Go-Ahead Dublin City Routes - Updates and Discussion

brokenarms · 04-09-2017 12:41pm

bebeman wrote: »

I think brokenarms might be a Larper.
Stephen15 is correct, drivers have no choice in which bus to take out.

So much false information posted by those claiming to be in the know.
As a DB driver how does one go about establishing their bona fides around here?

I had to google Larper. :pac:

Think what you like. Its not a problem. This place is for entertainment and not sanctioned by anyone. You are just going to have to make your own mind up who is who.

You are correct for the most part about choice . In my garage anyway. But asking the depot man nicely can also work wonders.

Stephen15 · 04-09-2017 4:38pm

bebeman wrote: »

Looks like you are dealing with the Bus workers action group.
They seemed to have sprung up after a NBRU union rep in harristown was fired for stirring the ****.
It has nothing to do with the NBRU,they dissavowed him before DB fired him.
Google Bus workers action group, the top 2 results will tell all you need to know.
socialistworkeronline.net/statement-by-socialist-bus-drivers/
siptuactivist.wordpress.com/category/eugene-mcdonagh/

You should have a system where posters who claim to be CIE staff have to prove who are before claiming to be staff and posting questionable info here.

Is that the crowd that sprung up after what happened in 2009 in Harristown.

bebeman · 28-09-2017 7:08pm

Several bits of juicy gossip doing the rounds, so here is a piece to keep you busy for the coming weekend.
The word is Go-Ahead will not be ready to take on the 10% in time, so are looking to contract Dublin Bus to run the 10% for a year while they get set up.

dublinman1990 · 28-09-2017 7:15pm

bebeman wrote: »

Several bits of juicy gossip doing the rounds, so here is a piece to keep you busy for the coming weekend. The word is Go-Ahead will not be ready to take on the 10% in time, so are looking to contract Dublin Bus to run the 10% for a year while they get set up.

So, what you're saying is that it could be looking late 2019/early 2020 for GA to take the routes? What is needed to do for GA to set them up?

Also; where did you hear the gossip? Is it accurate?

liger · 28-09-2017 7:27pm

bebeman wrote: »

Several bits of juicy gossip doing the rounds, so here is a piece to keep you busy for the coming weekend.
The word is Go-Ahead will not be ready to take on the 10% in time, so are looking to contract Dublin Bus to run the 10% for a year while they get set up.

Gossip is gossip. What else have you been hearing. I've heard nowt like what you've said.

Fact, GA now have email address for recruitment on their Dublin site.

markpb · 28-09-2017 7:46pm

bebeman wrote: »

Several bits of juicy gossip doing the rounds, so here is a piece to keep you busy for the coming weekend.
The word is Go-Ahead will not be ready to take on the 10% in time, so are looking to contract Dublin Bus to run the 10% for a year while they get set up.

It's only juicy if you've never been involved in tenders or project delivery before and think this is the first time someone wasn't ready to deliver on time. If they're not ready, DB will automatically continue to operate the routes as they do today.

bebeman · 30-09-2017 2:37pm

markpb wrote: »

It's only juicy if you've never been involved in tenders or project delivery before and think this is the first time someone wasn't ready to deliver on time. If they're not ready, DB will automatically continue to operate the routes as they do today.

DB are making plans as of now for life after the 10%.
Movement of staff and routes from 1 depot to another, it wont be possible to just carry on as if nothing has changed.

bebeman · 30-09-2017 2:39pm

Go ahead are no where near ready to take on the 10%. No facilities, no staff.
What else happened to Go ahead the day they announced they will get the 10%?
The loss of the UK train contract, see the downward movement of the share price before the loss, it would have accelerated with this bad news.
It would have been a disaster on the following monday when the market reopened.
Same day out of the blue it was announced they got the 10%.
The 10% took some of the sting out of the loss of the UK train contract.
Who owns shares in Go ahead? could there have been any Irish owners who would have lost big if share price continued down? could someone have saved they by awarding the 10% to Go ahead?
Rumours say yes, only time will tell

devnull · 30-09-2017 2:49pm

bebeman wrote: »

Go ahead are no where near ready to take on the 10%. No facilities, no staff.

They still have over a year to sort all that stuff out, there is plenty of time.

What else happened to Go ahead the day they announced they will get the 10%? The loss of the UK train contract, see the downward movement of the share price before the loss, it would have accelerated with this bad news.

Here's some share price history for you

9th August: 1802
10th August:1740 (announced train loss and bus gain)
1st September: 1812

Sure it hit their share price but it bounced back pretty quickly, the big fall in share price for Go-Ahead recently was on 7th September where it fell to 1550 following their full year results but it has been steadily climbing since and is now back up to 1703.

That's nothing like a crisis, if it was the shares wouldn't have rebounded the way they have each time.

