Bus Éireann to close 5 Expressway Routes

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

Since the X1 has Ulsterbus connections at Newry to places like Armagh or Newcastle, it is likely in their interest to continue running it.

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.

I’m not really arguing the rights or wrongs but that’s how the free market works. Profit driven. Such is life

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.

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?

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?

How many use the services ? And more and more places have private direct services to nearby cities , ( well in cork anyway , so there's a cobh express,I think a youghal express , and a west cork express , and I'd expect more if they work out ... )

The Expressway express routes being scrapped by Bus Eireann would have been a huge profit maker if they had a terminus or a major bus stop provided at Dublin Airport if Covid wasn't with us. The level of demand at that point would have left them with a continuous business model that was very sustainable. The 2 terminals since then have lost a huge majority of air passengers coming into the country up to now since Covid came here in March.

A huge amount of customers who were using these services at Dublin Airport and other stops at busy locations on these routes before Covid now can't do it any longer because of the pandemic and that is a huge shame to hear that is happening right now. Some of the routes which are now getting scrapped because of Covid were showing good signs of life that would made it continue running services well into the long term. The fleet has undergone a huge transformation in improving the quality of it's coaches even though it's not as good when compared to running other airport coach routes by companies based in the private sector.

The Expressway routes that begin their journeys at Busaras may see some increased demand later on after Covid subsides. But if there is a further delay because of Covid in having a predicted increased demand of passengers heading over to use other bus services from private operators when it subsides; where does that leave the other express/non-express Expressway routes in future? Will it become high & dry or does it have a future?

Bus Eireann may find themselves in an increasingly difficult financial position after Covid if they are finding it difficult to fund & to provide new incentives for improving Expressway services to make passengers return to using their bus services. Adding new things to improve the experience for passengers while trying to entice them going off other private operators may cost them a lot of money in the end. If it's not worth it. They may keep plodding along as normal to keep running until they hit another stumbling block which may put the hard brakes on their services in the future. The resumption of international travel returning soon for international airlines is also a big uncertainty as we are still going through this pandemic. Bus Eireann having to lose huge amounts of income through paying for fuel costs, staff & mechanical parts required for fixing maintaining buses while little or no customers are using their services would also become a very unsustainable business model for the future longer term strategy of the business.

We should be able to know that there are 2 strands of funding coming in to fund all of Bus Eireann's expenditure of running bus routes all around the country. One is infinitely supported by the government through a public subsidy & the other, Expressway, being an entirely commercial service, doesn't have the luxury of that funding being given to them because under EU Law it doesn't officially qualify for government support. If Expressway doesn't last into 2021 or beyond that; the government would have step in & provide more PSO funding to provide replacement bus services in any part of the country due if BÉ decide to shut down Expressway in Ireland for good. It will become a very serious problem for us if it happens very soon. It would mean that, in a post Covid Irish economy, the government will have to provide more funding to support all transport operators running PSO services around the Republic of Ireland including private bus operators that win/have won contracts in the past to run officially tendered bus services by the NTA if they are still legally obligated to run them at the moment.

On the other hand; if you were to look at BÉ PSO routes being run at the moment & into the future; they are running infrastructure that give you a very basic service in how it operates services to the public. But that infrastructure has slowly improved itself all the time. PSO bus routes run by BÉ would see this as an upgrade because they have a young fleet that has a much newer spec which it still has a lot of life left in it to run PSO bus services for the majority of people who live here. They are in a pretty good position to not be as bad when compared to bus services from the private sector that runs a high standard fleet while BÉ treat them as their competition. The standards of BÉ's PSO fleet will be much better if their Expressway coaches switch over to run PSO routes for the rest of their lives to continue running the services.

But the big challenge to overcome that problem is how we will use the service in the long term while BÉ battle to remain open against other competition. It becomes a question of how BÉ do not want to overheat their balance sheet while still continuing to run a business model that solely relies on passengers going onto a long distance bus service that operates around the country while doing that job without government support.

What type of scenario could we see after Covid if BÉ has to run services while running with reduced income to support it's business model?

salonfire wrote: »

Yes. It's called Employer PRSI and is not an inconsiderable amount per employee.

All companies must offer access to a private pension scheme, either a PRSA or a bespoke scheme approved by the pension regulator.

Bumblebee2020 wrote: »

I would have thought Express Way would have been sold off before this point, when hearing National Express was coming into the Irish market I thought they would of made an offer to BE for Express Way.
Express Way would be a good earner for a private company that isn’t paying mad wages. Interesting to see what’s going on behind closed doors if anything is happening. I’d say there’s a few of the private companies looking at the route licences to get them

Anyone buying Expressway would be inheriting the terms of the existing staff, including likely a share of mechanics and admin. They'll be able to save some on backoffice but not drivers