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Proposed end to Bus Eireann intercity services

Koptain Liverpool

Bus services on many intercity routes have been cut back and become more expensive in recent years.

The latest news seems to suggest that intercity bus services could be curtailed altogether as they're not profitable.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/radical-surgery-may-be-needed-at-bus-%C3%A9ireann-1.2931954

Whatever about the need for a national airline it is essential for a country like Ireland to have a national network of intercity buses.

While not important for most people in Dublin, Cork, and Galway, it would be a massive blow for people in the rest of the country as the private operators only cover major routes.

If it's not profitable then it should be fully subsidized.

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Billy86

Koptain Liverpool wrote: »

We're not talking about subsidising Microsoft or the like though are we???

Taxes pay for Public Services. That's how it works.

Not all public bodies have to make a profit.

Well at least they didn't until so many fools in Ireland and the rest of Europe starting believing that message which has been spoonfed by the EU, government, and media during the austerity drive of the past few years.

I would have agreed with this a lot more before the government decided that a bus driver was worth €55,000 a year.

reason vs religion

Graham wrote: »

That is entirely viable when the loss-making routes benefit from a public subsidy.

Ofc it is possible. What I mean, as I think I made clear, is it's not justifiable to allow private companies to undercut BE, who must then service loss-making routes.

Arguably, it is also unjustifiable to direct state money away from hospitals, social welfare, etc, to enable a notoriously inefficient state company to serve a tiny percentage of the population. I wouldn't argue that, but I make the point to show that the state has a responsibility to maximise the well-being return on its spending, and compelling private services to serve regional towns instead of funding BE to do it may well be the preferable option in allowing that.

Graham

reason vs religion wrote: »

Ofc it is possible. What I mean, as I think I made clear, is it's not justifiable to allow private companies to undercut BE, who must then service loss-making routes.

BE get a subsidy to run the loss-making routes. If there are commercial operators able to run the same routes with no subsidy and yet still 'undercut BE' then something is very wrong at BE.

eeguy

Billy86 wrote: »

I would have agreed with this a lot more before the government decided that a bus driver was worth €55,000 a year.

Nobody said that.

No bus driver is getting 55k basic.

Graham

eeguy wrote: »

Nobody said that.

No bus driver is getting 55k basic.

There was no mention of 'basic'.

howiya

Koptain Liverpool wrote: »

We're not talking about subsidising Microsoft or the like though are we???

Taxes pay for Public Services. That's how it works.

Not all public bodies have to make a profit.

Well at least they didn't until so many fools in Ireland and the rest of Europe starting believing that message which has been spoonfed by the EU, government, and media during the austerity drive of the past few years.

The Expressway services aren't deemed to be public services though. It's a commercial arm of Bus Eireann that isn't publicly funded and never was. So yes it should make a profit or at the very least cover its costs rather than being a drain on the rest of the company.

If you read the statement from the NTA the public services that Bus Eireann operate are still being funded by the taxpayer and are not in danger.

Also the statement says that Expressway only accounts for 19% of BE's passengers. Quite frankly that is a damning indictment on management that it would be such a financial noose around the company for so few of its passengers.

I passed Busaras yesterday and one of the buses parked up was an 151 registered coach. It was covered in what looked like flowers and called itself Expressway with Orla Kiely. Two things. If the service is in that much trouble why spend money on new coaches? And secondly how much did the partnership with the designer cost?

For Forks Sake

Just out of interest, I checked for a random Monday (23rd Jan) A.M Dublin CC to Galway with the various operators:

GoBus: €13 2hrs 30 Mins
Citylink: €13 2hrs 30 mins
Bus Eireann: €14.72 4hrs 10 mins.

Vic_08

Graham wrote: »

There was no mention of 'basic'.

To earn 55k a driver would have to work every Sunday, every rest-day allowed (6 day week), every scrap of overtime available and cover remote depots in their own car.

Do that in any job and you'll be earning well over the odds.

I already posted an estimate of driver pay rates http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=102234955&postcount=39

around €36 without any Sunday, €38 with 2 per month, €40-42 average with overtime.

reason vs religion

Graham wrote: »

BE get a subsidy to run the loss-making routes. If there are commercial operators able to run the same routes with no subsidy and yet still 'undercut BE' then something is very wrong at BE.

