Dublin Bus - another privatisation attempt

Qualitymark

http://www.thejournal.ie/bus-route-privatisation-1911265-Jan2015/

THE NATIONAL TRANSPORT Authority has released details of which bus routes could be privatised in Dublin.
The 23 Dublin Bus and five Bus Eireann routes carry around 10 million passengers a year, the NTA says. That is done on 88 Dublin Buses and 28 coaches.

The plan isn't to introduce competition on routes, but to give certain specific routes to private companies. So, for instance, if you take the No 18 from Palmerstown or Harold's Cross to Sandymount, you won't have a choice, your bus will be run by a private company.

It's not clear whether these companies will be required to take bus passes, for instance; if not, this will deprive a good lot of people of the service, and push them onto other bus routes.

The routes planned to be farmed out are:

17 Rialto to Blackrock
17a Blanchardstown Centre to Kilbarrack
18 Palmerstown(Old Lucan Road)to Sandymount
33a Swords to Balbriggan
33b Swords to Portrane
45a Dún Laoghaire(Rail Station)to Ballywaltrim
59 DúnLaoghaire to MackintoshPark
63 DúnLaoghaire to Kilternan
75 The Square Tallaght to Dun Laoghaire
76 Chapelizod to Tallaght (The Square)
76a Blanchardstown Centre to Tallaght (The Square)
102 Sutton station to Dublin Airport
104 Clontarf Road(Conquer Hill)to Santry (Shanard Road)
111 Loughlinstown Park to Dún Laoghaire
114 Ticknock to Blackrock Station
161 Dundrum Luas Station to Rockbrook
184 Bray Dart station to Newtownmountkennedy
185 Bray Dart station to Enniskerry
220 Ballymun to Ladyswell Road
236 Blanchardstown Centre to Damastown
238 Tyrrelstown to Ladyswell Road
239 Blanchardstown Centre to Liffey Valley Shopping Centre
270 Blanchardstown Centre to Dunboyne

and Bus Éireann routes:

120 Dublin–Edenderry–Tullamore
123 Dublin–Naas
124 Dublin–Naas–Portlaoise
126 Dublin–Naas
130 Dublin–Naas–Athy

ardmacha

It's not clear whether these companies will be required to take bus passes, for instance; if not, this will deprive a good lot of people of the service, and push them onto other bus routes.

Any privatisation has to be completely seamless from a customer point of view, bus passes, leap tickets, ramblers, RTPI, etc have to work exactly the same as on any other bus. It should be like London where there may be different operators, but the customer could hardly tell.

In my opinion there should also be a compulsory industry pension scheme, so that staff can transfer between undertakings and to prevent a drive to the bottom.

schemingbohemia

ardmacha wrote: »

Any privatisation has to be completely seamless from a customer point of view, bus passes, leap tickets, ramblers, RTPI, etc have to work exactly the same as on any other bus. It should be like London where there may be different operators, but the customer could hardly tell.

In my opinion there should also be a compulsory industry pension scheme, so that staff can transfer between undertakings and to prevent a drive to the bottom.

Have you not heard of TUPE?

Qualitymark

Nupe. What is TUPE?

LXFlyer

This is very old news - it's just the tendering proposals that were first announced in 2013 - no changes at all from it. What is happening now is that the actual tendering process is now starting.

The key point here is that the NTA will retain responsibility for the service levels that are to be provided, timetables, fares charged etc.

The operators will simply be that - operators.

It's also important to note that both Dublin Bus and Bus Eireann can apply to operate the routes - they may well retain them.

n97 mini

Why no DB services that terminate in the city centre? Some of those are routes are barely worth running, 76a for example.

Trond

lxflyer wrote: »

This is very old news - it's just the tendering proposals that were first announced in 2013 - no changes at all from it.

The key point here is that the NTA will retain responsibility for the service levels that are to be provided, fares charged etc.

The operators will simply be that - operators.

