Cobh Connect

bk

New service starting this week between Cork City and Cobh:

https://www.cobhconnect.ie/

http://www.eveningecho.ie/corknews/New-bus-route-brings-Cobh-and-Cork-closer-together-5978f41b-2ba6-4a20-bdde-f6933ec7b9e7-ds

I just saw an order for it on the side of a GoBE bus in Busaras. As a result I thought GoBus might be connected with it, but it doesn't look like it, just advertising.

As an aside, seems like GoBE have some newer coaches. I was on a new looking 17x, with nice timber effect flooring, lots of fancy inside LED's and overhead USB ports, still Volvo 9700's. Unfortunately neither the wifi or power plugs were working on it It was fully branded GoBE.

Also the Cobh Connect wrap was on a 16x coach.

So looks like they might be slowly getting some newer coaches on the route which is good news.

devnull

Cobh Connect is believed to be being operated by Barry's Coaches which itself is part of the Bernard Kavanagh Group.

Bernard Kavanagh previously operated GoBe fully for GoBus through Eirebus (Dublin) and Barry's Coaches (Cork) however I've noticed that of late GoBus are operating a small number of the GoBe services directly recently.

bk

devnull wrote: »

Bernard Kavanagh previously operated GoBe fully for GoBus through Eirebus (Dublin) and Barry's Coaches (Cork) however I've noticed that of late GoBus are operating a small number of the GoBe services directly recently.

Yes, the GoBe bus that I came back to Dublin on today was an older 9700 * and it's wifi spot was advertised as Bernard Kavanagh.

* not bad, just a little older, didn't have the USB plugs overhead, but seemed fine, not the oldest one I had previously be on that was in rough shape. I assume that has been replaced by the 17x model.

That is an awful lot of companies to be involved in an operation, Bernard Kavangh, Eirebus, Barrys Coaches, GoBus and BE!

Hopefully this is a sign of a more consistent and polished service with newer coaches, but they need to get the wifi and plugs working on the new coach.

devnull

bk wrote: »

Yes, the GoBe bus that I came back to Dublin on today was an older 9700 * and it's wifi spot was advertised as Bernard Kavanagh.

The ones that are operated directly by GoBus are easily identifiable as they all have Galway registrations and are using full LED destination indicators on the front and wearing a full livery complete with red branding on the windows.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/be216cd1/28786096840/in/photolist-KRJgGu

That is an awful lot of companies to be involved in an operation, Bernard Kavangh, Eirebus, Barrys Coaches, GoBus and BE!

Well Eirebus and Barrys are essentially the Dublin and Cork bases of Bernard Kavanagh who are located in Kilkenny so I wouldn't count them as three companies

Hopefully this is a sign of a more consistent and polished service with newer coaches, but they need to get the wifi and plugs working on the new coach.

Yes, they have some directly operated coaches now in a full livery and Bernard Kavanagh also have a couple of dedicated coaches for a route which are new or almost new, which makes it more consistent than before and a little more presentable as well.

Bernard Kavanagh run such a wide range of contracts such as Tauck, Eurolines, GoBus, GoBe, CIE Tours, Insight Vacations, Tauck Vacations, National Express, Bus Eireann, Brendan Vacations, Railtours among others that painting many vehicles up in dedicated full liveries would probably be operationally restrictive.

Far easier to use coaches in plain white where you can stick a sticker on or put a sign in the window that can easily be removed or covered up and then you can send it out on a number of duties.

_Kaiser_

I used to get a Bernard Kavanagh coach home back in my college days and it was always far nicer (usually a Tri-ax from Dublin) and better specced than the equivalent JJ or BE option.

Stephen15

Just reading about it now. It will be intresting to see ow well it does against the train it seems to be cheaper but no mention of leap cards on their website which IMO should be an NTA requirement. They got the timing just right. Cobh is unsual though as it must only place in Ireland that has rail as its sole form of pt.

devnull

Stephen15 wrote: »

Just reading about it now. It will be intresting to see ow well it does against the train it seems to be cheaper but no mention of leap cards on their website which IMO should be an NTA requirement.

