We need to talk about Go-Ahead

Competition on a bus route? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of public transport being for the greater good? Sometimes I wonder what the EU is thinking with some of the stuff it comes up with.

Then I remember we are the EU, what the hell is wrong with us?

Interesting thread posts where apparently you want to fix something which is largely due to a lack of drivers and other staff and have to read dross like this

"The driver shortage is another excuse to flood the country with more migrants to undercut the Irish"

Moving everything over to Dublin Bus isn't going to make it an "Irish only" service either.

There's a valid point that only having a limited number of operators means you have issues if drivers just move from GAI to Dublin Bus.

So you do accept the public providers provided an equally shite service, since the "game" is at the same standard. Therefore, your angst is not at the standard of service from public or provide. Therefore, your angst is that the power of unions to hold the vulnerable and poor to ransom in order to use strikes to line the pockets of unionised drivers is greatly diminished.

How very noble of you to target those vulnerable who rely on public transport the most. If the standard is still the same, why else would you be bothered in comes from a private company? Says alot about you as a person.

I was left waiting for almost 2 hours for the Dublin coach service a few weeks back, a service that supposedly leaves every 30 minutes

Bus Eireann always had backup coaches, buses and drivers

Can't speak for Dublin Bus mind

You don't seem to understand English very well so I will try to explain better

If the game had been upped, or in other words, if the service provided had improved, then the service that the commuting public could avail of through the use of private operators would be better, not worse. I have given a decent example above of how the service under Dublin Coach is much worse than the one that was offered by Bus Eireann. Recent reports, here and elsewhere suggest that Go Ahead are offering a worse service to the public than Dublin Bus had previously

In conclusion I would say that privatising the bus operations is not working. I'm not sure how much simpler I can make my point so if you still can't follow perhaps don't reply, it only makes you look foolish

Really?

Going back not too far, as in prior to the NTA taking over, any schedule or route changes took forever to implement, as the unions effectively had a veto. They could go through months of iterations before a final version was agreed.

Passengers then usually got 24-48 hours notice of the changes, with no consultation whatsoever.

No it is not proper order, not for the thing to go on for months on end open ended, leaving customers without improved services, which was what was happening.

There is a much tighter process now which does allow for bills to be changed following union review, and rightly so, but which does not allow it to go on for months and months with unions holding an absolute veto.

You're not really comparing like-with-like there, those bus routes you speak of out of cork were put out to tender by the NTA and Bus Eireann weren't allowed to bid to operate them. The best they could do was a "joint venture" with gobus, which has since become citylink

Had bus eireann been awarded the routes you'd still have the routes but with proper bus stations at either end

In conclusion I would say that privatising the bus operations is not working

Hang on, I'm going to pull you up again. You said private operators have not improved the public experience. So, if the public's experience is poor - and not helped by the private newcomers - that suggests the travel experience from public operators was poor as well.

If privatizing the bus operations is not working, then logically you'd have to say having public bus operators was not working either. So let's see you say it. After all, you're quick enough to tarnish private operations and name checked one of them.

I live on a route that has 1/2 GAI and 1/2 DB. Both are equally bad IMHO and that's accepting that 99% of them show up on time. The argument from NBRU and SIPTU members at the time 10 years ago and beyond was that it would drive down wages, "race to the bottom", and Private operators would cut routes that werent' profitable, leaving their PSO behind etc. They wanted CIÉ only and extra subvention to deliver the same service. We now have PB4P crying from the rooftop that it all needs to be nationalised again because GAI are not meeting 100% of their KPI's. It's not a logical argument, it's an idealogical one. PB4P can't have "Free" Public Transport and "Improved" terms and conditions i.e. Pay for Drivers.