But compelling that they take some of the burden would cause them to increase the price they charge on profitable services and allow BE to compete.

For Forks Sake wrote: »

Just out of interest, I checked for a random Monday (23rd Jan) A.M Dublin CC to Galway with the various operators:

GoBus: €13 2hrs 30 Mins
Citylink: €13 2hrs 30 mins
Bus Eireann: €14.72 4hrs 10 mins.

The extra time it takes is the real killer. Why would anyone going from Dublin to Galway (as most are) take BE instead of the private operators? Not having toilets on the four-hour service is reason enough.

BoatMad

Theresa a lot f mis information here. BEs expressway operation is in essence a private semi state operation. The PSO levies support different BE services not Expressway

I fully agree that rural towns and communities need tax supported public transport , either rail or bus.

However that does not require the existence of Bus Eireann, a company the state essentially inherited from CIE which inherited it from the GSR railway company.

All The PSO routes should be tendered out privately , PSO levie amount applied where deemed appropriate. Non PSO routes should be simply left to any operator to run a service with no restrictions or control ( other then safety standards)

Bus Eireann should be privatised and left run buses as appropriate or wound up.

The state does need to subsidise bus routes in certain cases. The state however clearly doesn't need to run a bus company.

foggy_lad

Koptain Liverpool wrote: »

Some argue that it doesn't matter if a public or private operator runs intercity services. My argument would be that for a private company profitability always comes first.

Can we really trust private bus operators to continue to run to all current towns and cities even if some routes are very unprofitable?

If strict legislation was put in place to ensure that private operators met certain conditions in relation to routes and timetables then I would be more inclined to agree that full privatization could work. I don't see this happening though.

Failing that I'd prefer to have the intercity bus network operated publicly.

JJ Kavanagh's last year stopped serving most of the small towns and villages on the Dublin-Waterford service as they were losing too much money due to the traffic and working time restrictions.

Afaik at the time the NTA were not happy about the changes but they were told the company would drop the route altogether if they were not allowed cut the number of stops. Now the only stops are at Paulstown services and Carlow and the red cow Luas with a few buses a day stopping at Castledermot morning and evening.

howiya wrote: »

The Expressway services aren't deemed to be public services though. It's a commercial arm of Bus Eireann that isn't publicly funded and never was. So yes it should make a profit or at the very least cover its costs rather than being a drain on the rest of the company.

If you read the statement from the NTA the public services that Bus Eireann operate are still being funded by the taxpayer and are not in danger.

Also the statement says that Expressway only accounts for 19% of BE's passengers. Quite frankly that is a damning indictment on management that it would be such a financial noose around the company for so few of its passengers.

I passed Busaras yesterday and one of the buses parked up was an 151 registered coach. It was covered in what looked like flowers and called itself Expressway with Orla Kiely. Two things. If the service is in that much trouble why spend money on new coaches? And secondly how much did the partnership with the designer cost?

Expressway services cater for several important routes which should be PSO routes so a subsidy should be paid to whatever operator operates a PSO service on those routes.

The advertising on the buses is an important revenue stream for Bus Eireann.

howiya

foggy_lad wrote: »

Expressway services cater for several important routes which should be PSO routes so a subsidy should be paid to whatever operator operates a PSO service on those routes.

The advertising on the buses is an important revenue stream for Bus Eireann.

We can't just decide they are PSO services and prop up Expressway. Expressway has to fold/withdraw services in order for the PSO obligation to arise.

Yes advertising like the Supermacs ads they have is an important revenue stream. Are you really trying to suggest a designer based in London decided she wanted to advertise on a bus in Ireland? It's obviously a collaboration different from normal advertising

Vic_08

For Forks Sake wrote: »

Just out of interest, I checked for a random Monday (23rd Jan) A.M Dublin CC to Galway with the various operators:

GoBus: €13 2hrs 30 Mins
Citylink: €13 2hrs 30 mins
Bus Eireann: €14.72 4hrs 10 mins.

