroke; stingy people would take the buses because

a) they're free
b) my taxes are paying for them.

And don't say it would be unfair to country people - city-dwellers currently pay for lots of services to country-dwellers on their taxes.

Zaph0d

I like this suggestion. I think it would really help the poor. Could anyone make some attempt at costing it? The answer is not just to quote the amount collected in fares last year, as getting rid of fares would increase demand for buses and the company would need to buy more vehicles and hire more drivers.

On the other hand, it should also be possible to measure the benefit to society for every mile travelled in a bus as opposed to a car.

Last time I was in London, all cash bus fares were £1. Including night buses. No matter what the journey. It's cheaper if you use a prepaid ticket of course. This makes it so much easier to use the bus and so much faster to board and unload people at the stops.

p.pete

I'd be more in favour of the fixed fare - people who bring there cars in from outside the city would have more incentive to leave it at home and at the same time people wouldn't start needlessly getting the bus short distances when walking is an option.

Also - alot of extra capacity would be required, extra drivers extra buses. Maybe partially tax it and also use the fixed fee.

aidan_walsh

Zaph0d wrote:

The answer is not just to quote the amount collected in fares last year, as getting rid of fares would increase demand for buses and the company would need to buy more vehicles and hire more drivers.

Which would of course bring a marked increase on CIE's already glowing profit margins. Plus factor in the additional fuel costs in these times of oil being a barrel a penny.

Imposter

luckat wrote:

And don't say it would be unfair to country people - city-dwellers currently pay for lots of services to country-dwellers on their taxes.

Would you also make Bus Eireann's buses and all trains free too or [strike]just the buses you use[/strike] just city buses?

Capt'n Midnight

http://www.dublinbus.ie/news_centre/press_releases.asp?action=view&news_id=339

Revenue – Dublin Bus has posted a trading surplus of €7.3m, up from €3.4m in the year before. Turnover was up by an impressive 8.5% over 2002 figures to €173m. Dublin Bus received a state subvention of €53.8m this was down from €56m in 2002 and is one of the lowest levels of public service obligation payments made to a bus operator in Europe.

Revenue growth remained strong despite traffic congestion costing Dublin Bus an estimated €49million per year due to large infrastructural works in the city including the Luas, Port Tunnel and the O’Connell St. regeneration.

Passenger Numbers – the increase in passenger numbers by 2.3% brought the number carried for 2003 to 149million and was a main driver of the revenue figures. The numbers carried by Dublin Bus equates to 500,000 passengers per day which is equivalent to one third of the population of the Greater Dublin Area (GDA) using buses every day.

Turnover of €173m to carry 500,000 passengers per day.

http://www.nra.ie/News/PressReleases/2003/d1026.HTML.html

“The scale of the Government’s commitment to investment in national road improvements, involving Exchequer funding of over €7 billion over the period 2004-2008, is a clear recognition of the importance of an efficient road transport system for the economy, continued competitiveness and better quality of life”, said Mr. Malone.

http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2003/11/02/story680534596.asp

In the light of its latest request for an additional €300 million to upgrade the M50 motor way in Dublin, the workings of the NRA are due to come under scrutiny.
...
Dublin Port Tunnel's costs have risen from €165 million to €625 million.
...
A study of five national road projects found that cost estimates ranged from 58 per cent too low to 48 per cent too high. The report found that the final costs averaged 38 per cent higher than initial tender prices.

The M50 takes about 80,000-100,000 vehicles per day - most would single occupant.

So the NRA budget overuns in the Dublin Area alone would have paid for Free bus transport for the last few years. Since the capacity of the buses is five times greater than the M50, you could argue that it's five times cheaper to provide free public transport than it is to build roads that will be instantly filled by cars. Also lower petrol imports, considering the Kyoto fine we are facing (€Bn's) it would be worth it for that reason.

