Why are there no Nitelinks on Sunday nights of Bank Holiday weekends?

n97 mini

I went out for a friend's birthday a few years ago on the Sunday night of a Bank Holiday weekend. No Nitelinks and it took 3 hours of waiting in the rank to get a taxi home from the city centre.

Why does this lunacy continue?

I want to go to an event in Marlay Park this Bank Holiday weekend, but as it's on the Sunday night I'm not going to risk it.

seanmacc

Probably down to having to pay the drivers bank holiday rates of pay.

Cookie_Monster

because DB are useless at running a functional bus network.

thomasj

Agreed to a certain extent.

The oxegen services that people paid 20 for a return ticket they brought back to the city late sunday night with no nitelinks making people get taxis home.

Common sense would have seen them running a bus or buses back to each main corridor from punchestown. they need to learn!

theteal

3 hours for a taxi in Dublin city? you wearing a ghillie(sp?) suit?

its been a long time since I've had to wait any amount of time for a taxi in Dublin city on any night

deregulation ftw!

a nitelink would be better but what can you do when the country is broke?

n97 mini

October Bank Holiday weekend 2008. I queued from 2am till 4:30am at the rank on Aston quay, at which point I gave up and phoned herself to drive in to get me. There were still around 20 ahead of me in the queue, and maybe 100 behind.

helimachoptor

Jesus lads why are you waiting at ranks!

LXFlyer

I'd imagine frankly that the costs of running the service outweigh the revenues.

Times have changed in this country and DB are now having to cut costs where ever they can particularly given the fact that the PSO funding is about to fall again.

n97 mini

Sunday night of a Bank Holiday weekend is as busy as any regular Friday or Saturday night. Everyone is cleaning up on Sunday night except Dublin Bus.

God help any tourists who come to Dublin for the long weekend and find chaos when they want to get back to their accommodation on the Sunday night.

LXFlyer

The loads on any Bank Holiday Sunday nitelink that I took when they last operated were derisory.

As for waiting at taxi ranks - I really think anyone doing this needs their heads examined. You only have to walk a short distance from the city centre to pick up a taxi heading back towards town. Even then there is never a shortage of taxis in the city centre these days.

thomasj

lxflyer wrote: »

The loads on any Bank Holiday Sunday nitelink that I took when they last operated were derisory.

As for waiting at taxi ranks - I really think anyone doing this needs their heads examined. You only have to walk a short distance from the city centre to pick up a taxi heading back towards town. Even then there is never a shortage of taxis in the city centre these days.

They couldnt even do it for oxegen. they transported thousands of people back up from punchestown on the sunday night beyond the last buses each paying 10 or 20 euro yet they couldnt organise services for the people travelling beyond the city.

n97 mini

thomasj wrote: »

They couldnt even do it for oxegen. they transported thousands of people back up from punchestown on the sunday night beyond the last buses each paying 10 or 20 euro yet they couldnt organise services for the people travelling beyond the city.

Dublin Bus, putting the banana in Banana Republic, one fruit at a time.

KD345

thomasj wrote: »

They couldnt even do it for oxegen. they transported thousands of people back up from punchestown on the sunday night beyond the last buses each paying 10 or 20 euro yet they couldnt organise services for the people travelling beyond the city.

To be fair, I think the Dublin Bus Oxegen shuttles were successful. Keeping a regular service in operation and also provide transport to Punchestown for thousands of passengers puts a lot of pressure on resources. Keep in mind, buses returning from Oxegen need to be cleaned completely for morning service, there is also the driver working hours to consider. Expecting to have enough buses to shuttle back to Dublin City centre, and then also cater for people traveling to different parts of the city, and have a full fleet cleaned and ready for Monday rush hour is probably asking a bit much.

Why is the whole focus on Dublin Bus to provide a late night service? We now have a Luas service to Tallaght, Saggart, Sandyford and Cherrywood, and a DART service to Malahide/Howth/Bray/Greystones all shutting around midnight. Why don't these run later?

We have a national transport authority who really should oversee large events like Oxegen. While Dublin Bus do an excellent job, you can't expect them to be all things to all people, and then operate as normal on a Monday morning.

To the point of the OP. With the streets flooded with taxis the demand for a nitelink service is not there. Buses were leaving near empty.

Cookie_Monster

^ While you make a valid point about the Luas, how do you propose to run DART services late at night without considerably more staff to keep stations open, to ensure nobody is getting on at local stations without paying, security etc.

On buses this is easy to control as driver does it, Luas can operate as it does during the day, with the honour system but the Dart is simply not setup to run trains without higher staffing levels than the other two.

