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Go-Ahead Dublin City Routes - Updates and Discussion

Stephen15

So since the last thread on this got closed and dosen't appear to be reopening any time soon. Heres a new one for you.

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Stephen15

dublinman1990 wrote: »

Dublin Bus will have 3 hybrid demonstrators all branded in a specific Dublin Bus Hybrid livery this month & next.

They are all built from Wrights. They will be named as WH1, WH2 & WH3.

Are these going into passenger service or are they just going to be doing dry runs on the 9 like they were doing?

Stephen15

CramCycle wrote: »

While I understand the buying of single decker buses, it really does scream Irish politics, not too different from the M50, build for what you have now, rather than what you want/expect in the future.

This is nothing to do with GAI or DB, this is a huge issue with NTA. If PT use ever improves in some of these routes, it will be shortlived if people are standing for most of their trip.

Just my opinion, but they should be putting a halt to single decker purchases from now on. On the same note,my opinion only rings true of they pull their finger out of there asses at government level in driving support and use of PT, rather than building extra lanes on motorways coming into Dublin.

Yeah there could be a certain degree of merit to that arguement but when and if the routes do get increased passenger numbers it could be doable to either replace smaller vehicles with larger. It can be done and has been done in the past while the remaining smaller buses could be redeployed onto other routes or new routes if capacity is increased.

In certain cases there may be an arguement to replace double deckers with single deckers and increase the frequency on said route eg a route operating every 30 mins with a double decker could be made operate every 10 or 15 mins if single deckers were used.

This would use a similar amount of fuel to having the larger bus run less frequently obviously there would be some higher cost as two drivers would need to be employed however if newer drivers may work for lower rates of pay and newer drivers may be less overtime dependant.

Stephen15

Go-Ahead are expanding their services over in the UK too and have entered the Greater Manchester bus market now buying a depot and 160 buses from First Manchester for £11.2m. They appear as a transport operator which are on the up so I'd wonder if they will they try to expand their operations over here too perhaps they might be interested in buying one the private bus operators over here.

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/first-manchester-cheetham-hill-depot-15851278

L1011

Dualway for their limited scheduled services (do the local routes in Tallaght/Rathcoole still run even?) which cross over some of their existing routes and soon to take over ex-BE routes is the only vaguely logical one I could see but Dualway are a lot larger than their scheduled division.

If they'd won the Waterford City contract, JJ Kavanagh would have neatly linked the two but again are a large firm with non-scheduled business. And who knows if either would be for sale.

Ally Dick

I'm amazed that the bus and rail union let this happen. I can't actually believe it. Why would they let the fox into the hen house, to totally undermine their workers' futures?

end of the road

Ally Dick wrote: »

I'm amazed that the bus and rail union let this happen. I can't actually believe it. Why would they let the fox into the hen house, to totally undermine their workers' futures?

to be fair they can't stop routes being tendered, as the relevant contract is up.
they will get into any new companies who win a tender anyway. so there isn't any reason on their part to fight it as
they will be able to bring the premium terms and conditions the workers deserve to any new company who wins a tender while continuing to look after the interests of the members in the state operators and any other operators.
ireland is a tiny market ultimately and there are probably only going to be a couple of operators potentially setting up here to operate tendered routes so i can't see the uk terms and conditions coming here thankfully.

[Deleted User]

Go Ahead using recruitment websites to hire new drivers, its on indeed.com etc, so no shortage of drivers in the company then.

devnull

soundman45 wrote: »

Go Ahead using recruitment websites to hire new drivers, its on indeed.com etc, so no shortage of drivers in the company then.

Well Go-Ahead in the coming months are going to need additional drivers because they will be operating some additional routes, so it may not be because they are short for the Dublin based routes, but they need more drivers to support their expansion into routes that are currently operated for the NTA by Bus Eireann.

Yer Da sells Avon

soundman45 wrote: »

Go Ahead using recruitment websites to hire new drivers, its on indeed.com etc, so no shortage of drivers in the company then.

There's still no shortage of spare drivers in the canteen every day. They were using recruitment websites last year too. In addition to the drivers they're obviously losing to Dublin Bus, it's likely that they'll be losing drivers to internal transfers too - there are quite a few who, for geographical reasons, will want to work from the Co. Kildare depot when Go Ahead gets the Bus Eireann routes.

Stevek101

devnull wrote: »

Well Go-Ahead in the coming months are going to need additional drivers because they will be operating some additional routes, so it may not be because they are short for the Dublin based routes, but they need more drivers to support their expansion into routes that are currently operated for the NTA by Bus Eireann.

Don't let the truth get in the way of a repetitive lie. :pac:

devnull

Stevek101 wrote: »

Don't let the truth get in the way of a repetitive lie. :pac:

I'm merely stating the fact that when a bus company significantly expands the number of services they operate, that they will need to hire extra drivers to drive the extra departures. I'm not sure how that can be considered a lie, it's what any bus company does when they are expanding.

Stevek101

devnull wrote: »

I'm merely stating the fact that when a bus company significantly expands the number of services they operate, that they will need to hire extra drivers to drive the extra departures. I'm not sure how that can be considered a lie, it's what any bus company does when they are expanding.

That was directed at the other post. GoAhead have had no problem hiring drivers but will require more for continued expansion.

ax586

soundman45 wrote: »

Go Ahead using recruitment websites to hire new drivers, its on indeed.com etc, so no shortage of drivers in the company then.

