Dublin Bus route 41X - application for using the port tunnel.

mickoneill30

I sent a mail to the DOT asking if they were ever going to get the finger out and decide if Dublin Bus could use the tunnel or not.

Got this back.

"The application for a high frequency serivce between Swords and the City Centre via the Port Tunnel has been finalised and the Department is currently awaiting outstanding information from the applicant in order to issue the licence. In the case of the Dublin Bus proposal to re-route four of its exisitng Route 41X services, the Department had no option but to defer a decision on that proposal until such time as the prior application is finalised. The Department deals with applications on a first come first served basis and Dublin Bus was informed of the position and is aware of the Department's procedures.

The Department supports the use of the Port Tunnel by any bus operator, whether it is Dublin Bus, Bus Eireann or a private operator. Cases such as the deferral of the Dublin Bus proposal to re-route 4 of the Route 41X services only occurs where the Deparment has on hands a prior application from a private concern.

I hope this clarifies the position for you and I shall keep you informed of any progress on the matter."

To me it looks like Dublin Bus haven't been approved to move the 41X to the port tunnel and it looks like whatever private operator has been offered the license needs to send more info into the DOT. We've no idea what the time limit the DOT uses for waiting on this info but they seem to be happy to wait forever.

AlekSmart

What a sloppy disingenous response and one which should be e-mailed directly to Joe Duffy and every other Chat Host on the Radio.

Of course the shagging department had an "Option".
Is this representative of Irish Public Administration telling us that the Department of Transport operates on a single channel when all around it have Sky Dishes with 999 channels ?

It`s very simple....The Department has a responsibility to act in the Public Interest and in this case the Public is VERY interested..as the original Joe Duffy Radio show proved.
The current Dublin Bus 41X customers and many new one`s were perfectly clear in their support for the original Driver`s actions in using the Tunnel Option.

The Department has no business in deliberately frustrating the efforts of BAC to respond to their customer demands and should be told this in no uncertain terms.
Once again we see the Departments somewhat telling use of the term "Private Concern" in its response.
The ethos of this unknown mystery applicant is of no bearing on this matter whatever,so why is this Departmental Official actually saying ?
The Buses are in place.
The Staff are in place.
The Customers are definitely in place.
The Tunnel is in place.

Time for Minister Dempsey to ensure that his Departmental officials are in place,hopefully somewhere on this planet.

KC61

AlekSmart wrote:

What a sloppy disingenous response and one which should be e-mailed directly to Joe Duffy and every other Chat Host on the Radio.

Of course the shagging department had an "Option".
Is this representative of Irish Public Administration telling us that the Department of Transport operates on a single channel when all around it have Sky Dishes with 999 channels ?

It`s very simple....The Department has a responsibility to act in the Public Interest and in this case the Public is VERY interested..as the original Joe Duffy Radio show proved.
The current Dublin Bus 41X customers and many new one`s were perfectly clear in their support for the original Driver`s actions in using the Tunnel Option.

The Department has no business in deliberately frustrating the efforts of BAC to respond to their customer demands and should be told this in no uncertain terms.
Once again we see the Departments somewhat telling use of the term "Private Concern" in its response.
The ethos of this unknown mystery applicant is of no bearing on this matter whatever,so why is this Departmental Official actually saying ?
The Buses are in place.
The Staff are in place.
The Customers are definitely in place.
The Tunnel is in place.

Time for Minister Dempsey to ensure that his Departmental officials are in place,hopefully somewhere on this planet.

Again the problem remains that the 1932 and 1958 Acts need to be repealed and replaced. The Department are acting in accordance with the strict principles of the Acts and until they are removed, the focus remains operator rather than passenger driven.

Of course the other problem will be that if this is a private operator, he will, if successful, have to order the buses (as he is unlikely to have bought new buses without having a licence) so people will continue to have to wait!!!

John R

KC61 wrote:

Again the problem remains that the 1932 and 1958 Acts need to be repealed and replaced. The Department are acting in accordance with the strict principles of the Acts and until they are removed, the focus remains operator rather than passenger driven.