Cobh Connect is a commercial service so there is never going to be a requirement for the LEAP card to be taken just like there isn't for any other commercial operation such as Bus Eireann Expressway and private commercial operators.

Stephen15

devnull wrote: »

Cobh Connect is a commercial service so there is never going to be a requirement for the LEAP card to be taken just like there isn't for any other commercial operation such as Bus Eireann Expressway and private commercial operators.

Even still I believe that all operators should accept Leap. BE Expressway, Aircoach intercity, GOBUS, Citylink etc. fair enough but for urban and commuter bus services I believe it should be a licensing requirement how come Swords Express, Ashbourne Connect, DB Airlink and Nite link all accept Leap but others won't such as Aircoach and now Cobh Connect.

It not be a requirement but it should be the NTA should treaten license revokal if they don't start accepting Leap.

devnull

Stephen15 wrote: »

Even still I believe that all operators should accept Leap. BE Expressway, Aircoach intercity, GOBUS, Citylink etc. fair enough but for urban and commuter bus services I believe it should be a licensing requirement how come Swords Express, Ashbourne Connect, DB Airlink and Nite link all accept Leap but others won't such as Aircoach and now Cobh Connect.

The reason that Airlink and Nitelink accept leap is because the fact the operator of them has had large amounts of taxpayer funds and capital over the years to allow them to embed LEAP in place as part of the PSO Network which means that extending that network to the operators commercial services requires very little additional resource since the infrastructure is already in place.

A private commercial operator has to pay for everything themselves, training the staff, buying the ticket machines, doing the back end programming, developing processes and systems, procuring the equipment and that's without looking at the fact that they don't get the revenue immediately because it goes to the NTA rather than the operator initially who later gets a down-payment.

It not be a requirement but it should be the NTA should treaten license revokal if they don't start accepting Leap.

Won't happen unless the NTA want to find themselves being potentially taken to court by the private commercial operators for unfairly discriminating against them and making them bear costs including set-up costs that their publicly owned commercial competitors did not have to bear because it was paid for by the government for their PSO arm.

Stephen15

devnull wrote: »

The reason that Airlink and Nitelink accept leap is because the fact the operator of them has had large amounts of taxpayer funds and capital over the years to allow them to embed LEAP in place as part of the PSO Network which means that extending that network to the operators commercial services requires very little additional resource since the infrastructure is already in place.

So how come other private operators such as Asbourne Connect and Swords Express can.

devnull

Stephen15 wrote: »

So how come other private operators such as Asbourne Connect and Swords Express can.

Because they made a voluntary commercial decision to buy the equipment fully at their own cost for their relatively small fleets which they are free to do so just like any other operator is but they were not forced to.

My point is that private commercial operators can accept leap but ultimately it is a commercial decision for them to consider and has to be if a level playing field is to remain.

goingnowhere

NTA is able to provide the ticketing equipment as part of the deal.

It is not unreasonable to require LEAP as a condition of getting a route license

devnull

goingnowhere wrote: »

NTA is able to provide the ticketing equipment as part of the deal.

But what exactly is the deal that you speak about?

Would the NTA be willing to meet the full set-up and installation costs that a private commercial operator would have to bear in the same way that they have funded the PSO arm of BE/DB which allows them to use this as a basis for extending this system to their commercial routes without paying start-up or installation costs?

If the NTA are not going to this and force the operators to pay for this out of their own money as a condition of license then they would potentially be setting themselves up for a challenge in front of the EU courts under the basis of unfair state aid in the form of cross subsidisation.

It is not unreasonable to require LEAP as a condition of getting a route license

I agree if the leap equipment is offered on the basis as I outlined above.