It's also important to note that both Dublin Bus and Bus Eireann can apply to operate the routes - they may well retain them.

This is the bit people usually miss completely.

Aard

n97 mini wrote: »

Why no DB services that terminate in the city centre? Some of those are routes are barely worth running, 76a for example.

Shhhhh! That's the point!

Read the submissions to the NTA on the choice of routes tendered. Some are, to put it mildly, damning.

noelfirl

Wasn't the idea to start with the orbital routes to test the water without messing with the major corridors, and then role out across the system in the following years? The disadvantage of course, being that commercial operators wont be jumping with joy for the orbital routes.

Aard

If that was the idea, then it's a swizz. They'd have been better offering a sector of the radial routes if they were serious about testing the water as it were. Two sectors come to mind: Northeast or Southeast. Ie all routes either east of the Malahide Road, or east of the Stillorgan dualler.

LXFlyer

noelfirl wrote: »

Wasn't the idea to start with the orbital routes to test the water without messing with the major corridors, and then role out across the system in the following years? The disadvantage of course, being that commercial operators wont be jumping with joy for the orbital routes.

That's exactly the reason.

Here are the original documents outlining the plan in September 2013.
http://www.nationaltransport.ie/consultations/consultation-on-proposals-to-directly-award-contracts-from-december-2014-for-public-bus-services/

The thread title here is misleading - this is the route tendering process continuing.

cdebru

schemingbohemia wrote: »

Have you not heard of TUPE?

Tupe does not cover pensions which is why I presume he said there should be an industry wide pension scheme.

cdebru

noelfirl wrote: »

Wasn't the idea to start with the orbital routes to test the water without messing with the major corridors, and then role out across the system in the following years? The disadvantage of course, being that commercial operators wont be jumping with joy for the orbital routes.

Why wouldn't commercial operators be jumping with joy ? The tendering process proposed by the NTA it would make zero difference if you had the busiest route or the quietest you would bid and be paid on a kilometer driven basis, the number of passengers carried if any is irrelevant.

Sean9015

cdebru wrote: »

Why wouldn't commercial operators being jumping with joy ? The tendering process proposed by the NTA it would make zero difference if you had the busiest route or the quietest you would bid and be paid on a kilometer driven basis, the number of passengers carried if any is irrelevant.

Depends on the contract basis. In the UK, there are basically two types of contract used by local authorities. In one, the operator gets an fixed payment and keeps the revenue as well; in the other, the revenue taken is deducted from the invoice and effectively accrues to the authority. There are advanatages to both; if the operator keeps the revenue, they have the incentive to put in more management tine to grow the service as it is their direct interest. If the revenue accrues to the authority, the net tendering cost can be lower overall and it is easier to demonstrate the worth of marketing at budget review time. On most services there is a balance as to which is ideal approach.

LXFlyer

The farebox revenue will go to the NTA - the operators will get a fixed payment for operating the services, subject to penalty clauses.

MrMorooka

If I have a Dublin Bus yearly ticket will it work on these services? They say it will support Leap, but quite possible they just mean the e-purse component. It's pointless if you can't use existing tickets- as a customer I will go from a situation of having a ticket that is valid on a service, to one that isn't all of a sudden. And if that's a yearly ticket, I can't change it easily without costing me money.

cdebru

Sean9015 wrote: »

Depends on the contract basis. In the UK, there are basically two types of contract used by local authorities. In one, the operator gets an fixed payment and keeps the revenue as well; in the other, the revenue taken is deducted from the invoice and effectively accrues to the authority. There are advanatages to both; if the operator keeps the revenue, they have the incentive to put in more management tine to grow the service as it is their direct interest. If the revenue accrues to the authority, the net tendering cost can be lower overall and it is easier to demonstrate the worth of marketing at budget review time. On most services there is a balance as to which is ideal approach.