That is complete crap and it is now oft repeated crap on this and other discussion forums. Have you or any of the other people who quote them as an excuse for the ridiculous carry-on of the DOT actually READ those acts? I suspect not.



The 1932 act which covers licenced services has a wide range of measures that can be used to ensure proper passenger services, it is not nearly as bad as apologists for the department/minister for transport make out.

It allows the minister to award annual licences and renew them year on year.

He is empowered to place specific conditions on all licences regarding:

Location and route of services
Number of services operated
Frequency of services
Types of vehicle used
Fares

He is empowered to apply those conditions or revoke/refuse to issue or renew licences based on a number of condition including "on the ground that in his opinion the passenger road service to which such licence relates has not been carried on efficiently with A DUE REGARD TO THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE PUBLIC".



The 1958 act is regarding CIE board operations. The relevant sections to this are sections 24 and 25:

24.— Section 7 of the Road Transport Act, 1932 , which prohibits the carrying on of a passenger road service without a passenger licence, SHALL NOT APPLY TO THE BOARD

25.—(1) The Board shall not, WITHOUT CONSENT OF THE MINISTER, initiate any passenger road service or alter any passenger road service for the time being operated by it so as to compete with a licensed passenger road service.


(2) If any question arises whether any existing or proposed service or alteration does or would so compete the question shall be referred to the Minister whose decision shall be final.


(3) The Board shall comply with such directions as may be given to it by the Minister for the purposes of this section.



The fact is that the way in which bus services have been governed under these acts changed completely about 10 years ago.

Due to political pressure the department has taken an anti-CIE and anti-public stance by allowing unrestricted licences to various private individuals and then ABUSING their power to stifle any public or private competition with these individuals.

They are not sticking rigidly to the acts and they are certainly not carrying out their duty to act in the interest of the public.

I can see NOTHING in the act banning the licencing of more than one service on a specific route or to a specific area that is served by another licenced service yet the DOT are using the existence of licences (even when no service is operated) as grounds for denying CIE and private operators licences.

Links:

Road Transport Act 1932

Transport Act 1958


Read the acts thoroughly if you don't believe what I am saying. If anyone can find laws that do support the current carry on please do post them here because I really would like to see them.

IMO the current acts give a wide range for a competent and un-corrupted minister to allow both private and CIE services operate and grow in a manner that would benefit the public and provide a proper and integrated service.

A better set of acts would give more specifics in regards to service and information provision but the current regulations are far from unworkable and are far better than the deregulated mess in the UK under which many local authorities still manage to wring out a decent service for their citizens.

KC61

John R, I'll need to have another look. But yes I did look at the Acts some months back and that was my interpretation.

But anyhow, I think I have made enough posts on here to show that you and I are in agreement on this whole mess. The issue is fundamentally one of political inaction and lack of any will to tackle this issue, knowing full well it will cost a large amount and will involve confrontation with the bus companies and unions while Joe Soap continues to be left with a far less decent bus service than he ought to be entitled to.

So perhaps you could tone down the language a tad and be a little less condescending?

AlekSmart

Well done John R and fair play to you for a consise summation of the TRUE situation.
I have not found your posts at all condescending so keep them coming sez me.

You have hit the nail on the head with your use of the term "un-corrupted" in relation to the current stewardship of the Dept of Transport .

The almost constant doing-down of the 1932 Transport Act has by now become a mantra among a certain clique in Irish public Transport.
As you quite rightly point out,the Minister (Or any official so designated by the Minister) has substantial powers to regulate and supervise the operation of Road Passenger Services in the State.

However to do this efectively requires INTEREST and APPLICATION,neither qualities to be found in any great quantity in Irish Public Administration.

Ireland does indeed have a rather tightly framed Road Transport Act and again,as you state,it stands far above much of the UK`s current chaotic mess which currently exists solely to ensure the continued profitability of large multi-national groupings.

Oh Boyz Oh Boyz...there are dirty deeds afoot in relation to this and make no mistake.....say what you like but DeValera`s handiwork aint all bad !!!