Interesting how you picked the figures that gave the worst impression of BE.

the 20 service takes 4h10, the X20 takes 3h20

and return fares Dublin-Galway are:

Citylink €25
Gobus €25
Bus Eireann €22 or €21 day return

To/from Dublin Airport Bus Eireann fares are the same as to Dublin City €15 single €22 return

whereas Gobus are €20 single €30 return
Citylink are €20single €30 return or €21 single €34 return on their "eireagle" direct buses.

Journey times to Dublin Airport - Galway
Go Bus: 3h
Citylink: 3h
eireagle: 2h30
Bus Eireann route 20: 3h50
Bus Eireann route 20X: 3h

This idea that the private operators have come in and massively undercut BE fares is just not correct. There are some cases where they have cut fares on certain journeys but in the main there has been no significant price benefit for passengers.

Bus Eireann were never expensive on the main inter-city routes as they were always a cheaper alternative to the rail competition on those routes before motorways when bus couldn't compete on journey time.

Citylink did offer cheap €1, €2, €5 fares for a short time on Dublin-Galway but as can be seen above all operators offer similar fares (at least to the city). The semi-regulated market we have here doesn't make a price war beneficial for anyone so on most routes rival operators don't actively try undercutting each other to a big degree because it will harm all their revenues.

Vic_08

howiya wrote: »

The Expressway services aren't deemed to be public services though. It's a commercial arm of Bus Eireann that isn't publicly funded and never was. So yes it should make a profit or at the very least cover its costs rather than being a drain on the rest of the company.

If you read the statement from the NTA the public services that Bus Eireann operate are still being funded by the taxpayer and are not in danger.

Also the statement says that Expressway only accounts for 19% of BE's passengers. Quite frankly that is a damning indictment on management that it would be such a financial noose around the company for so few of its passengers.

IMO there is some creative accounting going on as well as some very bad management.

It is rather puzzling how the Expressway services can be such financial basket cases now when until the late 00s they were making a healthy profit.

The management are blaming costs and squarely pointing the figure at staff but wages have been frozen for the last 10 years, if the service was profitable with the same wage rates then whatever these costs are that are making it lose money they have been added in over the last decade.

Bus Eireann Express services were so successful in the 1990-2005 period that at one stage they were generating enough profit to support the entire company including the loss making city and rural services, in the late 90 years BE was receiving little or no state funding at all.

howiya wrote: »

I passed Busaras yesterday and one of the buses parked up was an 151 registered coach. It was covered in what looked like flowers and called itself Expressway with Orla Kiely. Two things. If the service is in that much trouble why spend money on new coaches? And secondly how much did the partnership with the designer cost?

That is a very good point, in years when they are claiming Expressway have lost €5m and €7m BE have spend something in the region of €20m on new coaches for Expressway, they are now talking about selling off 2005 coaches that are no longer required due to the influx of new coaches.

A bus company needs to replace fleets over time but what sort of management would spend those figures when they are supposedly making a loss?

Without those coaches on the books Expressway wouldn't be in a financial hole now. There would have been a need to buy new coaches but a smaller number at a later date and perhaps a programme to refurbish the existing coaches which are mostly high quality coaches would have cost millions less.

It is quite clear that all of this "crisis" is going to be used as a stick to beat down the workers, either reduced pay and conditions or redundancy and replacement with contractors or workers on temp contracts as they have been doing with new recruits in the last few years.

Graham

reason vs religion wrote: »

But compelling that they take some of the burden would cause them to increase the price they charge on profitable services and allow BE to compete.

BE already have the 'burden' alleviated via a subsidy where the routes would otherwise not be economically viable.

Vic_08

howiya wrote: »

We can't just decide they are PSO services and prop up Expressway. Expressway has to fold/withdraw services in order for the PSO obligation to arise.

That is the thing, a lot of them are effectively PSO. Look at Dub-Galway as above.

The non-stop services are clearly commercially viable and possibly the X20 limited stop is, but the 20 that supposedly competes with the non-stop services, is that really commercial?

Nobody in their right mind is going to use a 4h10 bus over a 2h30 one so Galway-Dublin traffic is virtually nonexistent and Gal-DUB is the main revenue generator on that route. The question then is whether the remaining traffic serving the 20 towns and villages en route is commercially viable or not.

