Private buses hired by Bus Éireann

kc66

Just something I was wondering- do private buses hired by Bus Eireann get paid a fixed fee or do they get a percentage of the fares or what? There are so many private buses doing the routes for BE.

Maskhadov

and most of them are crap.. drivers dont know the roads and they are always late. I have written to B.E so many times about the crap service without 1 reply.

The other major issues is the pathetic size of Bus Aras. We need either a new bus station or to expand Bus Aras

John R

They get a fixed fee based on several criteria depending on the individual contracts.

The drivers SHOULD usually know the routes, most of the hire-ins are used on specific services.

They do get training on routes and ticket machine operation but if the contractor uses a driver at short notice that is not up to speed BE are stuck.

It would be up to a driver to find out the correct route if they are unfamiliar with the route but with the national road improvements it would be difficult to get it right on directions alone. Routes that once followed main roads now have to get to towns with by-passes and without having driven them before it is easy to get lost.

BE have conditions about the standard of buses used by hire-ins and from what i've seen the vast majority of them are 0-3 year old coaches. There are a few old buses still used on the commuter routes though.

BusAras is far too small and there is no way it is going to be expanded at the current site. There is no space, the building cannot be significantly altered as it is listed and it belongs to the Government department that occupies the office space above, not CIE.

Since Luas there is even less space than ever and there is congestion problems with all buses having to loop around on entry and exit.

Spreading out departures so less are on the hour would help a bit but BE have serious difficulty getting permission from the DoT to alter many express or commuter timetables out of Dublin because of objections from private operators.

A new bus station would be good but where? Putting one way out of the city would put BE at a huge disadvantage over private operators who are seemingly free to clog up the city centre streets to load/unload long distance services.

Perhaps a new municipal station that all non-city services from all operators HAVE to use, of course that would require some sort of commitment to bus transport from the national and local governments in the form of proper facilities, bus priority measures and an overall transport regulator.


Q. Maskhadov. What service(s) do you experience constant delays and route-ignorant drivers on?

neilled

What about creating a seperate "commuter" station somwhere else in the city?

John R

neilled wrote:

What about creating a seperate "commuter" station somwhere else in the city?

Most of the commuter routes are already out of BusAras, either to Connolly or a number of former city bus stops around the area.

The problem is the same though, where can a useful bus station be put? Some of the big commercial developments of the past ecade would have been ideal for a large bus interchange for both express and local routes but there was (and still is) no consideration for bus services from the authorities, they are looked on as a nuissance that just about has to be tolerated but nothing more.

The only reason the small Strand street development is happening is because the land was owned by CIE, to put such a thing in a purely commercial development would require the local authority to condition it as part of planning permission.

If the Connolly Luas stop was abandoned after the Docklands extention there would just about be enough room there for 15 or so nose-in bus stands

markpb

Ideally I guess there would be three bus stations - one north of the city on the Dart or Meto line, one west-side on the IE Maynooth line and one south-side on the Luas line.

Like John R said, it should definitely be a municipal bus station with private operators being disallowed from collecting or dropping off at any point other than the bus stations.

It would be even better if passengers could get a free transfer to/from the bus stations on the nearest train line when they buy their bus ticket.

Victor

markpb wrote:

Ideally I guess there would be three bus stations - one north of the city on the Dart or Meto line, one west-side on the IE Maynooth line and one south-side on the Luas line.

We need integration, not dis-integration.

One option would be Broadstone / Grangegorman, seeing as that is where the BE garage operation is.

mikemac

Victor wrote:

We need integration, not dis-integration.

One option would be Broadstone / Grangegorman, seeing as that is where the BE garage operation is.

Not a bad option. What about the bus depot close to Summerhill? You only have to walk down Parnell Street and you'll be on O'Connell St so its pretty central and easy to find

Victor

I'm not sure if it would make that much of a difference.

Note Bus Aras uses some of the surrounding streets for short term storage.

mikemac

From the photos above, it seems Summerhill Bus Depot is pretty large. Could be ideal for a secondary bus terminal.
A bit like the way, Belfast has two bus terminals;Europa and Laganside.