John R

KC61 wrote:

John R, I'll need to have another look. But yes I did look at the Acts some months back and that was my interpretation.

But anyhow, I think I have made enough posts on here to show that you and I are in agreement on this whole mess. The issue is fundamentally one of political inaction and lack of any will to tackle this issue, knowing full well it will cost a large amount and will involve confrontation with the bus companies and unions while Joe Soap continues to be left with a far less decent bus service than he ought to be entitled to.

So perhaps you could tone down the language a tad and be a little less condescending?

I wasn't trying to be condescending at all, just trying to figure out what the situation actually is. Until I read the acts i assumed that what you (and a number of others who are normally correct) had posted was the situation, namely that the wording of an ancient act was the reason for all of the disgraceful decisions from the DOT.

But upon reading the 1932 act it seems pretty clear (to me anyway) that the wording of the act gives the DOT a great deal of lattitude and powers to ensure the public interest is enforced above the concerns of private individuals.

Okay well now I'm confused, are you saying that you agree with my take of the acts? In which case you must agree that your earlier post was indeed incorrect.

If my reading of the acts are correct then replacing them with new ones will do no good whatsoever as it is the very people responsible for the abuse of the current acts against the public good that would be writing the new ones and how likely is it that they will be any better?

I know that you and I have similar views on the whole topic and I am not having a go at you at all. I am more annoyed at myself for not reading the acts myself earlier rather than taking as fact the interpretations posted by others in the last few years.

It is a common occourence that once something is said often enough on boards like these that it just becomes considered true, nobody's fault really.

I am not being sarcastic in asking for any contradictory opinions, after about half an hour of reading the legalese BS that these acts are written in I get an enormous headache and loose the will to live. I would be happy for someone else to see if they can pick holes in my interpretation if for nothing else than confirmation that I haven't got it wrong.


As an aside I read nothing at all that mentioned the licences/applications are to be kept secret, is it at all possible that the DOT's refusal to release these under FOI is also as suspect as their application of the acts?

I suppose the only way to test that one would be to appeal a FOI request all the way and that would cost €€€€.

KC61

No problem John. It was only your first paragraph that got my back up. I try to offer some informed comment here based on a very long time as a full-time bus user and observer of the public transport sector in Ireland, and I felt your suggestion that I had not read the Acts was a little OTT! But anyways, let's leave it at that.

I am going to re-read the Acts myself this week and try to come to some conclusion on that perspective.

When I say we agree, I mean that we both are of the opinion that the licensing of bus services needs to be taken out of the department's hands and that the whole process becomes passenger focussed rather than operator focussed.

I totally agree with your comments regarding the lack of transparency of licence applications. This is based on pure civil service paranoia and nothing less. It is rendering the whole process a farce.

At the end of the day this is a PUBLIC transport licensing process, and the proposed routes should be up for open tender - not individual operators deciding where they will operate and then crying boo-hoo when they don't carry enough pax and proceed to blame Dublin Bus for operating too many buses along the same route (despite the DB schedule not changing at all in the intervening period!).

With the current setup I fail to see how any private operator is going to make a profit - there is no level playing pitch. Indeed, I see the Locolink in Ballinteer every morning, and it always has a maximum of 2 pax on board - how long can that be sustained? Or is that commercially sensitive information?

I revert to my oft made assertion here, that the only fair way forward is the TfL model. But something tells me that the Dublin Bus unions (and indeed Dublin Bus) won't like that!!!

Aquavid

I note from my reading of the above posted sections of the acts that CIE is only obliged to refer to the Minister in law if an EXISTING conflicting licence is in place.

The situation for Swords is that, by the department's own admission, no licence has been granted yet for the independent, so why is Dublin Bus being prevented from starting both the 41X rerouting, and more importantly the high frequency 141?

If the Minister, as shareholder in Bus Atha Cliath, is also, in his role as Minister, changing the playing field as laid down in law in order to allow a prospective as opposed to existing licencee a clear run at the field, at the expense of Dublin Bus, that sounds to me like a clear, and very serious, conflict of interest on his part.