The fact is that if/when BE expressway pull out or go bust these towns will be left with a much reduced service, will a commercial operator take up the slack or will the service have to be added to the PSO anyway?

reason vs religion

Graham wrote: »

BE already have the 'burden' alleviated via a subsidy where the routes would otherwise not be economically viable.

Clearly they burden is not sufficiently "alleviated".

Graham

reason vs religion wrote: »

Clearly they burden is not sufficiently "alleviated".

On services where they have to compete which is as it should be.

Graham

Vic_08 wrote: »

The fact is that if/when BE expressway pull out or go bust these towns will be left with a much reduced service, will a commercial operator take up the slack or will the service have to be added to the PSO anyway?

There's a reasonable argument for those services to attract a PSO with appropriate restrictions to prevent unfair competition on the commercially viable routes.

Dirty Dingus McGee

Everything should be done to keep existing routes.Frankly we should be increasing the number of Bus Services and getting rid of the disgraceful amount of cars on the road commuting every day with 1 person in the car.

howiya

Vic_08 wrote: »

That is the thing, a lot of them are effectively PSO. Look at Dub-Galway as above.

The non-stop services are clearly commercially viable and possibly the X20 limited stop is, but the 20 that supposedly competes with the non-stop services, is that really commercial?

Nobody in their right mind is going to use a 4h10 bus over a 2h30 one so Galway-Dublin traffic is virtually nonexistent and Gal-DUB is the main revenue generator on that route. The question then is whether the remaining traffic serving the 20 towns and villages en route is commercially viable or not.

The fact is that if/when BE expressway pull out or go bust these towns will be left with a much reduced service, will a commercial operator take up the slack or will the service have to be added to the PSO anyway?

It was commercially viable when it was the only show in town. Now that it's not, nobody in their right mind would choose the 4hr service like you say. Another failure of management at BE. But they will probably try and blame the bus driver like you've said in another post

Vic_08

howiya wrote: »

It was commercially viable when it was the only show in town. Now that it's not, nobody in their right mind would choose the 4hr service like you say. Another failure of management at BE. But they will probably try and blame the bus driver like you've said in another post

It was commercially viable before the motorways were built and serving those towns was no more than stopping on the road the bus had to travel on anyway.

Regarding Galway-Dublin in particular, Bus Eireann management claimed to have lodged an application for non-stop services far in advance of either go-bus or citylink commencing operations of their services. It is not known when those operators applied.

What is well documented that Citylink started illegally without a licence, were prosecuted and paid a pittance to the poor box. They also magically received a licence while illegally operating without one and there was some very dodgy goings on in the Department at this time supposedly with the individual who issued the licence retiring directly after and apparently appearing on the books of a certain company with a nice job title.

I cannot recall the exact details but there is certainly a legitimate question whether Bus Eireann was cheated out of getting a Dublin-Galway non-stop licence by bent officials.

As this is Ireland none of the records are publicly available, DoT and now NTA operate the bus licencing in secret and resist any FOI requests to publicly disclose the applications, awards and decisions they make. They don't even disclose to the public what service levels, stops, restrictions or any other details about active licenced bus services.

end of the road

eeguy wrote: »

My local service runs twice a day and would never have more than 20 people on a 50 seater bus. At that capacity they'd never make a profit.

very true, but we must remember that bus could probably end up on another service in between runs that is full and does make a profit. it's ultimately about economies of scale for the operator which will ultimately keep costs down, in terms of a standard fleet. that's one reason why dublin bus moved away from the small busses (the imp) along with some of the routes eventually requiring the capacity upgrade anyway.

eeguy wrote: »

Even if they ran a mini-bus the driver is still paid the same wage.

because he wouldn't be stuck to that route only. drivers on bus eireann are interchanged between short and long distance routes as far as i understand.

Billy86 wrote: »

I would have agreed with this a lot more before the government decided that a bus driver was worth €55,000 a year.

but that has never happened. they're are no bus drivers on anything near 55000 in ireland, even with every bit of overtime and rest day working going.

BoatMad wrote: »

Theresa a lot f mis information here. BEs expressway operation is in essence a private semi state operation. The PSO levies support different BE services not Expressway

I fully agree that rural towns and communities need tax supported public transport , either rail or bus.