Instead of giving NTR the franchinse the Gov't should have bought them out for their original £ 30m + condsideratin (less revenue to date) - compared to the €7Bn due to be spent it would only represent 10% of the budger overruns to date... How: They could simply state a new Luas line would be using bridge, issue a CPO and then kinda drag thier heels over converting the bridge while building an new one for the cars. Money raised from the toll could fund public transport. Peak time car usage would be penalised once QBC's were up and running , carrot and stick approach.

dmeehan

Imposter wrote:

Would you also make Bus Eireann's buses and all trains free too or [strike]just the buses you use[/strike] just city buses?

sure why not throw aer lingus into the pot aswell :rolleyes:

p.pete

Imposter wrote:

Would you also make Bus Eireann's buses and all trains free too or [strike]just the buses you use[/strike] just city buses?

Fair question - the idea is to reduce congestion and certainly Dublin isn't the only place that suffers. I reckon local transport throughout the country should be included - DART, local bus routes and Dublin Bus etc.

Travel between different urban areas should be treated separately (my opinion), if someone wants to live for example in Athlone or somewhere like that and commute to Dublin (or Galway or Drumshmbo or...) then that's their business.

[edit]

not intended to be derogatory towards Athlone

Imposter

p.pete wrote:

Fair question - the idea is to reduce congestion and certainly Dublin isn't the only place that suffers. I reckon local transport throughout the country should be included - DART, local bus routes and Dublin Bus etc.

Travel between different urban areas should be treated separately (my opinion), if someone wants to live for example in Athlone or somewhere like that and commute to Dublin (or Galway or Drumshmbo or...) then that's their business.

[edit]

not intended to be derogatory towards Athlone

But by not making the provincial and national public transport free you will still clog up Dublin and other cities' roadways anyways. Also seeing as the public transport service outside of Dublin is not what one could call extensive, it wouldn't cost a fortune to do and i'm sure non-city folk would be extremely pissed off with having to pay for public transport, while those in the cities get it for free. Then of course you consider that these people outnumber city people and it'd be unlikely any government would risk such a decision.

D-Generate

Well if it did happen we all know the bus drivers would go on strike for no reason at all. Like when that ticket system that made their job easier was implamented!

dazberry

TBH I don't think it would really work as things stand...

Firstly a lot of the transport medium are at capacity at rush hour(s). Making them free will not improve that situation. I saw this on the first car free day (you can ignore subsequent ones ) when the bus services went to pot - which really didn't do anything to presuade those car drivers that tried either tbh. Extending that concept to Darts/Arrows etc. which in some cases are at capacity will not make any difference.

There's a number of issues here, including pack and ride (or lack thereof), how most everything seems to hub thru' the city centre, and at the core freqency and reliability. None of these issues will be addressed with a free service.

One thing I do think needs to be adjusted are the fares however. I do believe that they are heavily skewed by the zoning aspect of the fares, and Luas has done nothing but exaggerate this.

D.

Tiriel

luckat wrote:

And don't say it would be unfair to country people - city-dwellers currently pay for lots of services to country-dwellers on their taxes.

you from the city then??!! :mad:

luckat

Impostor, I'd start with the buses that would clear most congestion - the buses in the main cities - because that would save the country the most pollution and congestion and lost working time.

I haven't thought this one through much, so could have my mind changed.... but I don't think I'd make inter-city buses and trains free. I wouldn't actually think it would be a good thing to encourage people to live far from their work and commute for hours using the fuel the world's running out of. I know people are doing it now because it's the only way they can afford a house, but I don't think it's a great thing.

The one exception would be school buses - I'd make school buses available to all schoolkids, everywhere in the country, and make them free.

Your thoughts?

London did have buses running for a nominal standard rate under Ken Livingstone, I think, and then one Conservative-dominated council brought the question to court and allowed people their democratic right to be overcharged, and the other councils went down like ninepins.

Zaph0d

luckat wrote:

London did have buses running for a nominal standard rate under Ken Livingstone, I think, and then one Conservative-dominated council brought the question to court and allowed people their democratic right to be overcharged, and the other councils went down like ninepins.

This is London's bus fare system
http://www.londontransport.co.uk/tfl/fares-tickets/2004/bus.shtml
Adult single £1 (70p prepaid)
Child single 40p (35p prepaid)
no matter what the journey

simple isn't it?

luckat

That looks just about perfect, Zaph0d. Now why don't we have that here, in Dublin, Galway, Limerick, Waterford and Cork?

enterprise

BE already do this on their city services in Cork and Waterford (€1.20 I think when I lived in Cork). I assume they do something the same in Limerick and Galway. Having a zonal based system would really simplify the DB system.