If this were the private sector, and BAC was a PLC, the Minister would be required to either relinquish his controlling oversight of Bus Atha Cliath, or cede the bus licencing powers to another government department.

How can this position be justified?

Aquavid

markpb

KC61 wrote:

I revert to my oft made assertion here, that the only fair way forward is the TfL model. But something tells me that the Dublin Bus unions (and indeed Dublin Bus) won't like that!!!

Given the current mess that is the pending EU investigation, the general lack of integration and supervising and the complete mess that is private competing with public services with the passenger losing out all the time, this would seem to be the best option. Several birds, one stone.

On the other hand, our past attempts at privatisation and regulation are pretty laughable and I can't imagine many people would have confidence in the current government doing it in any reasonable time and giving us a working system.

Clearly the only option is a military coup and install Red Ken and TfL as our new leaders

FunkyDa

Aquavid wrote:

I note from my reading of the above posted sections of the acts that CIE is only obliged to refer to the Minister in law if an EXISTING conflicting licence is in place.

The situation for Swords is that, by the department's own admission, no licence has been granted yet for the independent, so why is Dublin Bus being prevented from starting both the 41X rerouting, and more importantly the high frequency 141?

If the Minister, as shareholder in Bus Atha Cliath, is also, in his role as Minister, changing the playing field as laid down in law in order to allow a prospective as opposed to existing licencee a clear run at the field, at the expense of Dublin Bus, that sounds to me like a clear, and very serious, conflict of interest on his part.

If this were the private sector, and BAC was a PLC, the Minister would be required to either relinquish his controlling oversight of Bus Atha Cliath, or cede the bus licencing powers to another government department.

How can this position be justified?

Aquavid

This is reminiscent of the Aer lingus/Ryanair operating into Gatwick situation, all those years ago - where Aer Lingus were ordered off the route, to allow the fledgling Ryanair a clear run at it.

Carawaystick

JohnR that's interesting. shows what muppets we have as transport ministers. But also reflects poorly on DB management not to call the govt's bluff if the 32 act doesn't apply to CIE companies on a new route.

I suppose lke a lot of things here, Improved Competition means private companies should be able to make a profit, and better means higher profits for these private companies, citizens bedamned. See the electricity market mar shampla. Way cheaper when ESB had a monopoly.

Improved competition is not always in the public interest.

AlekSmart

Aquavid wrote:

If the Minister, as shareholder in Bus Atha Cliath, is also, in his role as Minister, changing the playing field as laid down in law in order to allow a prospective as opposed to existing licencee a clear run at the field, at the expense of Dublin Bus, that sounds to me like a clear, and very serious, conflict of interest on his part.

If this were the private sector, and BAC was a PLC, the Minister would be required to either relinquish his controlling oversight of Bus Atha Cliath, or cede the bus licencing powers to another government department.

How can this position be justified?

Aquavid

Now This IS an interesting angle,and has been for some time past.

We currently hear little except ghastly forecasts about the Morton/Harney/McCreevy inspired EU "Investigation" into the Bus Atha Cliath - State Subvention scheme.

This Civil Service inspired dread fest has managed to fool almost every Public Transport observer into a belief that Mortons are about to cleave the Irish Public Transport statutes with a mighty broadsword.

I actually believe Mortons may well have misjudged the EU mood and perhaps have listened a wee bit too closely to a couple of VERY opionated though poorly briefed native politicians.

There is little doubt but the 1932 act has suffered at the hands of lazy high ranking Civil Servants and a couple of media friendly Public Transport Operators..
As a result most peoples reading of the 1932 Act is dependent upon what the Herald of the Daily Star can condense into a few choice words and a picture.

Both John R and Aquavid prove that,as with much else in Ireland,we do not research the items we really NEEED to whilst we allocate VAST resources into researching the Premier League or some similar ventures..

Quite definitely it`s time for Bus Atha Cliath management to actually read it`s own motto and begin to serve this ENTIRE community it mentions......or at least give this community the facts about why it`s being denied the service improvements promised before the election..... :eek: