Citylink Complete Acquisition of GoBus

flazio

I'd say the best your going to get is a local link from the towns they used to serve to the nearest train station (Loughrea to Athenry for example) for onward journey.

ULEZ23

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121884406#Comment_121884406

You still have citylink service 763 serving all the old towns you mentioned.

aircoaches problem was it was neither a non stop route nor a full stop route. Competed with everything from train in athlone and maynooth to the non stop services from citylink. Nobody in their right mind going from Galway to Dublin would take it as it had extra stops so took longer. A real dumb move to launch it as if they didn’t they could have purchased gobus as citylink probably wouldn’t have gotten the go ahead to buy gobus without aircoach.

flazio

Citylink take oap travel cards don't they?

zell12

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121884443#Comment_121884443

Yes, they take the free travel pass.

devnull

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121884207#Comment_121884207

The publicly owned bus company gave up the route in 2021 because they could not get it to work commercially against what was then two competitors. Since then said competitors have merged and drip fed more services into the timetable so it's going to be even more unviable now than before.

It is delightful to see the usual left wing figures on social media trying to stir up a storm on this though by saying that this is all because the license was forcibly taken from a publicly owned bus company to be handed to a private one by the NTA.

We are where we are today because of Aircoach's awful commercial acumen to launch the route in the first place and the CCPC's obviously naivety about what was going to happen if they allowed the takeover of GoBus.ie by CityLink.

Considering how CityLink got their Dublin to Galway Non Stop license in the first place, they've had more than a helping hand or two over the years to get into the dominant position that they are in at the moment.

devnull

Note that the Aircoach 706/706x service as posted in the other thread, is not running today. Aircoach have confirmed on social media they made a decision not to publicly announce this.

Please if you are waiting for this service do not wait. Please seek alternative transport. This is now second time that Aircoach have cancelled services on this corridor for a full day and not published the fact. You cannot rely on this service. Please seek other options if possible.

Glaceon

Confirmed on Facebook that the Gobus brand is gone from next month.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php/?id=100064558279545&story_fbid=814857674009501

serfboard

The CCPC have blocked the DAA from buying the QuickPark Car Park, citing competition reasons. Funny how no such considerations seemed to be made when allowing CityLink to take over GoBus. To show how different the approaches are, I've taken their statements on the DAA situation and applied them to the CityLink GoBus takeover, to see how they seem. Words that are removed are stroked out, and inserted words are italiced. And in response to anyone saying that when the decision was made, AirCoach was still in operation, while that may be true, it was not a competitor on the non-stop route. And it is not any kind of competitor now.

Competition among businesses is vital to drive value, consumer choice and innovation.

... this deal would eliminate daa’s Citylink's only significant competitor for public car parking (non-stop) buses from Galway serving Dublin Airport and result in daa Citylink essentially having a near monopoly.

This would be likely to lead to higher prices for consumers because daa Citylink would not have to compete to win car parking bus customers.

Without this competition, daa Citylink would be able to increase prices or reduce service quality for its car parks buses with limited consequences.

If daa Citylink purchased the car park GoBus, this competition would be lost and daa Citylink would not face the same pressure to attract potential customers by improving its prices or service quality.

bk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121936336#Comment_121936336

I'll be very disappointed to see the current GoBus/Citylink livery on the Cork route go, it is by far the nicest livery on any coach service in Ireland IMO. Modern, classy and striking, it really stands out:

By comparison I really dislike the Citylink livery. Yellow is a terrible colour choice, it invokes Yellow pack and cheapness. Eireagle is a bit boring, but more professional looking. I'd love to see them take on the current GoBus livery (sans the name obviously) across the Citylink fleet.

As an aside, they also had a lovely green livery for Connacht Rugby. Looks like it might have been the same designer as the GoBus one. Please get that person to do a new Citylink one:

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121938204#Comment_121938204

Unfortunately at the time the CCPC made their decision, there was competition on the route in the form of Aircoach. Which was foolish on Aircoach giving them that cover.

Though I think the CCPC should have looked at it more granularly. They seemed to have looked at the competition across the entire route and not at a lower level like the lack of competition between direct, non stop services, which there wouldn't be with Citylink taking over GoBus.