€1.00 - travel in 1 zone.
€1.50 - travel in 2 zones.

etc.

cdebru

D-Generate wrote:

Well if it did happen we all know the bus drivers would go on strike for no reason at all. Like when that ticket system that made their job easier was implamented!

what ticket system and when was this strike you refer to
do you have any facts to back this up

John R

doodle_sketch wrote:

Which would of course bring a marked increase on CIE's already glowing profit margins. Plus factor in the additional fuel costs in these times of oil being a barrel a penny.

CIE don't make a profit in that any extra revenue is invested back into the company, not syphoned off into shareholder pockets as with private companies.

Flukey

Making buses free would cause a lot more problems than the ones you think it would solve, some of which it would not solve at all. What we need is a better managed bus service. It is how it serves us that is important. Being free would not improve it. You'd still have all the problems there. In fact if it was free you'd have people coming in here saying that if we had to pay a fare on the buses we might get a better service!

antoinolachtnai

John R wrote:

CIE don't make a profit in that any extra revenue is invested back into the company, not syphoned off into shareholder pockets as with private companies.

That's what a profit is. It's a profit, whether it's distributed to shareholders or not. In principle, a semi-state company is supposed to be run on basically commercial lines and return a dividend to the state. (Many semi-states actually do this.) The state is supposed to pay CIE for any non-profitable activity it is required to undertake.

I would take the reports of CIE's financial strength with a pinch of salt. It is possible to interpret the summary CIE accounts differently. There is a strong argument to be made that in real terms, CIE doesn't really make a profit. Its subsidiaries makes a book profit just large enough to allow it to sustain itself.

If the return on capital (basically, the profit divided by the capital) is not higher than the sectoral rate of inflation, there is a high probability that the company isn't making a profit in real terms. This distortion arises from the 'historical cost convention' used in accounting. In practice, it means that the 'profit' generated will be quickly absorbed by rising operating costs. For sure, at those levels of profit, you just couldn't sustain a private company in a sector as capital-intensive as public transport.

It has nothing to do with greed. The banks and the shareholders just wouldn't give the company the money, because the company just wouldn't be able to pay it back.

It's also worth noting that the CIE group receives substantial (justifiable) state subvention and this is factored in to the headline profit/loss figure.

I'm not arguing that public transport should or should not have to make a profit, I just want to qualify the notion going around that it actually does.

antoinolachtnai

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

So the NRA budget overuns in the Dublin Area alone would have paid for Free bus transport for the last few years. Since the capacity of the buses is five times greater than the M50, you could argue that it's five times cheaper to provide free public transport than it is to build roads that will be instantly filled by cars. Also lower petrol imports, considering the Kyoto fine we are facing (€Bn's) it would be worth it for that reason.

I hear your point, and I agree that improvements in bus service could be provided for much less than the cost of setting up and running other projects.

However, your accounting is a little disingenuous. You are comparing operating expenditure costs of capital expenditure costs. That's not really a fair comparison. The M50 is an asset which will be in place for decades, maybe centuries, while the bus service you suggest only runs for a few years on the level of funding provided.

Instead of giving NTR the franchinse the Gov't should have bought them out for their original £ 30m + condsideratin (less revenue to date) - compared to the €7Bn due to be spent it would only represent 10% of the budger overruns to date... How: They could simply state a new Luas line would be using bridge, issue a CPO and then kinda drag thier heels over converting the bridge while building an new one for the cars. Money raised from the toll could fund public transport. Peak time car usage would be penalised once QBC's were up and running , carrot and stick approach.

Well, there are two problems with this.

1. It would be grossly unconstitutional (but with the political will this difficulty could be circumvented).

2. You assume that the West Link franchise is a bad deal for the taxpayer as it stands. It isn't certain that that is the case. You and I don't really have the figures we'd need to properly evaluate whether the franchise represents good value for the State or not. This information is secret, possibly for good reasons. I am not an apologist for NTR but it does appear quite likely that NTR is shouldering some of the considerable costs of the running of the motorway in return for the franchise.