As Lxflyer has pointed out the model the NTA are following is they get the revenue and they pay per km with penalties or bonus for missing or exceeding targets so what routes are tendered is largely irrelevant except perhaps orbital routes "might" be less subject to congestion and so cheaper to operate on a per km basis.

cdebru

MrMorooka wrote: »

If I have a Dublin Bus yearly ticket will it work on these services? They say it will support Leap, but quite possible they just mean the e-purse component. It's pointless if you can't use existing tickets- as a customer I will go from a situation of having a ticket that is valid on a service, to one that isn't all of a sudden. And if that's a yearly ticket, I can't change it easily without costing me money.

All to be worked out but my guess is that your ticket will be valid across the network irrespective of who the operator is and they will operate a revenue sharing basis in much the same way multi operator caps do.

dfx-

Qualitymark wrote: »

It's not clear whether these companies will be required to take bus passes, for instance; if not, this will deprive a good lot of people of the service, and push them onto other bus routes.

From a customer point of view, I see the list of routes as a list of routes to abandon once it begins. It will be "I used to get the 75, 76, 17, 18" which I regularly do/would have continued to do so.

n97 mini wrote: »

Why no DB services that terminate in the city centre? Some of those are routes are barely worth running, 76a for example.

76As are packed buses, but they only run two a day. The only routes not worth it are probably the 104, 111, 114 and 161. Even the 236 is busy enough, but very very short.

ardmacha

cdebru wrote: »

Tupe does not cover pensions which is why I presume he said there should be an industry wide pension scheme.

Well I hadn't heard of TUPE and would be happy to learn. But structures are needed so that a new operator could take over drivers on a route in a reasonably seamless way.

LXFlyer

dfx- wrote: »

From a customer point of view, I see the list of routes as a list of routes to abandon once it begins. It will be "I used to get the 75, 76, 17, 18" which I regularly do/would have continued to do so.

And why would busy routes like the ones you list be abandoned?

dfx-

lxflyer wrote: »

And why would busy routes like the ones you list be abandoned?

I'll be abandoning them until the operator/NTA gets the hang of things. Or multiple operators across multiple routes. Will the company A running route 18 run it better than company B on route 76 and will it match up when I want to connect to company C running the 75 in Tallaght.

"Let's have these routes working well and then mess around with them for the sake of doing something different."

I understand there are some on this forum that they can't wait until every individual bus is run by a different company and every part of every bus is supplied by another company and they won't agree with me, but I'm ok with that.

So I'd happily stick with routes from one already established operator thanks.

LXFlyer

dfx- wrote: »

I'll be abandoning them until the operator/NTA gets the hang of things. Or multiple operators across multiple routes. Will the company A running route 18 run it better than company B on route 76 and will it match up when I want to connect to company C running the 75 in Tallaght.

"Let's have these routes working well and then mess around with them for the sake of doing something different."

I understand there are some on this forum that they can't wait until every individual bus is run by a different company and every part of every bus is supplied by another company and they won't agree with me, but I'm ok with that.

So I'd happily stick with routes from one already established operator thanks.

OK - given that this is not going to happen until 2016, I suspect you are seriously putting the cart before the horse. How can you possibly say whether it will work or not at this stage?

The companies will not be drawing up the schedules for each route - this seems to be a common misconception.

The NTA will have responsibility for designing all of the schedules.

dfx-

2016 is less than 12 months away. That we can't say whether it will work or not is the point.

If company A can't run their route(s), the schedules may not be worth the paper they're written on, whoever draws it up or whatever public consultation process it goes through.

It works as it is now. That should be the end of it.

end of the road

lxflyer wrote: »

How can you possibly say whether it will work or not at this stage?

maybe, rightly or wrongly, he's looking back at history and thinking "why will it be different this time"

lxflyer wrote: »

The companies will nothing to do with drawing up the schedules for each route - this seems to be a common misconception.
The NTA will have responsibility for designing all of the schedules.

am i right in saying the NTA is implementing everything and the operators have little to no say? so what is all this hoping to achieve then apart from satisfying some unnecessary EU rule?