But requiring a private commercial operator to pay for equipment and the start-up costs that it's public commercial competitors have essentially have not had to pay for and had provided for them by the state isn't going to be a runner because it will almost certainly be challenged.

howiya

devnull wrote: »

But what exactly is the deal that you speak about?

Would the NTA be willing to meet the full set-up and installation costs that a private commercial operator would have to bear in the same way that they have funded the PSO arm of BE/DB which allows them to use this as a basis for extending this system to their commercial routes without paying start-up or installation costs?

If the NTA are not going to this and force the operators to pay for this out of their own money as a condition of license then they would potentially be setting themselves up for a challenge in front of the EU courts under the basis of unfair state aid in the form of cross subsidisation.



I agree if the leap equipment is offered on the basis as I outlined above.

But requiring a private commercial operator to pay for equipment and the start-up costs that it's public commercial competitors have essentially have not had to pay for and had provided for them by the state isn't going to be a runner because it will almost certainly be challenged.

Commercial operators are required to pay for their buses. Why is that not challenged in the same way??

devnull

howiya wrote: »

Commercial operators are required to pay for their buses. Why is that not challenged in the same way??

It was several years ago.

As a result operators running PSO services are not allowed to use taxpayer funded vehicles on commercial routes and may only use vehicles that are bought by the commercial arm of their business of which they have paid the full costs for.

It is because using taxpayer funded assets would be seen as cross subsidisation.

bk

Stephen15 wrote: »

Even still I believe that all operators should accept Leap. BE Expressway, Aircoach intercity, GOBUS, Citylink etc. fair enough but for urban and commuter bus services I believe it should be a licensing requirement how come Swords Express, Ashbourne Connect, DB Airlink and Nite link all accept Leap but others won't such as Aircoach and now Cobh Connect.

I don't think Leap is really suited to BE Expressway and the other private intercity services. IME with these services, you really need to be booking online or you won't be getting on.

Plus €20+ tickets off your leap card makes it pretty pointless unless you have auto-topup enabled.

Having said that, it might be good once contactless debit/credit cards are enabled.

I agree with you on services like Cobh Connect and the Aircoach Dublin Airport services. However devnull's points on how it is funded are also very relevant.

howiya

devnull wrote: »

It was several years ago.

As a result operators running PSO services are not allowed to use taxpayer funded vehicles on commercial routes and may only use vehicles that are bought by the commercial arm of their business of which they have paid the full costs for.

It is because using taxpayer funded assets would be seen as cross subsidisation.

So to follow the same precedent. If Aircoach/Another challenged a decision to impose Leap on them, it could mean DB/IE etc would have to pay back the set up costs of Leap rather than a challenge resulting in commercial operators not having to accept Leap as a method of payment.

Out of interest, how are the participant fees decided? Is it a percentage of income from Leap transactions? This rose by 800k in 2016. Another possible barrier to commercial operators other than initial setup costs

devnull

howiya wrote: »

So to follow the same precedent. If Aircoach/Another challenged a decision to impose Leap on them it could mean DB/IE etc would have to pay back the set up costs of Leap rather than a challenge resulting in commercial operators not having to accept Leap as a method of payment.

The key issue is that no operator can use state funding or state funded assets in order to give them an advantage on commercial services against other commercial operators who would not be able to claim the same state funded assets or funding to use on their commercial services.

PSO Operators are mandated to take LEAP by way of their PSO contract with the state. The cost of which is worked into the PSO and capital funding and would cover all of the start-up, training, set-up, technical, maintenance, back-end, administrative costs and operational costs which were paid for by the state.

If they were to roll that out to their commercial operations everything is in place and has been paid for by the state so it would be the case of just installing the equipment on the bus and setting the fares since they are using the already existing, taxpayer funded infrastructure to meet this requirement.

If a private commercial company was forced take leap, they are required to take equipment supplied by the NTA and would obviously have to fund all of the start-up, training, set-up, technical, maintenance, back-end, administrative and operational costs which would mean the company is at a commercial disadvantage.

