EC starts probe into bus subsidies

OTK

antoinolachtnai wrote:

First of all, if there is to be a strong transport authority, it makes more sense for the authority to fund and control the location system rather than the bus company.

Yes, otherwise other operators would be locked out. If DB had any sense they would have seen this as a possible future competitive advantage. A DTA has been talked about for many years and may never materialise.

Secondly on the problem of managing transport, the problem with investing so much in an IT system when you are being cash-starved is that you would arguably be better off investing the money in vehicles. Vehicles are what deliver the service and generate the cash.

Yes the company is underfunded but it is fare-paying passengers that generate cash while buses are a cost. You can point to oversubscribed peak services as needing more vehicles but I think you know already that these are regarded as PSO services because additional service at peak are fallow off-peak. If management and customers knew where the buses were, they might get better load factors particularly off-peak and on low-frequency routes.

Thirdly, the cost of the system, if it is to do all the things you suggest, will be high. The AVL system that is the first phase of the grand project will not do very many the things you are talking about. Implementing the software to do all this will cost realistically cost tens of millions. It is easy to see the all-singing system having a price tag of EUR 60-100m (which would arguably still worth doing).

We are talking about a commoditised system available from multiple suppliers based on GPS and GPRS. I have both in my car already. London's all singing all dancing AVL system is costing £117m. But then they have 8 times as many buses as us and 12 times as many passengers.

Forthly, there is no correlation between having a big turnover and being able to afford to do things.

I think they could have found the money if they wanted to. They have been in surplus the last few years and they are credit worthy. Their large turnover and poor operational management suggests plenty of opportunity to make changes that would make a return on investment.

This company loses money on every journey. The more buses it runs, the more money it loses.

The company makes money for every additional passenger it carries on its existing fleet. There are low frequency buses running routes near my house that take me to places I need to go but I can't use them as I have no idea when or if each scheduled service will show up. On the better routes off peak it's the same story. Whenever I see these service from my car, they're mostly empty.

gjim

Zoney wrote:

Free private enterprise should be facilitated and encouraged, but it's nonsense to think private companies are automatically a better choice for public service provision than a public company.

Eh? I don't get your point? Your example, (I presume you're aguing for public ownership of the local loop and presumably the local exchanges?) concerns infrastructure not customer service provision.

There is a stronger argument for holding onto shared infrastructure particularly when it would be impossible to sell it without creating a private monopoly (Railtrack). And splitting the ownership of infrastructure on a simple geographical basis misses the point completely; yes you've avoided creating a large private monopoly but done so by creating many smaller monopolies. If I want to get a train to/from work, I cannot avail of the tracks in Dublin if I live in Cork. Monopolies whether public or private are bad for the consumer.

To steer back to the subject at hand, it's worth noting that most of the railways in the world were originally built by private capital and not government investment (in Ireland, the government was still spending money on canals when the railway companies started building lines). Having the government run public transport is a relatively recent phenomena not the natural state of things, in Ireland in particular. It's a 50 year experiment, which I think, while not a complete disaster, has hardly been a great success. I'm not arguing that we would still have one of the most extensive tram networks in Dublin in the world (as we had pre-nationalisation) or have railways linking nearly every town in the country (ditto) as the subsequent economic forces would still have had their effect. However I find it amusing that many people who believe generally "public sector good, private sector bad" still enthuse about "railways in the old days" when in fact back then, it was the evil capitalists who owned and ran the railways.

Selling Aer Lingus always made sense to me. Disposing of Bus Eireann and offerring public service subsidies for the unprofitable routes makes sense to me also. Dublin Bus is trickier just in terms of scale but whatever they've done in London, I'd love to see done here; the bus system is superb - I use it much more than the underground these days when I'm over there. None of these involve expensive shared infrastructure (bus stops?) and so I don't see how the local loop example supports the case for public ownership here.

antoinolachtnai

OTK wrote:

Yes, otherwise other operators would be locked out. If DB had any sense they would have seen this as a possible future competitive advantage. A DTA has been talked about for many years and may never materialise.

Dublin Bus know this. So does the Department. This is why development of a full scale information system has not been permitted.

Yes the company is underfunded but it is fare-paying passengers that generate cash while buses are a cost. You can point to oversubscribed peak services as needing more vehicles but I think you know already that these are regarded as PSO services because additional service at peak are fallow off-peak. If management and customers knew where the buses were, they might get better load factors particularly off-peak and on low-frequency routes.

There is no evidence from elsewhere that this would happen as a result of an information system alone, at least none that I know of (and I researched it extensively a few years ago).

