Rip-off Bus Éireann

Huell

Right i know people hate hearing about costs for public travel but bus eireann is a joke i get a public bus home journey which takes 7-10 minutes.... the charge €5.40 i know companies need to make money but that is beyond a reasonable price.

LXFlyer

It might be easier for us to appreciate your pain if you told us what the journey is?

Hilly Bill

Huell wrote: »

Right i know people hate hearing about costs for public travel but bus eireann is a joke i get a public bus home journey which takes 7-10 minutes.... the charge €5.40 i know companies need to make money but that is beyond a reasonable price.

What would a reasonable price be?

spank_inferno

Wicklow Town -> Dublin.

Day return: €14.50
For a journey time near double that of the car.

Car is king.

rovoagho

Here's one: Killeagh to Cork return. 37km, 30-45 minutes drive, depending on traffic. Bus Eireann last year, online, €13.78; this year €14.06. Takes an hour, when the driver doesn't fly past shrugging his shoulders.

There's absolutely no incentive for me to take the bus. The car is cheaper, more comfortable and more convenient. Hell, it was cheaper to drive my old V8 up there than a single @ €11.02! All Bus Eireann is doing is making their service unaffordable for tourists, and justifying cars to motorists.

punisher5112

No way is that cheaper when you take into account what it costs to get a licence 1st then insurance then a car which you must purchase then petrol or diesel, NCT, motor tax, servicing, wear and tear, tyres, wipers.

You can see where all this can add up.

cython

punisher5112 wrote: »

No way is that cheaper when you take into account what it costs to get a licence 1st then insurance then a car which you must purchase then petrol or diesel, NCT, motor tax, servicing, wear and tear, tyres, wipers.

You can see where all this can add up.

Couple of corrections to your assertion, as the full list is only really applicable assuming that someone starts from a base of not having a car in making the decision of whether to drive or get public transport for a given journey, whereas given the limited selection of public transport routes outside Dublin, this is not necessarily a realistic condition.

In my eyes, the biggest problem is that public transport is struggling to make itself a viable alternative to existing motorists outside Dublin, for whom all that I have crossed out are effectively "pre-paid" due to other circumstances. Then there are the additional factors such as convenience (i.e. running to your own schedule), journey time, wasted time (e.g. on longer journeys, time spent waiting for a service) multiplied by "how much is my time worth to me". At the moment for many journeys, public transport is not that much cheaper than driving yourself, and certainly not by enough to offset other factors above for those living outside Dublin.

haveabanana

Bus Éireann are a joke, particulary for commuting locally I'm just glad there's a private bus service in my area. Single from Kildare town to Naas with BÉ is €6 whereas the same ticket costs only €2 with the Dublin Coach. It's no wonder BÉ are in financial difficulty.

spank_inferno

We live on the Wicklow route (133).

The wife & I both commuted to Dublin with Bus Eireann before we got a car.
The service was OK, the stop is 50 metres away, however as mentioned, slow & expensive.

We are so glad we started driving.

The annual saving vs current ticket prices is a whopping €1900 for the two of us (& that is being very generous to BE).

& that is excluding the 1hr 30 mins saved in travel time.....per day!
Which works out at 13 days per year wasted.

Goes without saying, its been nearly 5 years since we've used any kind of public transport.

BE is dying & the sooner the better.

Niles

Commute daily from Arklow to Dublin myself, a ten journey ticket is €64. This works out at €12.80 a day for each return journey which I think is quite reasonable. And there's no road tax, mechanics, fuel, etc, to be paid on top of this either.

corktina

Niles wrote: »

Commute daily from Arklow to Dublin myself, a ten journey ticket is €64. This works out at €12.80 a day for each return journey which I think is quite reasonable. And there's no road tax, mechanics, fuel, etc, to be paid on top of this either.

It works for you if you don't have a car but if you actually already have one, that might be a better option

Niles

corktina wrote: »

It works for you if you don't have a car but if you actually already have one, that might be a better option

Fair point.

rovoagho

corktina wrote: »

It works for you if you don't have a car but if you actually already have one, that might be a better option

Thanks to yourself and cyhton for saving me the effort.

In general, yes. In particular, if you live in a more rural area - even a small town that actually has a few shops - most people have to have a car, particularly if you have kids. Arklow is a big town and you probably wouldn't have to leave it very often if you weren't commuting. If I didn't leave my town on a regular basis, my cost of living would shoot up.

I realise there are some fanatics in here that think we should all live in Dublin, but that's a ridiculous proposition; and more importantly, it simply isn't going to happen in our lifetimes. Megacity One is a long, long way off.

thebrick

corktina wrote: »

It works for you if you don't have a car but if you actually already have one, that might be a better option

It would be over €100 a 5 day week to drive to dublin and back to arklow.

markpb

rovoagho wrote: »

I realise there are some fanatics in here that think we should all live in Dublin, but that's a ridiculous proposition; and more importantly, it simply isn't going to happen in our lifetimes. Megacity One is a long, long way off.

If everyone in Ireland moved into Dublin, it would still be tens of millions short of a mega city. Let's not exaggerate so much, eh?

rovoagho

Popular culture pass you by?

UCDVet

The price isn't about what it costs them - the cost is about what they can charge.

As others have said - their target demographic are people who can't drive. That means either people who don't drive very often, people with medical issues, or people who can't afford a car.