Should Dart, Luas and Bus fares be lowered?

sitstill

Dart, Luas and Dublin Bus fares all went up in January. My monthly ticket went up by exactly 10%.

Since then I have taken an 11% pay cut.


An awful lot of people have taken pay cuts and inflation is actually dropping. I think these companies should drop their fares accordingly, especially as service levels will probably decrease this year. Is there any chance?

amacachi

Yeah they should lower fares, needing a larger government subvention. Ya know, since there's so much public money to throw around these days.

Tipsy Mac

No chance, if anything the price is likely to rise in the budget.

jdscrubs

What should happen is that fares should be raised for those who buy tickets on board the bus and lowered for those who buy pre paid tickets. That was a conclusion drawn up by a consultant report on CIE on behalf of Minister Dempsey. They compared Dublin to London. In London, about 5% buy tickets on board whereas the figure is much higher in Dublin. More use the bus in London as its quicker due to less people paying on board and slowing down the bus.

The best would be a smart card linking all three but knowing this country that will take to long so do the above instead. Increase fares for those who buy on board and lower the fares for those who pre pay

Run_to_da_hills

amacachi wrote: »

Yeah they should lower fares, needing a larger government subvention. Ya know, since there's so much public money to throw around these days.

They will now be needing more in subventions as people like myself now find it cheaper to make our own way about rrather than use public transport. Like the recent VAT hike that has hammered the retail sector the Government dose not seem to understand anything about the basic law of diminishing returns.

antoinolachtnai

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

They will now be needing more in subventions as people like myself now find it cheaper to make our own way about rrather than use public transport.

Don't worry, the government has a solution at hand for that problem.

Realistically, everything supplied by the government or anything where tax is a big component is going to end up costing more. Things supplied by the private sector are going to end up costing less.

Cookie_Monster

jdscrubs wrote: »

What should happen is that fares should be raised for those who buy tickets on board the bus and lowered for those who buy pre paid tickets. That was a conclusion drawn up by a consultant report on CIE on behalf of Minister Dempsey. They compared Dublin to London. In London, about 5% buy tickets on board whereas the figure is much higher in Dublin.

But DB does not offer tickets that suit a lot of journeys, essentially forcing ppl to use cash or pay for ticket they will never get full use out of. With the removal of the 2 easy ticket there is no replacement for the occasional short-run (1-3 stages or 4-7 stages) tickets and users now have to pay cash. Yes, in some cases travel 90 may be suitable but not if you get a bus in the morning and a bus in the evening and thats it.

Sean9015

jdscrubs wrote: »

More use the bus in London as its quicker due to less people paying on board and slowing down the bus.

The best would be a smart card linking all three but knowing this country that will take to long so do the above instead. Increase fares for those who buy on board and lower the fares for those who pre pay

Not sure that's the reason bus use in London is so high - more like the nightmare of driving in that city, and the congestion charge, together with the comprehensive (but expensive to provide) network that it has. Also, there is a high number of tourist attractions, spread out over a much greater area than in Dublin, which encourages tourists to use the bus (and tube) rather than walk, as is more the case in Dublin.

That's not to say I disagree with the fundamental point you make.

paulm17781

Sean9015 wrote: »

Not sure that's the reason bus use in London is so high

The buses, the busier ones anyway, run about every 3 minutes. They also have real time information at the stops so people aren't waiting an unspecified amount of time and trying to guess where their bus is based on when it left somewhere the other side of the city. There's also Oyster, bus interchanges, entry / exit doors not all going up O'Connell st. etc.

It's incredible what you can do when you run something properly. Sadly DB management / our government don't want to do that, it would require effort.

Zoney

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

They will now be needing more in subventions as people like myself now find it cheaper to make our own way about rrather than use public transport. Like the recent VAT hike that has hammered the retail sector the Government dose not seem to understand anything about the basic law of diminishing returns.

I would argue that the recent VAT hike has so little impact on individual prices (which are inflated here in Ireland for other reasons) that it would have little bearing on people spending more/less. Even the UK drop of 2.5 points is unlikely to have had much impact on getting people there to spend more (it even is a small enough factor in the significant IRL/NI price differential). The impact on public finances of the 0.5 point increase was probably positive, however small (and despite VAT revenue continuing to decline - it would do so at much the same rate without the increase). My phone bill is a whole 10c more per month - oh no!

As regards the public transport - there's little option but to increase prices - the subvention can't be increased in the current climate. You are right to suggest this will exacerbate the drop-off in usage (unlike the VAT hike, we are talking far more substantial % price increases) but it's simply a mostly unavoidable consequence. We haven't seen the end of service curtailment - despite more public transport services being required, not less.

The only way to get things back to any normality would be to increase general taxation - which is a) mostly politically unacceptable, b) a genuine shock with detrimental impact if the needed changes are applied at once and c) probably sufficiently unpopular to result in public unrest - not just drops in the polls. We don't live in the real world as regards personal taxation, compared to most other countries (even the UK nevermind continental Europe) - *and* we have the low corporation tax too. And people wonder why we barely have public services?

The only even slightly realistic prospect is curtailment of tax reliefs etc. as well as a small tax on those who pay no tax (this will go down like a lead balloon, but might be feasible to get away with). The top tax rate will also probably be increased - but it actually will probably not bring in as much as a smaller % applied to the low end (there are a lot more low/average earners than rich).

Irish and Proud

sitstill wrote: »

Dart, Luas and Dublin Bus fares all went up in January. My monthly ticket went up by exactly 10%.

Since then I have taken an 11% pay cut.


