However, it is understood the company does not plan any job losses as a a result of the route closures. Instead, it is understood Bus Éireann is planning an expansion of its operations in Cork, Galway, Limerick and Waterford, where it offers city services.
GT89 wrote: » Why? Ryanair run purely commercial routes and don't operate anything PSO. Staff turnover would go through the roof and service will deteriorate as a result.
devnull wrote: » Much of this comes down to the fact that Bus Eireann is seen as one company by much of the population, rather than a commercial and a PSO division. There is a lack of understanding of the differences between these two types of operation with the public at large and whilst many of us who post here will know the differences, your average bus user is unlikely to. I think that certainly plays into this. The public may well be outraged and the politicians too, but there is nothing in the licensing law that stops BE from taking commercial decisions of that kind. But Bus Eireann's commercial services should be treated the same as any other providers commercial service. There should be no fear or favour either way. One of the biggest problems is that BE management generally have shrieked away from the big decisions when they needed to be made and have ran their commercial arm with too much consideration for the people who will lose out from running it like a commercial business. It's quite commendable that BE have done this, but in a cold, hard marketplace you need to be ruthless and ignore the protestors and get on with it. That's a massive red-herring and completely irrelevant to the discussion here and it is highly misleading to bring such invalid arguments into this debate. All Irish Rail services are PSO services, all Dublin Bus regular services are PSO routes and Bus Eireann Expressway routes are commercial ventures, So I'm afraid your point pretty much holds no water at all here. The thing is that if there was enough demand through the towns for a regular service as they have now, we would not be having the discussion that we are today as the routes would not be under threat. The simple fact was that the services through the small towns was only ever viable because the huge number of passengers who were going end to end were contributing the vast majority of fare revenue for those services that made what would otherwise would need to be a PSO service, commercially viable. It is clear that there are probably even up to 10x more people going end to end on some city to city flows than are going through the towns and forcing large numbers of people to go through the towns for a vastly smaller number of people to be accommodated is pretty ridiculous and sounds like a desperate attempt to help Bus Eireann and a comparatively small number of people whilst disadvantaging a greater number of people all in the name of ideology. What really needs to happen is that these towns need to have a local service or a PSO service that meets both local needs and is sufficient for level of demand that there is from these towns. The Localink project is a very good one and if these services are done right, they could add extra stops in some of the larger towns, that would also allow them to act as town services as well as connecting to the longer distance services. Many larger towns in Ireland could benefit from these services to local hospitals etc, where there are no other options right now. But also there needs to be a realisation that if a bus is running between two big cities and stopping at a small village half-way, the village cannot expect to have exactly the same level of services as between the two cities. If you live in a rural area you should not expect the same services as in a big city. This is a trade off that you take from living in the countryside. You cannot have your cake and eat it. But as I said, at the same time, these places need services and leaving them abandoned is simply not acceptable, but there has to also be a realistic debate over what level of service these places require. Initiatives such as multiple stops in some Towns on new PSO service sto generate extra traffic also should be looked at. And lastly, if these cuts do go ahead, which I have serious doubts about, the first thing that Bus Eireann needs to do, along with the unions and the communities in these areas is to ensure they lobby the Government and theNTA to make sure that they are not cut off and there are replacement PSO services. I will happily join NBRU and SIPTU on the protest march front and centre if this does not happen because totally abandoning people is not acceptable and we must never accept it.
devnull wrote: » But this comes back to the point, that these routes, despite being commercial routes, are serving all these small places where there is so little traffic that it is not commercially viable to do so and never has been. Instead this has been disguised by the fact the end to end traffic has kept them going for years which has made them commercially viable, but they are not on their own. Many of these Expressway services were good routes when they were first established but they were operating in a time where the public transport landscape was very different, we did not have the motorways that we do now and we did not have so many people who were traveling city to city as often as they did now. This is just what modern Ireland is about. Expecting Bus Eireann to run these services out of the kindness of their heart when they are losing money is folly and no business whoever they are should be expected to do that. If Bus Eireann does service official notice that they are looking to relinquish these licenses, then the NTA needs to fund an appropriate level of service for these towns because these Towns are exactly the kind of routes that a PSO fund should be supporting. Expecting a commercial operator to fund them itself is ridiculous and if (and that's a big IF) the government and NTA really think that they should then the Government and the NTA really are wrong and they should reconsider their views immediately.
IE 222 wrote: » I disagree, there not viable due to the fact that a large number of their passengers have been offered a faster non stop service that competes directly with a existing stopper service. It's not as if these towns have suffered mass emigration since the motorways have arrived. It's also telling that services such as Waterford, Sligo & Donegal ect where non stop services don't compete are the ones that remain.
Yyhhuuu wrote: » The service is poor as it is. Many drivers could do with a customer service refresher course, many routes have run down coaches running half empty. The staff costs in Bus Eireann are apparently high relative to other bus operators and this is affecting their services. Their costs, particularly staff costs, therefore should be tackled by the CIE group even if this results in higher staff turnover. How is it many private operators I have travelled with hire highly enthusiastic motivated drivers with excellent customer service skills yet are apparently on less favourable terms and conditions compared to BE and with a higher staff turnover compared to BE. BE should use smaller buses where less demand eg routes with a reduced service to Public Service obligation could be considered. The company should offer reduced priced seats to increase demand at off peak times where buses are running half empty. This has been sucessfully adopted by National Express in the UK. There seem to be a serious problem with management at BE. Are BE staff permanent? Dinosaurs was a apt term used by another poster to describe many drivers. If drives are so well remunerated I can not understand why so many of them seem so miserable.
ExoPolitic wrote: » The non stop ones in Waterford compete with two other private companies, of which all three companies buses tend to leave full most times pre-covid. Also there is the train to compete with in Waterford, which is even quicker.