It should be running IMO, but cost wise I can't see it happening

n97 mini

KD345 wrote: »

To the point of the OP. With the streets flooded with taxis the demand for a nitelink service is not there. Buses were leaving near empty.

Tell someone that lives in Bray or Maynooth or Swords that they don't need buses as they can get a taxi.

Tell someone who has waited for two hours at a rank on a busy Bank Holiday weekend that they don't need buses that the taxis are taking up the slack perfectly adequetly.

See if these people agree with you.

KD345

n97 mini wrote: »

Tell someone that lives in Bray or Maynooth or Swords that they don't need buses as they can get a taxi.

Tell someone who has waited for two hours at a rank on a busy Bank Holiday weekend that they don't need buses that the taxis are taking up the slack perfectly adequetly.

See if these people agree with you.

It's probably been about 12 years since I've waited two hours for a taxi. Seriously, I don't know of anyone who has waited two hours for a taxi in Dublin recently, especially at night.

KD345

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

^ While you make a valid point about the Luas, how do you propose to run DART services late at night without considerably more staff to keep stations open, to ensure nobody is getting on at local stations without paying, security etc.

On buses this is easy to control as driver does it, Luas can operate as it does during the day, with the honour system but the Dart is simply not setup to run trains without higher staffing levels than the other two.

It should be running IMO, but cost wise I can't see it happening

You're absolutely right, it would be a loss to run the DART, not with the Luas. But it's still worth exploring how much it would cost.

People simply weren't using the Nitelink, getting taxis instead. If buses were packed then there would be a service. I've seen Nightlinks leave with 3 passengers. That is never going to continue.

If there was a demand for a bank holiday Sunday service, there would be private operators queuing up to run buses.

bk

The problem with Nitelink is that they are to expensive (for people living short distances in the city), too infrequent and don't pick people up in bound.

I believe a normal bus service, with normal day time pricing and picking people up inbound and out would be far more successful and sustainable.

In other words a service serving people at night, late night workers, etc. and not just revelers.

I'm of the opinion that if DB can't run such a service, their nite time license should be pulled and given to a private operator.

LXFlyer

As pointed out in numerous threads before there is nothing stopping private operators from providing such a service. Yet, with the exception of Finnegans to Bray, who do operate on Bank Holiday Sundays, no other private operator has even attempted to operate any form of night bus service since the first Christmas that they all operated.

In fact they all vanished without trace either during or immediately after that Christmas and have not reappeared since and Dublin Bus were left to pick up the pieces!

I would accept Thomasj's point that it was rather odd that nothing was on post-Oxygen, but really the loads on Nitelinks on Bank Holiday Sundays were poor to say the least.

n97 mini

It's also been pointed out before that Dublin Bus is the only state-owned bus company, and one of its jobs is to provide public transport.

If we axed all DB's non-profitable routes there'd be very few left.

Ironically I'm sure if DB itself was axed it'd be the first step to better public transport for Dublin.

n97 mini

Is the Bray route the only profitable night bus route on Thursdays and Bank Holiday Sundays?

I find that hard to believe.

LXFlyer

n97 mini wrote: »

It's also been pointed out before that Dublin Bus is the only state-owned bus company, and one of its jobs is to provide public transport.

If we axed all DB's non-profitable routes there'd be very few left.

Indeed, but unfortunately the Minister has signalled that he is cutting the PSO funding even more next year - which means probably less services rather than more.

noelfirl

n97 mini wrote: »

Is the Bray route the only profitable night bus route on Thursdays and Bank Holiday Sundays?

I find that hard to believe.

As Mr. Flyer has made clear, no-one else seems interested in other night routes, I'm sure if there was significant profit to be made, there would be others in like a shot.

It would be wonderful to wake up and find Dublin Bus running half a dozen or more 24 hour routes, but the reality of the moment is that the economics dictate otherwise. Indeed, it would have been great of them to run onward Oxegen feeders, but in general, with a static/declining subsidy and decreased customer revenues, there has to be logical allocation of resources, and that cant be allocated to keeping Nitelinks going if they're only going to be carrying mainly thin air. That's a bit tough for people for Maynooth/Swords/Bray etc., but I think people are being a bit dillusional to just roll out the statement that "they're the public transport operator - they should be doing it". It completely ignores the fact that dedication to public transport vis a vis subsidies and loss making for the greater good has never been sufficient in this country to generate a public transport carrier that will automatically do such things and operate to the standards of operators in other European cities. And there won't be any improvement in that either, for the forseeable future.

n97 mini

noelfirl wrote: »

As Mr. Flyer has made clear, no-one else seems interested in other night routes, I'm sure if there was significant profit to be made, there would be others in like a shot.