Realistically the only way you are going to get this to work is to get the NTA to fund the same level of the private commercial operators costs as the level of costs that the public commercial operators benefit from not having to pay said costs themselves because of the state funded infrastructure.

The other possible alternative is to allow the PSO arms of DB and BE to continue as is but forcing the commercial arms into a total separation and enforcing them to purchase the systems that the NTA makes available to private commercial operators rather than using legacy state funded equipment.

howiya

devnull wrote: »

PSO Operators are mandated to take LEAP by way of their PSO contract with the state. The cost of which is worked into the PSO and capital funding and would cover all of the start-up, training, set-up, technical, maintenance, back-end, administrative costs and operational costs which were paid for by the state.

Leap's participants paid the NTA €7.8m in 2016. Are you saying this originally is paid to DB etc as part of their PSO payment and is just paid back to the NTA?

goingnowhere

Some contracts are fixed price and the farebox goes to the NTA, NTA pays the operator based on performance

devnull

howiya wrote: »

Leap's participants paid the NTA €7.8m in 2016. Are you saying this originally is paid to DB etc as part of their PSO payment and is just paid back to the NTA?

The initial set-up costs of LEAP back when it first started would have been expensive for each state operator since they required back office procedures to be in place, ticket machine software to be developed, secure data transfer, back-office, administrative and maintenance costs and obviously there would be costs for ongoing development.

What I'm saying is that accepting tickets, and taking fares and maintaining the equipment and those things I have listed above is not free and is part of operating a service and the whole purpose of PSO subsidy and capital grants is to help cover the overall cost of operating those services and to develop the services and improve them.

devnull

goingnowhere wrote: »

Some contracts are fixed price and the farebox goes to the NTA, NTA pays the operator based on performance

I was asking about the deal for commercial operators.

devnull

These are the coaches that Cobh Connect are using:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishtransportphotos/37353252354/in/photolist-YUMbyj-G3QrQi-Nuqrug-KGCQNL-Nuqrmk-NrYTMC-Tc1f6y

Funnily enough all of the coaches appear to have Dublin registrations!

bk

devnull wrote: »

These are the coaches that Cobh Connect are using:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishtransportphotos/37353252354/in/photolist-YUMbyj-G3QrQi-Nuqrug-KGCQNL-Nuqrmk-NrYTMC-Tc1f6y

Funnily enough all of the coaches appear to have Dublin registrations!

Hmm, that looks like the bus, including 161-D reg that I saw in Busaras the other day!

I had assumed it was GoBE, but maybe I just didn't look closely enough! Maybe it was doing GoBE hire in that day prior to starting Cobh Connect service given that it was the jazz weekend and buses were super busy.

Clearly I need to improve my bus spotting skills

howiya

devnull wrote: »

The initial set-up costs of LEAP back when it first started would have been expensive for each state operator since they required back office procedures to be in place, ticket machine software to be developed, secure data transfer, back-office, administrative and maintenance costs and obviously there would be costs for ongoing development.

What I'm saying is that accepting tickets, and taking fares and maintaining the equipment and those things I have listed above is not free and is part of operating a service and the whole purpose of PSO subsidy and capital grants is to help cover the overall cost of operating those services and to develop the services and improve them.

So we could reduce the PSO subsidy by not charging DB/IE fees for using Leap?

devnull

Typical Bernard Kavanagh that it has no LED or destination display anywhere.

Believe it's because they extensively use most of their vehicles on tour work where it is preferred to have the front window fully free of obstruction as it makes the coach look more like a touring coach.

devnull

howiya wrote: »

So we could reduce the PSO subsidy by not charging DB/IE fees for using Leap?

I do not have data or a source for what exactly these 'fees' are about or what they are levied for or any rebates are being used here from either party so on that basis it is impossible to give an answer to that question.