Chris_5339762

I've never ever seen anyone on the 161. Its a useless route and only runs a handful of times per day. Any private company will dump it immediately.

LXFlyer

Chris_5339762 wrote: »

I've never ever seen anyone on the 161. Its a useless route and only runs a handful of times per day. Any private company will dump it immediately.

Once again, the companies will have no say in the network design.

That will be the function of the NTA.

People don't seem to be getting this?

Losty Dublin

lxflyer wrote: »

Once again, the companies will have no say in the network design.

That will be the function of the NTA.

People don't seem to be getting this?

I think people are looking at these routes and are wrongly assuming that companies won't take them on based on the UK experience of private bus routes. I'm confident that there will be bidders as the operators won't be relying on the fare box for income under the NTA model. For the most part I can see the city routes routes being taken on by local private companies rather than the UK monsters such as Stagecoach or Arriva.

clunked

I suspect it may cost the state more, see the same level of service for passengers but result in worse conditions of work for the drivers in order to make an acceptable level of profit for the operator.

end of the road

lxflyer wrote: »

Once again, the companies will have no say in the network design.

That will be the function of the NTA.

People don't seem to be getting this?

i do get it. i'm just not seeing the point. they could save themselves the hassle and operate their plans with dublin bus. if its to do with some EU law, then farm out the bottom of the pile routes if they have to to satisfy the jobsworths, but i don't get what this is actually going to achieve apart from that.

Aard

It is important to make the distinction -- this is not privatisation à la the UK. It is more like the way Transport for London conduct their operations -- generally seen as among the best in the world.

clunked

Aard wrote: »

It is important to make the distinction -- this is not privatisation à la the UK. It is more like the way Transport for London conduct their operations -- generally seen as among the best in the world.

Fares I have found tend to be more expensive than here. I wouldn't be suprised if there wasn't a higher level of public subsidy even with right wing tory boy Boris in charge.

end of the road

Aard wrote: »

It is important to make the distinction -- this is not privatisation à la the UK.

i think most know that.

Aard wrote: »

It is more like the way Transport for London conduct their operations -- generally seen as among the best in the world.

i think most people realize that as well. however what is the advantage or the point? thats all some of us want to know. londons bus model would still be potentially one of the best in the world even if there was one state run bus company running the busses there as TFL sort and decide everything. i suppose private companies may get the wages off tfls books but whatever the amount of subsidy given out, may it be high enough as to make that a pointless exercise?

Qualitymark

clunked wrote: »

Fares I have found tend to be more expensive than here. I wouldn't be suprised if there wasn't a higher level of public subsidy even with right wing tory boy Boris in charge.

Less expensive than here, surely?

Dravokivich

clunked wrote: »

I suspect it may cost the state more, see the same level of service for passengers but result in worse conditions of work for the drivers in order to make an acceptable level of profit for the operator.

Id expect nta will be considering how much they want to spend paying for these routes as a lot of them would not be profitable for nta. However I doubt it'll be much of an issue for those services until the tenders are due for renewal or open to public tender again.

hmmm

end of the road wrote: »

i think most people realize that as well. however what is the advantage or the point?

The advantage is that if competition is introduced, it will force Dublin Bus to up its game and offer a better service. It's easier to do this via competition than to try and change DB's entrenched work practices.

end of the road

hmmm wrote: »

The advantage is that if competition is introduced, it will force Dublin Bus to up its game and offer a better service.

what competition. it looks like it will be the NTA implementing everything, with the operators having little to no say. so therefore dublin bus will offer a better service as they will have no choice. you don't need tendering for that. now if we were to have operators operating the same routes along side dublin bus, then maybe there would be a point, but what looks like is happening, i don't see the point

hmmm wrote: »

It's easier to do this via competition than to try and change DB's entrenched work practices.

but its not actual competition is it if it is the case that the NTA will be implementing everything, will be the only ones to have full say and the operators just operate. in fairness DBS work practices have changed a lot, are changing, and will continue to change.