However that does not require the existence of Bus Eireann, a company the state essentially inherited from CIE which inherited it from the GSR railway company.

All The PSO routes should be tendered out privately , PSO levie amount applied where deemed appropriate. Non PSO routes should be simply left to any operator to run a service with no restrictions or control ( other then safety standards)

Bus Eireann should be privatised and left run buses as appropriate or wound up.

The state does need to subsidise bus routes in certain cases. The state however clearly doesn't need to run a bus company.

tendering out the services would eventually lead to costs going up. we do not want to become another britain who has the most expensive bus subsidies in the world because they rely on private operation only. privatizing bus eireann would also fit into this as we would be relying on private operators only. the current system of public and private existing keeps costs down for the tax payer as bus eireann will keep operating even on very little, where as a private will not go for a contract to run unless the subsidy paid allows them to make the profit they are entitled to.

Graham

Vic_08 wrote: »

Regarding Galway-Dublin in particular, Bus Eireann management claimed to have lodged an application for non-stop services far in advance of either go-bus or citylink commencing operations of their services. It is not known when those operators applied.

Lucky for BE/the taxpayer that they didn't start a non-stop service back then. They'd have started running up losses on the service even sooner and in the absence of any competition this would have inevitably resulted requests for further subsidy.

Koptain Liverpool

Graham wrote: »

Lucky for BE/the taxpayer that they didn't start a non-stop service back then. They'd have started running up losses on the service even sooner and in the absence of any competition this would have inevitably resulted requests for further subsidy.

Rubbish

Graham

Koptain Liverpool wrote: »

Rubbish

Evidently not given the recent discussions to end a number of services.

flas

You can see the waste for yourself by just spending 10 or 20 minutes in bus aras, just go in and watch all the staff in the hi vis jackets, at any time there is between 10 and 20 just standing around chatting to themselves. The most I seen was 23 lads all standing in various groups of 5 or 6 literally standing talking to each other for the full 25 minutes I was standing in a que waiting for my bus to arrive from the airport.

end of the road

Graham wrote: »

Evidently not given the recent discussions to end a number of services.

commercial services which partly operate as PSO services because the towns along the route have no PSO services. bus eireann would be withdrawing the services to those towns and running the service as a non stop so that they can be true expressway and commercially viable again. so, i'm afraid as the other poster said your claim in your previous post is rubbish.

flas wrote: »

You can see the waste for yourself by just spending 10 or 20 minutes in bus aras, just go in and watch all the staff in the hi vis jackets, at any time there is between 10 and 20 just standing around chatting to themselves. The most I seen was 23 lads all standing in various groups of 5 or 6 literally standing talking to each other for the full 25 minutes I was standing in a que waiting for my bus to arrive from the airport.

that isn't proof of waste, as we don't know what their jobs are. when i was a regular user of the busses hence being in bus aras, i never once saw staff standing around.

Graham

end of the road wrote: »

commercial services which partly operate as PSO services because the towns along the route have no PSO services. bus eireann would be withdrawing the services to those towns and running the service as a non stop so that they can be true expressway and commercially viable again. so, i'm afraid as the other poster said your claim in your previous post is rubbish.

Aren't BE planning to end those services, isn't that the entire point of this thread?

I haven't seen any suggestion that they're planning to cancel the intermediate stops and compete with the private operators direct services.

oppenheimer1

Koptain Liverpool wrote: »

We're not talking about subsidising Microsoft or the like though are we???

Taxes pay for Public Services. That's how it works.

Not all public bodies have to make a profit.

Well at least they didn't until so many fools in Ireland and the rest of Europe starting believing that message which has been spoonfed by the EU, government, and media during the austerity drive of the past few years.

When you come out with this nonsense you automatically lose the argument. Instead of just increasing subsidy perhaps we should try and understand why BE is managing to lose so much when others can make a profit.

Increasing subsidy is rewarding the company for failing. For too long BE and the CIE group as a whole had been only focused on rewarding itself and slow to react to change. For example you've got the union's lodging a ludicrous pay claim when the company is 18 months from insolvency.