[Deleted User] wrote: » I foresee a lot of BE's problems being addressed with the introduction of autonomous buses. Would definitely take care of one of the biggest overheads. Wouldn't even need to offer redundancy, just replacement through attrition
IE 222 wrote: » Which non stop buses on Waterford. I was only aware of BE, Kavanagh and Dublin Coach none of which solely provide non stop services direct to the city/airport that I'm aware off. Dublin Coach does Kilkenny and Redcow which seems to be the closest to a non stop service. I'm sure if someone was to offer a Waterford - Dublin non stop it would likely kill off the profits on these routes.
ExoPolitic wrote: » JJ Kavanagh does a non stop service, X4 from BE is non stop too. Dublin Coach is just a brief stop at Kilkenny.
bk wrote: » Err.. so you are ignoring all the following stopping services that run parallel to motorway services: - Citylink Route 763 Dublin to Galway Stopping service, right alongside their direct non stop service. - Citylink Route 251 Galway - Limerick - Cork, much the same as the x51 - JJ Kavangh Route 717 - Clonmel - Kilkenny - Naas - Dublin - JJ Kavangh Route 736 - Waterford - Carlow - Kilkenny - Dublin - JJ Kavangh Route 735 - Limerick - Nenagh - Roscrea - Portlaoise - Dublin - Dublin Coach Route 300 - Ennis/Killarney/Tralee - Limerick - Kildare - Dublin - Dublin Coach Route 726 - Portlaoise - Kildare - Naas - Dublin - Matthews Coaches Route 900, 901, 902, 903, 904 - Dundalk - Drogheda - Dublin/UCD - Bus Eireann Route 100x - Dundalk - Drogheda - Dublin (seemingly not under threat). Note not all stops listed above, just the major ones. As you can clearly and easily see, most of the motorways have multiple successful commercial stopping services operating on or beside them. The only one that is missing is the x8 on the M8. Obviously that needs to be dealt with, but again I'd be surprised if one of the operators don't jump at it. Again, I need to repeat, are you honestly suggesting that the people of Cork should have been continued to be forced on a rubbish x8 service that took 4.5 hours, ran only every two hours and stopped at 6pm!! Rather then a vastly superior, every 30 minutes, almost 24/7 services that took just three hours! Why? Just to save a single BE route! That would be insane and completely unjust. Even if the government have to put on a PSO service on the M8 (unlikely I think), the cost of that will be pretty trivial compared to the fantastic service that the people of Cork now have and love.
bk wrote: » Of course it is a drop in capacity and that is always a pity. As is the reduction in the competition, that is never good. Though if the demand is there, I'm sure the other services will increase capacity, to pick up those customers, though that will not help with competition. These are commercial services and that is the reality of competition. You compete or lose. BTW Where are you getting 32 services to Galway from? The x20 has only 11 services (22 return). Seemingly the 20 won't be impacted. Also given how competitive Citylink and GoBus are, I can't see them not picking up at least a good amount of these once things return to normal.
IE 222 wrote: » I don't think they will. Given the current situation I think they'll be looking at scaling down also or the NTA will just offer more PSO routes at a cost the tax payer. Even if they did take on peek services it means parking a bus in Dublin for the return trip or running another 2 off peek services to get the return peek flow.
Bus Éireann has said that its Expressway service from Dublin to Belfast will be suspended indefinitely from November.
GT89 wrote: » Bus Eireann did the same with it's Dublin-Derry service a couple of years ago. They pulled out of their part of the operation but it's still operated by Translink/Ulsterbus to this day as the X3 and X4
bk wrote: » Well obviously we aren't talking about the current Covid situation, these BE services are continuing until the Covid supports end anyway. We are talking about when Covid is all over and things return to some normality. There is absolutely no reason to think that things won't return to pre-covid or similar levels then. I'd see no reason at all why any of them would scale back! With BE out of the way on their routes, the other operators will have a golden opportunity to expand and grow. Over the past 15 years we have seen the other companies invest 10's of millions in expanding services. Add new routes, increase schedules, put two or even three coaches on at busy times, move up to overdeckers and double decker coaches. If the demand is there, I'd see no reason at all why to wouldn't aggressively chase it. Your comment on sitting up coaches off-peak is weird. That is hardly new for any of these companies, they are well use to these sort of transport patterns. Running a coach off-peak light, so you can get a full coach peak is just a cost of business for all transport companies. It is the same for DB and Irish Rail as I'm sure you know. If anything these companies tend towards 24/7 running or close to it, even when sometimes quiet. BTW you know that legally the NTA can't operate PSO routes in competition with existing commercial routes? So that won't be happening. The only route that I'd see possible PSO is the x8 and then only if non of the others pick up the commercial x8 license.
road_high wrote: » Reading the tea leaves it does sound like BE will be exiting the Expressway market and concentrating on running the subsidised routes. State companies don’t belong in the competing with private space as their cost base and work practices etc are simply on another planet
Charles Babbage wrote: » having a rush to the bottom is not necessarily in the public interest either. Do these private operators have a pension scheme, for instance? There should be a NTA pension scheme (and perhaps sick pay scheme) into which all employees should be enrolled.
end of the road wrote: » their cost base and working practices are mostly fine, a couple of the privates are paying nearly the same basic wage anyway. i also think BE may exit the expressway market long term but i hope not, they should have actually increased their routes and services when they had the chance, and if the chance does come again they should take it.
Yyhhuuu wrote: » They seem to have a fleet of new buses purchased. Why do this if exiting? Do you think the politicians will allow them exit when their voters protest?
![Photo of [Deleted User]](https://w6.vanillicon.com/v2/62877c35768f143f69acd7bb6cd43f3c.svg)