Qualitymark

hmmm wrote: »

The advantage is that if competition is introduced, it will force Dublin Bus to up its game and offer a better service. It's easier to do this via competition than to try and change DB's entrenched work practices.

What "entrenched" work practices would those be?

dfx-

hmmm wrote: »

The advantage is that if competition is introduced, it will force Dublin Bus to up its game and offer a better service. It's easier to do this via competition than to try and change DB's entrenched work practices.

Is operating the 236 classed as bringing in competition? The 10km of the route per day will up the game for private company stupid enough to take it on.

Sean9015

What concerns me about all this (looking at the ETenders notices) is that it appears to prevent access to the market for smaller operators. As I see it, there is a single contract being let for the Dublin Bus routes, spread all over the city, with a current PVR of 88. This effectively means that either Dublin Bus will get it, a big UK firm (the most likely being First, as they already have infrastructure here), or perhaps one of a small handful of the biggest independents. So what is the NTA tack on this - are they trying to get the big UK groups in, or is it solely a visual exercise and the routes are hoped to be maintained with the current operators?

In the UK a few years ago, there were issues in some local authorities about size of contracts versus barriers to market entry. I know there was some internal discussion within ATCO (Association of Local Transport Officers). My own authority tended to tender on a route basis, at least one other that I am aware of tendered on a vehicle working basis. Tenderers of course could submit combined tenders in either case, and it was up to the authorities to work out the best deal (and what fun that could be!) I just wonder if the proposed tender could be challenged on this basis.

Dravokivich

Sean9015 wrote: »

What concerns me about all this (looking at the ETenders notices) is that it appears to prevent access to the market for smaller operators. As I see it, there is a single contract being let for the Dublin Bus routes, spread all over the city, with a current PVR of 88. This effectively means that either Dublin Bus will get it, a big UK firm (the most likely being First, as they already have infrastructure here), or perhaps one of a small handful of the biggest independents. So what is the NTA tack on this - are they trying to get the big UK groups in, or is it solely a visual exercise and the routes are hoped to be maintained with the current operators?

In the UK a few years ago, there were issues in some local authorities about size of contracts versus barriers to market entry. I know there was some internal discussion within ATCO (Association of Local Transport Officers). My own authority tended to tender on a route basis, at least one other that I am aware of tendered on a vehicle working basis. Tenderers of course could submit combined tenders in either case, and it was up to the authorities to work out the best deal (and what fun that could be!) I just wonder if the proposed tender could be challenged on this basis.

Not too sure if that'd be an issue. It could be part of why there was discussion lately that seemed to be focused on about rebranding the current fleet with a new paint job and design, as opposed to just throwing on a new Dublin Bus paint job. Also as far as I'm aware, the more recent buses provisioned for Dublin Bus are actually owned by NTA. So I wouldn't expect a Private Operator to own or maintain the buses if these were to be made available or prioritised for such routes.

devnull

To be honest now they're bundled into those size lots, the outcome is fairly obvious.

No company is going to be able to compete with the CIE companies on cost now, since they will be required to put in upfront investment into facilities for a large number of vehicles, which the incumbent already has access to, giving them an unfair advantage.

I do agree with the idea of bundling certain routes together rather than a different contract for each route, but not in one huge bundle as appears to be the case here.

I'd be shocked if DB didn't retain the routes, it looks merely a box ticking exercise now.

schemingbohemia

Could a number of private operators not join together specifically for the purpose of bidding for the routes?

LXFlyer

Dravokivich wrote: »

Not too sure if that'd be an issue. It could be part of why there was discussion lately that seemed to be focused on about rebranding the current fleet with a new paint job and design, as opposed to just throwing on a new Dublin Bus paint job. Also as far as I'm aware, the more recent buses provisioned for Dublin Bus are actually owned by NTA. So I wouldn't expect a Private Operator to own or maintain the buses if these were to be made available or prioritised for such routes.