We are talking about a commoditised system available from multiple suppliers based on GPS and GPRS. I have both in my car already. London's all singing all dancing AVL system is costing £117m. But then they have 8 times as many buses as us and 12 times as many passengers.

It's not all that commoditized. London't proposed system is not an AVL system; it is much more than that. The iBus system hasn't been built yet. It's a project in development. The £117m is an estimate of the cost, not the actual cost. There are a lot of information systems in place in TfL already which makes it easier.

I think they could have found the money if they wanted to. They have been in surplus the last few years and they are credit worthy. Their large turnover and poor operational management suggests plenty of opportunity to make changes that would make a return on investment. The company makes money for every additional passenger it carries on its existing fleet. There are low frequency buses running routes near my house that take me to places I need to go but I can't use them as I have no idea when or if each scheduled service will show up. On the better routes off peak it's the same story. Whenever I see these service from my car, they're mostly empty.

[/quote]

There is no evidence that there is poor operational management in Dublin Bus. There are a lot of empty bus seats, but that isn't necessarily because of operational issues. It may be the nature of the market, or it may be to do with the routes served or the frequencies. These are strategic issues which are not in the hands of Dublin Bus.

Dublin Bus can't make strategic decisions on its own. It is dependent on the Department. It cannot reapply its own paper profits. The profits do not belong to the company, they belong to the shareholder, and the shareholder has complete discretion over how they are invested. In practice, DB can't buy anything more than a replacement bus without permission from the Department.

I am definitely not here to defend Dublin Bus, and there are serious issues to be addressed here. But we have to be realistic about what they can and can't do.

On the other hand, the Department has good reasons for what it is doing as well, not least the fact that they have known for some time that the EC investigation is coming down the line.

Cork

antoinolachtnai wrote:

Don't think the Stagecoach deal covers Citylink in Ireland. Citylink is owned by ComfortDelgro, the Singaporeans. Aircoach is controlled by First for sure.

Citylink provide an excellant service. I use them alot since they launched their Galway to Cork service via Limerick. They seem very helpful and professional.

I get cheaper bus tickets and can avoid the Bus station in Cork on Friday evenings.

I think the opening up of bus stops will be significant.

I use bus eireann ocasionally but find citylink very impressive.

Can I make an unrelated comment?

Why 3rd level colleges don't have bus parks beggers belief. Bus companies drop students on Sunday nights off at city locations where they have to get other buses (Sunday schedule) to their accomadation.

AlekSmart

gjim wrote:

I read this not as a brake on public funding for public transport (which would be fairly weird coming from the EU) but as a demand that the subsidy be accounted for properly. If this is correct, then I'm all for it; for example, the cost of the free travel pass scheme would be made explicit. So much government spending is just treated like a big barrel of cash.

Now we get to the REAL meat,and believe me this particular one could burst the party open.....:D
One of the first casualities of this EU challenge will be the Free Travel Scheme as it currently operates.
Put bluntly the Private Operator will want,and will be expected to by the accountants to quantify it`s provision of "Free" journeys to an ever increasing number of qualifying individuals.
The current cosy situation whereby the CIE group just nodded through the many hundreds of thousands of Butter Voucher holders in return for an oul Lump Sum each year simply won`t cut it with the private sectors bankers.
The initial step in this has already been taken with the extension of Free Travel scheme into the other juristiction on a FAR more controlled and accountable basis than domestically.
Expect much more of this my friends !!

OTK

antoinolachtnai wrote:

Dublin Bus know this. So does the Department. This is why development of a full scale information system has not been permitted.

That would make sense but the DTA was proposed in 1986, so you have to wonder if it might take another 21 years to get it going. (Transport 21?)

There is no evidence from elsewhere that this would happen [that load factors would improve for off peak and low frequency services] as a result of an information system alone, at least none that I know of (and I researched it extensively a few years ago).

You may be right but I'd be amazed.
http://www.itsbenefits.its.dot.gov/its/benecost.nsf/ID/00185704A74ACF4985256B6B0065ED32?OpenDocument&Query=BApp
(Study of AVL bus system in Finland that led to an increase of 10% in bus ridership.)

Why even consider waiting for an infrequent bus in Dublin when there is no information at the bus stop to tell you when it will arrive? You can't risk leaving the stop for a few minutes to do something else, you can't judge when to give up and change mode. You just have to arrive really early and fret. Information on when the next bus is arriving would mean a passenger could check the next arrival time from the bus stop or phone and choose to wait for a reasonable time. With no information, you run the risk of being let down and then giving up on the service all together. The recommended option in this forum is to ring the bus station, and ask management whether the bus is coming or not, hardly a solution that scales and unknown to most people.

