Bus Éireann to close 5 Expressway Routes

belfast stephen · 29-09-2020 11:12pm

Bus Eireann are wanting to pull out of the x1 but want to keep there share of the money and let ulsterbus do all the work they have also refused to increase the service from the March timetable also they would not let ulsterbus put extra timetable service on the X1

Yyhhuuu · 30-09-2020 1:41am

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.

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.

IE 222 · 30-09-2020 2:23am

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.

Well it's something that needs to be accepted. BE is viewed by the vast majority as the national bus company and I've no doubt if private operators where to pull out of such markets it would be widely expected that BE would just jump in and take over no questions asked. Ironically all the legislation and licensing laws would be thrown out the window by politicians, NTA and even the BE haters if such circumstances where to arise. Whether people like it or not BE is semi state and it's not going to go away nor is any government in their right mind going to let it go bust or collapse. It needs to be paid for and running bus routes is the cheapest way of running it.

I don't believe and I'm sure anyone on here genuinely doesn't believe that BE would've simply been allowed to move away from a "National provider" into a non stop intercity express service without major uproar and consequences. For example, the Galway route has an hourly departure, even moving half of these to a non stop service would of been unthinkable in political and public eyes.

I don't believe so, Dublin Bus effectively do this already with Airlink. I'm pretty sure the rail network is now set up in away to allow competition to enter. Of course IE would need purchase a separate fleet and pay a access charge.

I don't think it questionable that end to end passengers are the ones funding these buses, in fact its clearly obvious that they are. That doesn't render the route unprofitable. The routes via the towns along the way are commercially viable but heavily relies on the end to end passengers. BE were willing to serve these towns commercially but yet the NTA allowed the main source of income to evaporate into competitors who are ultimately allowed to cherry pick the valuable parts.

As I've said a simple restriction or compromise which requires private operators to run a balanced number of stopper and non stopper services should of been incorporated from the beginning. A equal playing field for all.

IE 222 · 30-09-2020 2:37am

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.

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.

ExoPolitic · 30-09-2020 3:45am

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.

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.

end of the road · 30-09-2020 10:56am

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.

how do you know so many of them are miserable without doing a survey of every single driver?
personal experience in itself won't be enough to gauge anything more then the amount of individual drivers who one has had experience with which does not equate to proof of the same across the board.
between my time as a regular user of bus eireann, and the odd time i have had to use them since, between both usages i came across about maybe 2 3 rude drivers, now that doesn't mean there aren't more, there will be, but i could not make statements about every single driver based on my interactions because perceptions over various things will differ between individuals and experience of a certain amount of people is not enough to gauge any further then those who i have had interactions with.
there will be rude drivers in the privates as there will be decent staff within bus eireann, it's not the black and white nonsense of private good public bad, there are whole shades of gray in between where there will be private operators who are very good and ones who are rubbish, and there will be aspects of the public operator that are good and aspects of it that are bad and need improvement. but
the issue is that one's definition of miserable, customer focused and all else differs between individuals as we can see from the thread, with your mentioning of national express and how drivers will help people with luggage, whereas others will not expect a driver to do that because we believe they have enough to do in driving tunnes of vehicle with 40/50 people on board. not to mention that national express have operations across i believe europe and run only commercial routes, so they can afford to have cheaper fares since they are a much bigger operation then bus eireann could ever be.
as well as that people will have different perceptions as to what someone being rude and miserable may be, some people will come across as being rude and miserable on one's first interaction or first couple of interactions, but if you get to know them more it turns out they may be the complete opposite. an experience i have had throughout my life with a few individuals.
smaller buses on routes is an NTA decision now, bus eireann find it easier just to run coaches as it means fleet comonality and coaches can be redeployed across the various operations where required, whereas smaller buses have less redeployment possibilities and mean another fleet meaning the costs over all may not be as much lower as one may think.
i believe the nta have ordered smaller buses for bus eireann now but ultimately that's down to the nta now to sort out.

IE 222 · 30-09-2020 11:24am

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.

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.

30-09-2020 11:56am

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

GT89 · 30-09-2020 12:39pm

[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

Not coming anytime soon

ExoPolitic · 30-09-2020 1:54pm

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.

JJ Kavanagh does a non stop service, X4 from BE is non stop too. Dublin Coach is just a brief stop at Kilkenny.

road_high · 30-09-2020 5:33pm

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.

Don't all the X4's stop in Carlow at a minimum- the service would be a lot less frequent if it didn't. THat's where the bulk of the passengers would be from as only one other competitor JJ Kavannagh from there.
Majority of those stop in Carlow too and Paulstown services.

IE 222 · 30-09-2020 6:59pm

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.

I'm talking a full non stop service timetable not a small portion of express services as part of their main service.

In fact imo the 4/x4 timetable is good example as to how operators should of been allowed to preform on the other routes in the interests of fair play albeit allowing a slight increase in the ratio of non stop services.

bk · 30-09-2020 7:05pm

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.

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.

IE 222 · 30-09-2020 7:37pm

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.

Not ignoring any of the stopper services others provide. All but the citylink service you list are irrelevant to the point i was making as they all provide a fairly similar routing timetable overall. Taking the citylink example as you've highlighted, the bulk of their services are non stop when you include the 760 and 761 also.