The private operators would maintain the buses in the same way as Dublin Bus do.

However, the problem is finding a facility to do that - Dublin Bus own all of their depots in their own right, so any operators would need to have that facility or build it as new.

end of the road

devnull wrote: »

To be honest now they're bundled into those size lots, the outcome is fairly obvious.

No company is going to be able to compete with the CIE companies on cost now, since they will be required to put in upfront investment into facilities for a large number of vehicles, which the incumbent already has access to, giving them an unfair advantage.

I do agree with the idea of bundling certain routes together rather than a different contract for each route, but not in one huge bundle as appears to be the case here.

I'd be shocked if DB didn't retain the routes, it looks merely a box ticking exercise now.

but if it is the case the NTA is implementing everything with the operators just operating then surely doing the tendering as a box ticking exercise to satisfy whatever ruling is fine?

loyatemu

not sure that having 20 different companies operating 20 different routes is a desirable outcome either. You would have massive variation in service quality and the NTA would have to deal with 20 contracts, monitor 20 SLAs etc - its very inefficient and would drive up costs.

This is just the first tranche to be tendered out - if the end plan is to tender (say) 5 tranches of tendered routes, then dealing with max 5 different operating companies is probably reasonable - dealing with 50 different companies (some of them one man and a bus operations) is not reasonable.

lil5

I wish they had included the 7 route in the package.
Might have improved the service.
Couldn't make it any worse, anyway.

end of the road

lil5 wrote: »

I wish they had included the 7 route in the package.
Might have improved the service.

how. its the NTA doing all the work by the sounds of it and the operators just operate the busses to the specification. so therefore were better off continuing with dublin bus from what i can see.

lil5 wrote: »

Couldn't make it any worse, anyway.

if it couldn't make it any worse why bother?

Sean9015

schemingbohemia wrote: »

Could a number of private operators not join together specifically for the purpose of bidding for the routes?

Very messy, and virtually impossible to police within a single contract (eg if a journey run by operator A fails in some way incurring a penalty, how do you aportion contract payment deductions between operators A,B,C etc). The only way that could work would be the setting up of a joint venture entity, with all the associated costs of setting up such a single entity and the possiblity of it falling apart midway through a contract period.

Sean9015

loyatemu wrote: »

not sure that having 20 different companies operating 20 different routes is a desirable outcome either. You would have massive variation in service quality and the NTA would have to deal with 20 contracts, monitor 20 SLAs etc - its very inefficient and would drive up costs.

This is just the first tranche to be tendered out - if the end plan is to tender (say) 5 tranches of tendered routes, then dealing with max 5 different operating companies is probably reasonable - dealing with 50 different companies (some of them one man and a bus operations) is not reasonable.

Yet any one of several UK local authorities / ITAs seem to manage just such arrangements, and have done in the far more demanding deregulated environment since 1986. Smaller contracts could actually work out cheaper, especially if they could be covered locally. The spread of routes within the single contract implies that a single tenderer starting from scratch would have a huge amount of dead running to service from a single location, or increased costs in setting up multiple depots - a cost which would not have to be borne by DB. A route - or small batch of routes - in say, Dun Loaghaire would be attractive to someone like Finnegans, and could be serviced with minimal additional infrastructure, and likely be cheaper than DB. Hence my comments about how real this is as a genuine tendering exercise.

lil5

end of the road wrote: »

how. its the NTA doing all the work by the sounds of it and the operators just operate the busses to the specification. so therefore were better off continuing with dublin bus from what i can see.

If the 7 route would be 'operated to the specification' by the garage, the controllers and the drivers it wouldn't be such a shambles.

end of the road wrote: »

if it couldn't make it any worse why bother?

In the hope of getting a better service I rather have it with a different operator.