There is no evidence that there is poor operational management in Dublin Bus. There are a lot of empty bus seats, but that isn't necessarily because of operational issues. It may be the nature of the market, or it may be to do with the routes served or the frequencies. These are strategic issues which are not in the hands of Dublin Bus.

DB runs a number of low frequency services that operate randomly. The odd bus shows up whenever and nobody gets on apart from the odd chap in the right place at the right time. At this point, the company is effectively paying a driver and paying for a bus and fuel that provides no benefit to anybody. Maybe the DoT forces them to run these services. Maybe it's politically difficult to cancel them. Maybe DB is cycnically running them to collect PSO for them from the state. Maybe DB just doesn't know how bad these serices are. I don't know.

Dublin Bus can't make strategic decisions on its own. It is dependent on the Department. It cannot reapply its own paper profits. The profits do not belong to the company, they belong to the shareholder, and the shareholder has complete discretion over how they are invested. In practice, DB can't buy anything more than a replacement bus without permission from the Department.

I'm sure you know more about this than me and I'm surprised that DoT has the manpower to do this.

In any case, I look forward to seeing the results of this enquiry.

Victor

OTK wrote:

Is borrowing the cash forbidden?

I think only CIE can borrow the cash and its all been borrowed for the railways.

How can the network be managed when the managers don't know where the vehicles are or how long the journeys are taking?

"<Hiss> <Crackle> Anto, where are you? <click>"

antoinolachtnai

The finnish situation also involved bus prioritization, which is another whole deal. Also, you would have to look to see whether there was also a general program of improving quality of service at the same time.

What you say about standing at bus stops is undoubtedly absolutely true. The question is what is the best way to resolve it - IT systems or extra vehicles.

I agree completely with you about the mystery buses that appear at odd times. But this is not Dublin Bus's idea to be fair. These routes are usually kept alive or revived because of some sort of political pressure.

MarkoP11

Victor wrote:

I think only CIE can borrow the cash and its all been borrowed for the railways.
"<Hiss> <Crackle> Anto, where are you? <click>"

In 1987 when CIE was split, the full borrowings of the CIE group where dumped on Iarnrod Eireann. It was recommended that this be cleared by the state in recent reports into CIE structure but nothing has been done.

The Minister sets the borrowing limit, the repayments come from the farebox, thus you get long term capital costs paid for by increased fares

Even if the companies had the cash the Minister controls the cheque book

Dublin Bus and Bus Eireann have developed a almost self financing rolling fleet replacement program to get around the lack of support from the DoT. Irish Rail came up with some clever accounting tricks by swaping scrap for scrap to get replacement coaches in the late 1980's

OTK

antoinolachtnai wrote:

The finnish situation also involved bus prioritization, which is another whole deal.

Does DB have signal priority on QBCs? I seem to remember some sort of fanfare about it and there are traffic lights with special bus lights. Maybe it was very limited or turned off at some point.

Also, you would have to look to see whether there was also a general program of improving quality of service at the same time.

It's always going to be hard to link cause and effect without a statistical study that could pin down each variable. But it's hardly a huge leap of faith to expect that if people knew when the bus was going to arrive, they just might be more likely to consider waiting for it.

What you say about standing at bus stops is undoubtedly absolutely true. The question is what is the best way to resolve it - IT systems or extra vehicles.

Extra vehicles would only work if you can push the frequency up to something so high that you can just show up at the stop and expect a bus in a few minutes. Off peak or on orbital routes this would be massively wasteful because the supply of bus seats would far exceed possible demand and the buses would mostly be empty.

If you just add a few more buses to a mystery service, the service won't improve sufficiently to attract passengers and yet you're spending more money. If my local service improves from 8 random buses a day to 16, I still cant risk standing at the bus stop for a bus that may or may not come during the next 90 minutes.

High frequency services don't really require next bus times. If you have 30-50 buses an hour you don't need a permanent "next bus:1 minute" sign. A sign that says 'next bus: 1hr20mins' tells you a lot. Somebody is sick or a bus has broken down and it's time to go home and get your bike or walk or catch a taxi.

Nobody relies on bus timetables. Dublin Bus says the unreliability is due to traffic but even on uncongested suburban routes, off-peak, the buses don't show up at times that bear any relation to the timetable. What chance do the management have of running buses on time, allocating resources where needed, or making improvements when they have no idea where their fleet is at any point, no idea how long their journeys take, no idea how punctual they are?