Let's be clear.

The only privately run route is profitable on Thursdays and Bank Holiday Sundays, and at the same time, none of the dozen Dublin Bus routes are profitable on Thursdays or Bank Holiday Sundays?

noelfirl

Nobody has or can factually say that they are or are not profitable because that information isn't available. All that's been said is that nearly all of the other private operators fled the night market quite quickly, and that the Monday-Thursday/BH services were anecdotally carrying minimal passenger numbers. Do you think DB would be going about withdrawing Monday-Thursday/BH Nitelink services if they operated with sufficient surplus revenue to cover all associated costs?

KD345

n97 mini wrote: »

Let's be clear.

The only privately run route is profitable on Thursdays and Bank Holiday Sundays, and at the same time, none of the dozen Dublin Bus routes are profitable on Thursdays or Bank Holiday Sundays?

I would consider bank holiday Sundays to be similar to a Saturday night, but slightly less busy. Monitoring the passenger levels on a Saturday nitelink will show you the demand is not there like it once was. There will be the odd bus leaving with a good crowd on board, but nothing to justify a full nitelink service.

I agree, it would be great to have a full public bus service, preferably a regular late service, but with more PSO funds being withdrawn from Dublin Bus, I'll be surprised if we don't see further cuts to services.

n97 mini

noelfirl wrote: »

Nobody has or can factually say that they are or are not profitable because that information isn't available.

Since nobody knows I'm surprised at the level of authority with which some people speak!

noelfirl wrote: »

Do you think DB would be going about withdrawing Monday-Thursday/BH Nitelink services if they operated with sufficient surplus revenue to cover all associated costs?

See thread title.

If money can be made on a Bank Holiday Sunday night on one route, it can also be made on others.

Losty Dublin

n97 mini wrote: »

Let's be clear.

The only privately run route is profitable on Thursdays and Bank Holiday Sundays, and at the same time, none of the dozen Dublin Bus routes are profitable on Thursdays or Bank Holiday Sundays?

Finnegan runs one bus and one driver on one route. I doubt if his overheads are huge given the tiny size of his operation.

bk

lxflyer wrote: »

As pointed out in numerous threads before there is nothing stopping private operators from providing such a service. Yet, with the exception of Finnegans to Bray, who do operate on Bank Holiday Sundays, no other private operator has even attempted to operate any form of night bus service since the first Christmas that they all operated.

What is stopping a private operator is Dublin Bus. Every private operator knows that if it entered the market, Dublin Bus will immediately start competing with them, as they have done on other routes in the past.

Either Dublin Bus runs an adequate service or they be completely banned from running night services, thus giving private operators a chance.

thomasj

Irrespective of whether or not nitelink can survive, last buses (and trains) should be 12:30 just like luas. its redicilius really.

The city may shut down most nights but last orders are at 11:30, buses should be running later than that.

LXFlyer

bk wrote: »

What is stopping a private operator is Dublin Bus. Every private operator knows that if it entered the market, Dublin Bus will immediately start competing with them, as they have done on other routes in the past.

Either Dublin Bus runs an adequate service or they be completely banned from running night services, thus giving private operators a chance.

Given that everything is governed by the NTA I find it very difficult to believe that would be the case.

At the moment Dublin Bus is far more concerned with getting its own house in order.

And what example are you thinking of where Dublin Bus allegedly competed unfairly?

Losty Dublin

thomasj wrote: »

Irrespective of whether or not nitelink can survive, last buses (and trains) should be 12:30 just like luas. its redicilius really.

The city may shut down most nights but last orders are at 11:30, buses should be running later than that.

Ask the Dept. of Transport, Thomas. Dublin Bus staff and management agreed to run later buses ages ago are awaiting the word on when to start later bus services for the guts of a good decade now.

n97 mini

Losty Dublin wrote: »

Finnegan runs one bus and one driver on one route. I doubt if his overheads are huge given the tiny size of his operation.

Now we're getting somewhere...

I believe Finnegans can make a profit due to efficiency.

n97 mini

lxflyer wrote: »

And what example are you thinking of where Dublin Bus allegedly competed unfairly?

Allegedly...

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/dublin-bus-is-trying-to-drive-us-out-of-business-1496624.html

n97 mini

And another one...

http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0725/dublinbus.html

Losty Dublin

n97 mini wrote: »

Now we're getting somewhere...

I believe Finnegans can make a profit due to efficiency.