An awful lot of people have taken pay cuts and inflation is actually dropping. I think these companies should drop their fares accordingly, especially as service levels will probably decrease this year. Is there any chance?

...transport companies and rural taxi operators should be forced to drop their fares by at least 10% on 2008 levels. After all, energy companies are being forced to drop their prices, and certain professions are being forced to do likewise (8%) regarding direct services to the state. Retailers are having to drop their prices as well as the landlords etc.

If this goverment is serious about promoting public transport, then the fares must drop in line with deflation and pay cuts - after all, transport companies were good at keeping things in line (and even exceeding that) when things were going in the other direction! :rolleyes: Oh, and when oil prices dropped, guess what, CIE hiked most of its fares by 10%! :mad:

Also, should toll rates drop by 10% on 2008 levels? :pac:

The price of most things in the country are dropping (and so they should be) except - yeah, you guessed it...

:mad: THE TRANSPORT SECTOR!!! :mad:

SOD's Lovechild

My bus/Luas combi monthly ticket went from €98 to €113 on January 1st. That's 15.3% inflation when inflation is less than 0.5% tending towards deflation. Once Dublin Bus resolve their Labour Court dispute the service will decrease. I don't see how the price raise was justifiable.

AlekSmart

As regards the public transport - there's little option but to increase prices - the subvention can't be increased in the current climate. You are right to suggest

this will exacerbate the drop-off in usage (unlike the VAT hike, we are talking far more substantial % price increases) but it's simply a mostly unavoidable consequence. We haven't seen the end of service curtailment - despite more public transport services being required, not less.

The only way to get things back to any normality would be to increase general taxation - which is a) mostly politically unacceptable, b) a genuine shock with detrimental impact if the needed changes are applied at once and c) probably sufficiently unpopular to result in public unrest - not just drops in the polls. We don't live in the real world as regards personal taxation, compared to most other countries (even the UK nevermind continental Europe) - *and* we have the low corporation tax too. And people wonder why we barely have public services?

Zoney has it sussed fairly thoroughly.

We have lived through a period of VERY low direct taxation in addition to an incredible system which saw us with NO Local Taxation of any kind to pay for Services FULLY availed of by the general population.

In the Busdriving world you would be driven demented by the numbers of otherwise "normal" looking/sounding people who will vent to atmosphere at length about how FANTASTIC the Buses were in..London,Manchester,Munich,Berlin,Moscow,Ulan Bator or wherever...

However if one asks what the methods of FUNDING these systems are,a vacant stare or mumbled mmmrrrmmm is all one gets.

The average resident of a UK City will be paying the usual National Taxation and Social Insurance payments.
In addition they will pay the Poll Tax/Community Charge or whjatever it`s called now.
If a householder,they will also pay Domestic Rates.
They will also have for many long years have paid some serious amounts of Water Rates and other Utility Charges.

The situation in other juristictions is equally simple,the cultured and generally well educated Europeans were quite amenable to Paying a level of local taxation to fund their local services and as a result their expectations were generally met......If not then BOY would they complain....and get results too !

We in the Republic paid NOTHING in comparison and we complain bitterly about how little we got for our Nothing.

It can be seriously argued that over the past 15 years succesive Governments have quite literally Pissed our Collective Wealth Up Against The Wall.
Worse still is how we,the electorate,continually re-elected what was ever more obviously a collection of sham`s back into office.

It is a hard lesson to accept but our collective willingness to reward chancers,criminals and assorted snake-oil salesmen with Public Office has brought us all to the brink of ruin.

In the meantime,we the People,are going to have to start acting European rather than just Talking It....and that begins with recognizing the need to Pay for Stuff.

The Free Lunch queue may be long,but when eventually one gets to the top you WILL have to Pay for it !! :eek:

Run_to_da_hills

Zoney wrote: »

I would argue that the recent VAT hike has so little impact on individual prices (which are inflated here in Ireland for other reasons) that it would have little bearing on people spending more/less.

You obviously have not been north of the border recently or worse still personally know anyone in the retail trade just south of the border. .

Gruffalo

AlekSmart wrote: »

We have lived through a period of VERY low direct taxation in addition to an incredible system which saw us with NO Local Taxation of any kind to pay for Services FULLY availed of by the general population.

In the Busdriving world you would be driven demented by the numbers of otherwise "normal" looking/sounding people who will vent to atmosphere at length about how FANTASTIC the Buses were in..London,Manchester,Munich,Berlin,Moscow,Ulan Bator or wherever...

However if one asks what the methods of FUNDING these systems are,a vacant stare or mumbled mmmrrrmmm is all one gets.

The average resident of a UK City will be paying the usual National Taxation and Social Insurance payments.
In addition they will pay the Poll Tax/Community Charge or whjatever it`s called now.
If a householder,they will also pay Domestic Rates.
They will also have for many long years have paid some serious amounts of Water Rates and other Utility Charges.

The situation in other juristictions is equally simple,the cultured and generally well educated Europeans were quite amenable to Paying a level of local taxation to fund their local services and as a result their expectations were generally met......If not then BOY would they complain....and get results too !

We in the Republic paid NOTHING in comparison and we complain bitterly about how little we got for our Nothing.

I can not even begin to state how excellently you have stated the case and the root of the problem. It is not a case of Ireland needing to pay higher taxation, it is a case of us needing to pay honest taxation and for too long we allowed our votes to be bought with dishonest taxation.

We can not expect to have the best education, transport, health service etc and not pay for them.

dowlingm

In Toronto (no zone fares on TTC)

5 x tokens = C$2.25 each
Single token purchase/Cash fare C$2.75 (22% more)