There's New drivers starting every week..15 started this week

Stephen15

ax586 wrote: »

There's New drivers starting every week..15 started this week

Is this to replace drivers leaving for DB? How come I still see they're trainers out and about surely all their drivers have been trained up at this stage as they haven't recruited B licence holders since the summer or are they just being used for route training now.

ax586

Stephen15 wrote: »

Is this to replace drivers leaving for DB? How come I still see they're trainers out and about surely all their drivers have been trained up at this stage as they haven't recruited B licence holders since the summer or are they just being used for route training now.

Most are being used for route trainer as most of the instructors havegone back to England..they still had enough drivers to cover the ones that left to DB...as ya da sells avon says there is always spare drivers in the canteen but still looking for more drivers

.G.

I'm looking to get into back into bus driving at some stage, go ahead handily located near me but they need to sort the wage differential out between them and DB before I'd go for it.

Yer Da sells Avon

superg wrote: »

I'm looking to get into back into bus driving at some stage, go ahead handily located near me but they need to sort the wage differential out between them and DB before I'd go for it.

It's a good place to work, and it wouldn't take a huge amount for them to bridge the differential between their basic wage and the Dublin Bus one (overtime/Sundays are a different story altogether - there isn't a hope in hell that a private operator would pay DB rates). They're losing some very good, experienced drivers at the moment, and it costs a lot to train newbies in (even if they already have the D licence, they still have to do the induction training, route training, etc, while getting paid), so they're doing themselves no favours.

Stephen15

I've heard Go-Ahead don't have quite as restrictive a system that DB have with marking in and spare drivers. I'd love to apply for either GAI or DB myself but I'm still young and only new to driving so I think I will build up a but more confidence before I'd take on a bus.

.G.

Yer Da sells Avon wrote: »

It's a good place to work, and it wouldn't take a huge amount for them to bridge the differential between their basic wage and the Dublin Bus one (overtime/Sundays are a different story altogether - there isn't a hope in hell that a private operator would pay DB rates). They're losing some very good, experienced drivers at the moment, and it costs a lot to train newbies in (even if they already have the D licence, they still have to do the induction training, route training, etc, while getting paid), so they're doing themselves no favours.

As Stephen is wondering, I am myself. I drove for DB for 3 years and a private fella for another year before I went with a career change. How are things like marking in, notice periods for what hours your working, senority ruling the roost on everything etc? All of that did my head in in DB, especially the junior status compared to how the senior lads were treated.

punisher5112

superg wrote: »

As Stephen is wondering, I am myself. I drove for DB for 3 years and a private fella for another year before I went with a career change. How are things like marking in, notice periods for what hours your working, senority ruling the roost on everything etc? All of that did my head in in DB, especially the junior status compared to how the senior lads were treated.

But spare driver's have so much more now then when I started.

We had one weekend every 6 weeks, we had to call at 1 or 2 to find out our duty and call up to 70 times, work absolutely the worst of duties where as now there are junior and senior spare blocks where you know your duty and some of these are good, 4 day week which wasn't there, text over a day before ones duty so you can plan somewhat better and few other changes.

.G.

Sounds better alright. Especially the 4 day week but but DB isn't an option for me. We'll and truly burned my bridges there.

Stephen15

superg wrote: »

Sounds better alright. Especially the 4 day week but but DB isn't an option for me. We'll and truly burned my bridges there.

What about Bus Eireann? Aircoach are recruiting aswell and the pay isn't meant to be that bad with them either.

Technocentral

Getting away from driver recruitment has keeping to the timetables improved?

Stephen15

Technocentral wrote: »

Getting away from driver recruitment has keeping to the timetables improved?

I can't comment for other routes but I've found the GAI route I use the most the 63 to be reliable since GAI have taken it over bar the teething issues it had when they first took it over. Perhaps better than when DB had it as there's a bus every half hour at the weekend up from every 45 mins and less buses cancelled due to "operational issues".

thomasj

The 220 seems to have stablised from the teething issues it had at the takeover stage . Seems smooth running now .

punisher5112

Stephen15 wrote: »

I can't comment for other routes but I've found the GAI route I use the most the 63 to be reliable since GAI have taken it over bar the teething issues it had when they first took it over. Perhaps better than when DB had it as there's a bus every half hour at the weekend up from every 45 mins and less buses cancelled due to "operational issues".

Of course it's going to be better though the nta improvement made that possible.

db weren't given this opportunity.

.G.

Stephen15 wrote: »

What about Bus Eireann? Aircoach are recruiting aswell and the pay isn't meant to be that bad with them either.

Would prefer City driving. Not looking to move to it anytime soon so I'll carry on as an interested observer for now.

Sorry for slight thread derailment!

p_haugh

Technocentral wrote: »

Getting away from driver recruitment has keeping to the timetables improved?

They seem to have gotten a bit better yeah.

The 17 at the start was manic, but is settling down now. Still disappears off the real-time and then shows up at least 10 minutes late the odd time though which isn't ideal.

Saw a 104 leave DCU yesterday about 15 minutes late, I'd assume it was late in on the 220 due to traffic.

dublinman1990

I used the 114 with GAI for the 1st time last Friday. I was on the 16:45 bus from Blackrock. It was on a 162 reg'd SG. When all of the passengers got on at my stop; the driver forced himself to use the accelerator & released the brakes before moving the bus which gave it a jolt after he left the stop near PTSB in Blackrock. Other than that my journey up to Dunnes Stores at The Playwright was fine. Although someone pressed the bell by accident to the make the bus stop near the pub & off licence in Carysfort Avenue. The driver didn't open the doors though which saved us some time in the end.

Technocentral

Was on the 220 on Sunday afternoon, the stop announcement voice was BLARING! My ears were hurting, is this common on all GA buses?