I don't know but I am sure that not having the burden of managing and paying for a fleet of expensive low floored buses helps his efficiency drive no end as well

n97 mini

Losty Dublin wrote: »

I don't know but I am sure that not having the burden of managing and paying for a fleet of expensive low floored buses helps his efficiency drive no end as well

So you're saying the service would be more efficient, and therefore possibly profitable, if they used a different fleet?

I would agree that the fleet is probably a part of the problem.

KD345

n97, the NTA now control every bus route in Dublin. They decide what routes run, not Dublin Bus. They also approve any route or timetable change.

LXFlyer

n97 mini wrote: »

Allegedly...

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/dublin-bus-is-trying-to-drive-us-out-of-business-1496624.html

n97 mini wrote: »

And another one...

http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0725/dublinbus.html

None of that has been proven in court.

I think you'll find it more likely that Mortons Circle Line were the architects of their own downfall. Interestingly all of Morton's allegations were about buses being flooded into south Lucan driving him out of business.

It had therefore nothing to do with them launching an all-day bus service to Celbridge which was in direct competition with an existing long established DB service (67), and which failed to operate to the advertised timetable, which had no timetables at any stops, and which extended the operation beyond its capabilities.

It's very easy to believe one side of the story when that is the only one that has been reported.

With regard to Swords Express the DoT licensed the 41x operation because local politicians and residents campaigned for it. Hardly DB's fault?

At the end of the day the NTA are responsible now for licensing services and approving timetables.

If someone wants to operate one they can apply to do so. It would certainly appear that no-one has done so.

thomasj

Losty Dublin wrote: »

Ask the Dept. of Transport, Thomas. Dublin Bus staff and management agreed to run later buses ages ago are awaiting the word on when to start later bus services for the guts of a good decade now.

Well then it raises questions because arent luas allowed to operate 12:30 services

There should be services at 12:00 and 12:30 on each of the main services in and out of the city

LXFlyer

At the end of the day there is no money for this. You can go on and on about DB should do this or do that.

The bottom line is the PSO funding is being cut back. That means fewer services ultimately. DB are (rightly in my mind) focussing on establishing a network that is sustainable in the medium to long term.

n97 mini

lxflyer wrote: »

At the end of the day there is no money for this. You can go on and on about DB should do this or do that.

If someone else can run profitable services on Bank Holiday Sunday nights, it should be possible for DB to do it.

But as all this information is not publicly available...

KD345

thomasj wrote: »

Well then it raises questions because arent luas allowed to operate 12:30 services

There should be services at 12:00 and 12:30 on each of the main services in and out of the city

Except Sunday's and Bank Holidays when it ends at 11.30pm

Losty Dublin

thomasj wrote: »

Well then it raises questions because arent luas allowed to operate 12:30 services

There should be services at 12:00 and 12:30 on each of the main services in and out of the city

Then the question should really be asked to those that run the roost over the bus route licences and not the operator.

thomasj

Losty Dublin wrote: »

Then the question should really be asked to those that run the roost over the bus route licences and not the operator.

Sorry that i wasnt clear i meant to say the nta should be asked this question

antoinolachtnai

All you have to do is cut operating costs by 10 percent and you will be able run services at a greater frequency and later in the evening at no extra cost.

schemingbohemia

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

All you have to do is cut operating costs by 10 percent and you will be able run services at a greater frequency and later in the evening at no extra cost.

Have you considered operating Night Services Antoin? What do you think the demand would be?

n97 mini

Unless Antoin owns a bus company that's a very flippant remark.

antoinolachtnai

There are certain potential routes that look to me like they would be very viable.

The following are the difficulties with me or anybody else running these networks.

1. You would have to do this in the context of fairly substantial operations in a city. You could not hire a bunch of drivers and buses just to do night work, for a load of operational and legal reasons.

2. It's all about the marketing. You would have to plan and market this in an integrated way, promoting it to daytime customers of all the transport modes (rail, luas, bus, etc). There is no way to do this in Dublin at present. It is just not possible with all the rivalries between the transport companies and the lack of a strong marketing strategy and authority. The NTA's stated view is that there will not be integrated information or promotion of transport other than online.

3. Dublin Bus faces further barriers. It could not make these potential routes viable for two main reasons. Their operating model is wrong and their cost model is too expensive. They do not have the capability at any level to do the marketing to make these routes work. This is not because they have bad people working for them but because the whole company doesn't have the right direction and outlook to do it.

schemingbohemia

n97 mini wrote: »

Unless Antoin owns a bus company that's a very flippant remark.

Antoin owns Swords Express.

n97 mini

Apologies, I stand corrected.