Again you fail to recognize the major drop in capacity, frequency and competition which you seem to treasure as a massive value to the customer. Staying with Galway services BE departure will remove 32 services a day and somewhere in the region of over 1500 seats. Private operators will ensure buses are the filled to capacity before they'll even begin to look at adding more services.

Again I'll repeat the fact that I've no issue with private companies competing with BE but we can't allow cherry picking.

bk · 30-09-2020 8:04pm

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 · 30-09-2020 8:52pm

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.

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.

I think IE will be the biggest beneficiaries from this anyways. If IE & BE or DB offered a direct non stop service to the airport avoiding the city centre from Hueston they would win over a reasonable number of these passengers. A extra couple of services on the WRC would probably lap up BE's numbers.

I completely understand the commercial end of things but somethings are worth protecting. I reckon over 90% of BE passengers couldn't tell you if they were on a commercial or PSO service. In the public and political eye BE is viewed wholly as a national service provider.

Well if the 20 remains it will be 22.

bk · 30-09-2020 9:52pm

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.

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.

bk · 30-09-2020 9:57pm

BTW seemingly BE are ending the X1 in November, the others not until next year.

I'm assuming the "X1" will continue to be operated by Translink, though perhaps renamed.

The wording around the X1 is weird, they say:

Bus Éireann has said that its Expressway service from Dublin to Belfast will be suspended indefinitely from November.

I'm wondering what "suspended indefinitely" differs from how they are wording the other services where they say they are "ceasing" them. I assume it has something to do with the Translink relationship.

GT89 · 30-09-2020 10:10pm

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

Charles Babbage · 30-09-2020 11:29pm

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.

IE 222 · 01-10-2020 12:34am

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.

The airline industry will take a considerable amount of time to recover. That's a good chunk of their customer base. Even pre covid or with light restrictions I'd expect a restriction on public transport to remain for some time until it completely curbed.

The operators are still spending money. They may not have the resources or reserves to bring back a full service. They'd be in a similar situation as the airlines albeit to a lesser scale.

Maybe or perhaps they'll stick with their current services and increase fares. Why invest in something when you don't really need to, supply and demand and all that.

Not sure how you find it a wired comment. It's a very fair claim to make. It might be affordable to park a couple of buses up for a few hours but when your left parking a chunk of your fleet up along with drivers it becomes costly.

IEs advantage is the ability of splitting trains or altering diagrams, there is very few IE intercity services that would ran just as a matter of repositioning sets. DB operates within close proximity of its garages.

Do you honestly think if towns such a Ballinasloe, Nenagh ect are left with a 50% reduction in services the NTA or politicians are going to go along with it and stand by these legislations.

joeysoap · 01-10-2020 1:20am

My observations; I got the waterford to Dublin Sunday 10 am expressway recently and the driver ( who started in new Ross) could not have been nicer and more courteous than he was, it was nearly non stop all the way though he helpfully let passengers who requested the stop out at Heuston and again near O’Connell Street

I think the 100x turns in the 100 at Drogheda after 17.30

Matthews initially went to the airport but stopped some 10 years ago, thus shaving 20 mins off the routes. Only BE service the airport.
Matthews were the first to spot there was a market for a Laytown- Dublin service.

When my daughter went back to college I phoned BE and enquired why they weren't using the ( newish) motorway, I was told it was because of PSO And they had to service Dunleer, Gormanstown, Balbriggan etc . It added hours to the journey. When Matthews arrived BE suddenly started using the M1. So i have good and bad experiences. But I wouldn’t like it if there was no competition.

Ps Matthews drivers have a zero tolerance for food on board never mind drinks. Especially crisps.

dowlingm · 01-10-2020 7:25am

Reducing X service presumably allows BE to retire motorway coaches without replacement.

Does NTA pick up the tab for expanded city fleets?
Do private operators have capital spend available right now to add to their fleets and otherwise expand their operations so that they can operate the routes in question?

road_high · 01-10-2020 6:39pm

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 · 01-10-2020 6:44pm

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

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.

road_high · 01-10-2020 6:53pm

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 · 01-10-2020 7:03pm

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

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 · 02-10-2020 12:55pm

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?

end of the road · 02-10-2020 1:16pm

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?

i said may exit long term, not they will absolutely exit, and certainly not straight away, meaning i have a belief that they may do so in the long term but am very much open to the possibility that i am absolutely wrong, and hope i absolutely am so.
politicians can't stop them from making commercial decisions, expressway is a commercial entity, and if bus eireann decide that certain routes aren't viable, or at absolute worst expressway itself isn't viable in afuture hypothetical situation, then all the politicians can do is insure PSO services are in place for any effected areas where they will be left without services.
the new buses will presumably be for what routes they are keeping and that will release buses either for other work and ones that are being retired.
to be clear, i do not want them to exit expressway, in fact i want them to take any opportunities they get to grow it, but it is their decision and the politicians can do absolutely nothing apart from as i said, insure effected areas that have no other services aren't left without services.

Markcheese · 02-10-2020 1:16pm

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 ... )

Bus Éireann to close 5 Expressway Routes

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