Getting back to the crux of the matter, Dublin Bus is (save 747/757) a publicly funded operator which is funded by capital grants, assets and subsidy from the state means that this assists with the cost of putting procedures, infrastructure, back-end systems in place because of a fair deal of revenue and income certainty.

If one day Dublin Bus wants to use LEAP on a commercial service then they can use the infrastructure, training back-end development, equipment and the administrative structures that were put in place by the government funded arm and extend this to the commercial arm whereas Cobh Connect would have to start this from scratch without a penny of government funding.

If coupled with a requirement to accept LEAP as per licensing as some have suggested, that would require Cobh Connect to fund everything from scratch since they do not have any PSO operations to use the existing infrastructure from and instead have to start their own, therefore they would be at a commercial disadvantage and DB would be gaining a commercial advantage.

Realistically the only way of sorting this is leaving it as now, or forcing complete separation of PSO and Commercial ticketing platforms and having the NTA regulate this (with strict control) in the same way fleets are required to be separated.

Stephen15

bk wrote: »

I don't think Leap is really suited to BE Expressway and the other private intercity services. IME with these services, you really need to be booking online or you won't be getting on.

Plus €20+ tickets off your leap card makes it pretty pointless unless you have auto-topup enabled.

Having said that, it might be good once contactless debit/credit cards are enabled.

I agree with you on services like Cobh Connect and the Aircoach Dublin Airport services. However devnull's points on how it is funded are also very relevant.

I think you might have misunderstood by post I meant its fair enough for the intercity operators but for short distance commuter operations Leap should be a must. I agree with you Leap in its current form is unsuitable intercity travel but for urban commuting its works well but it isin't flawless.

Stephen15

devnull wrote: »

It was several years ago.

As a result operators running PSO services are not allowed to use taxpayer funded vehicles on commercial routes and may only use vehicles that are bought by the commercial arm of their business of which they have paid the full costs for.

It is because using taxpayer funded assets would be seen as cross subsidisation.

Incorrect DB Nitelink and BE Nightrider use publically funded vehicles on commercial services also don't some of the private hire work they do.

devnull

Stephen15 wrote: »

I think you might have misunderstood by post I meant its fair enough for the intercity operators but for short distance commuter operations Leap should be a must.

I would like to see the roll-out to these operators as well and I wouldn't even have a problem with it being a requirement but it would have to be done in a way which would not allow operators of PSO services to use their pre-existing publicly funded LEAP infrastructure to have a commercial cost advantage over those who do not operate PSO services.

At the moment for all of the private commercial operators, the NTA will supply LEAP card equipment and a number of back-end systems and facilities to said private operation but the terms for that contract are not in the public domain but obviously there will be costs for installing and training staff on this system. Note that this system is totally different to the system used on DB/BE.

Realistically what you will need to do is to require that for DB / BE / GA Commercial routes, that they also are required to use this system and pay the same prices for such systems as other commercial operators rather than the existing situation where they're essentially using the same system that is used for the taxpayer funded network which has already been established.

The other alternative is that the NTA simply covers the cost of the equipment itself or they make a contribution to the costs of a commercial operator that is equal to the pro-rata costs that DB/BE/GA would have saved by having the infrastructure already in place.

If none of those happen I would expect a commercial operator to challenge any requirement in the EU Courts fairly promptly.

devnull

Stephen15 wrote: »

Incorrect DB Nitelink and BE Nightrider use publically funded vehicles on commercial services also don't some of the private hire work they do.

The majority of vehicles that were purchased before 2010 for PSO routes are considered as operator funded vehicles under the system that is in place since they were procured in a different way to what has been the case since 2012.

In addition, Dublin Bus bought 5 (or maybe it was 8) of the SGs outright themselves of which they can use on private hire and commercial services along with the vehicles that qualify as operator funded as illustrated above.

It's a common misconception that Dublin Bus Nitelink is a commercial service but actually it hasn't been for some time which is why it is not listed on the NTA's list of licensed and commercial services but the 747/757 is.