It showed a lack of understanding of the business by the CCPC.

bk

Hmm, an indication of a new Citylink livery? From twitter two weeks ago:

https://twitter.com/citylinkireland/status/1765679077283758454

I'm not a fan. I suppose it greatly reduces the yellow, which is positive, but a bit boring. Ironically it looks like the old GoBus livery! Maybe I'm reading too much into it.

p_haugh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121938443#Comment_121938443

Perhaps that's what current GoBus coaches will receive as an interim livery?

devnull

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121938382#Comment_121938382

The new Citylink white based livery that you post in the following post looks like a GoBus livery but with CityLink colours and branding, I wonder if that is going to be used as an interim livery, since from what I have heard they are still going to run two different routes on the Dublin to Galway run with different route numbers under the GoBus and CityLink banner. I think we all know why that is. But it makes a mockery of it if they get rid of the GoBus brand completely but still continue to use the hold company and license to run services under it.

As for the CCPC well the DAA did offer to make some concessions in order to allow the deal to go through, which was to give approx one third of the parking spaces over to another third party and also 10% of the market for car parking at Dublin Airport is apparently already with other providers, but I don't know where that actually is.

But the Dublin to Galway situation was always going to end like this, yes, Aircoach were extremely foolish and simply were a massive help to CityLink by jumping in like that before the CCPC ruling, but if we had people who knew the industry and the way it works in the CCPC then they'd still not allow it to go through, as some of us could see this happening here from day one.

p_haugh

Upon looking it up, it is literally just the goBus livery with yellow accents instead of red (and the different name of course) 😅

devnull

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121938897#Comment_121938897

Probably with different legals on as well...

bk

Yes, though the Cork route already has an interim livery, that is what the red and blue one is. Did they ever roll that out on the Galway route?

It doesn't really make sense in Cork to got from the old GoBus livery, to the current nice interim livery, only to go back to the old GoBus livery, but with yellow accents now!

Also the above picture shows dual axel coaches, while the Cork route is 100% tri-axles and a different style of coach.

Maybe just their social media people having a bit of fun or just didn't know what coach/livery is on the Cork route!

The weird thing is, there also seems to be a new more modern swishy yellow and blue Citylink livery in the same style as the Cork GoBus interim one and the Rugby team one and seemingly they are up for an award for these liveries. So why switch to a new version of an old livery. Just odd.

BTW While I'm at it, it is silly that the name on the coach doesn't include the website. the GoBus name on the side is "gobus.ie", which is smart, Citylink don't seem to do that, seems a missed opportunity, make it "Citylink.ie" on the side.

mikeybhoy

Isn't Citylink a franchise operated by Callinan's but owned by Comfort DelGro? They have it Scotland I think Stagecoach run it over there. So they'd probably have to get approval in order to change the livery.

Glaceon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121939662#Comment_121939662

Comfort DelGro own it but subbed out the operations to Callinan’s.

devnull

The phasing out of GoBus is now entering it's final stages.

The Citylink website has removed all logos of GoBus from the site apart from one in the footer and the first Gobus vehicles on the Galway to Dublin route are being painted in a transitional livery.

The transitional livery sees the white livery with red and blue graphics of GoBus being replaced with the CityLink colours for the graphics and the Citylink Logo. Believe there is no plans to relivery Citylink vehicles in this colour scheme, but merely this is a transitional livery for current vehicles in the Gobus fleet operating under the Gobus license.

Link to image found on bustimes.org.

bk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122041904#Comment_122041904

What a boring livery compared to the GoBus one to Cork! A step backwards.

What is weird, is that it is a version of the old GoBus livery with Citylink colours, rather then the new Citylink livery which looks very different!

flazio

Well with Bus Eireann/TFI running around with blue and yellow coaches, it's good to differentiate on the road.

bk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122042671#Comment_122042671

The TFI livery is mostly green with some yellow on the front, like most Dublin Bus have today. The blue and yellow was only used for a short time and is being phased out for the green and yellow when they are repainted on the regular schedule.

Most of the Citylink services seem to be staying Blue/Yellow (they have a swishy new modern version of it). It is just the Galway GoBus coaches that seem to be switching to this white and blue livery.