AlekSmart · 01-10-2017 2:07am

bebeman wrote: »

Go ahead are no where near ready to take on the 10%. No facilities, no staff.
What else happened to Go ahead the day they announced they will get the 10%?
The loss of the UK train contract, see the downward movement of the share price before the loss, it would have accelerated with this bad news.
It would have been a disaster on the following monday when the market reopened.
Same day out of the blue it was announced they got the 10%.
The 10% took some of the sting out of the loss of the UK train contract.
Who owns shares in Go ahead? could there have been any Irish owners who would have lost big if share price continued down? could someone have saved they by awarding the 10% to Go ahead?
Rumours say yes, only time will tell

For a multi-national Transport Operator,losing tendered contracts is but one element of the greater process,ie: no big deal.

The good Lord never closes one door,without opening another....

http://www.railwaypro.com/wp/go-ahead-wins-another-rail-franchise-germany/

The Go-Ahead group's initial foray into Singapore got off to a jittery start,folllowing significant numbers of their new "Bus Captains" resigning after finding the new operators business model not to their liking.

http://www.todayonline.com/singapore/british-operator-run-loyang-bus-package

It has taken over 18 months for the G.A. group to regain it's composure by reigning in some of it's UK working practices,which simply did not travel at all well.

http://landtransportguru.net/bus/bus-infrastructure/bus-contracting-model/seletar-bus-package/

The Singapore situation,with it's incumbent operator SBS,having it's business sub-divided and tendered out is very close to the "New" Dublin model.

It will indeed be worth watching whether the NTA will be as free with the tender details as the Singaporeans have been...

Bidding Procedure

As of the tender closing time, 9 bids were submitted from hopeful operators. All operators were shortlisted on 02 Mar 2017.
S/No Country Tenderer Price for 5 Years
Amount (S$)
1. Australia Busways Group Pty Ltd 581,832,861.00
2. China / Local Jiaoyun Group / Travel GSH Pte Ltd Consortium 547,589,363.52
3. United Kingdom National Express Group Plc 536,828,068.00
4. Local SBS Transit Ltd 480,332,472.00
5. Local SMRT Buses Ltd 514,522,355.00
6. Local The Go-Ahead Group Plc 576,341,755.00
7. Local / South Korea Tian San Shipping (Private) Limited / Kumho Buslines Co., Ltd Consortium 538,837,888.23
8. Local Tower Transit Singapore Pte. Ltd. 575,797,622.00
571,139,871.00 (Alternative)
9. Local Woodlands Transport Holdings Pte. Ltd 583,442,331.19

Given the similarity between Tendering Procedures,the lack of such detail from the NTA is of some interest ?

liger · 01-10-2017 9:01pm

AlekSmart wrote: »

The Go-Ahead group's initial foray into Singapore got off to a jittery start,folllowing significant numbers of their new "Bus Captains" resigning after finding the new operators business model not to their liking.

People resigned over "interlining" (operating more than one route per shift). I doubt that this particular practice will cause them any trouble with GA Dublin.

They are starting from scratch, no existing staff with existing preconceptions about how the company should operator, no resistance to change.

Staff that they will poach from DB already do that on many routes. So it won't be new to them.

People having been waiting over a year to get into a job with DB, you think GA will have problems hiring staff? Even if T&Cs aren't as good as DB, people can apply for work with GA, build up experience and still apply to work in DB. However at the speed DB reacts to things I can see it being out of business with 20years.

dublinman1990 · 12-10-2017 2:57pm

There is a rumor going around from an DB employee in Harristown which said that some of the 2016 SGs and some AV's will be transferred to GA Dublin. I know that this stuff should not be treated as gospel. But can someone here tell me about how this could be classed as accurate information. If Dublin Bus were tasked with transferring bus fleets from them to GA Dublin via an specific order from the NTA; that could be very complex. If the NTA said otherwise that would be no plans to reduce the Dublin Bus fleet; well is that original plan going to change soon or not?

There is already news about 40 Streetlites being built for the NTA. That news is welcome. But it appears that with this Dublin Bus rumor going around in the last few days; the double deck part of GA Dublin's fleet may have a few challenges ahead. If the plan to transfer some Dublin Buses to GA Dublin is approved. Is there any way that the spec of the Dublin Bus vehicles can be changed if they were with GA. Will the interiors in some of the transferred buses have to be changed to have a matching spec for both Dublin Bus & GA? There is no way that the new Streetlites would have the same interior as Dublin Bus. If there was a approach from the NTA to match the Dublin Bus livery & interior with GA Dublin. Well that type of work could not make sense in the long term with the Irish transport framework. But is that do-able. GA already have separate brands in place that are relevant for each of their companies in the UK except for GA London with the red bus fleet being used with TfL.

Stevek101 · 12-10-2017 3:10pm

I doubt they plan is that far advanced. Having said that the NTA own most of the deliveries in recent years so it is possible. Supposedly all deliveries from Jan 18 will be in NTA livery so its more likely these will be transferred unless they swap some of the fleet around to keep a balance on the fleet age.

The vote on the purposed livery is due any day now.

dublinman1990 · 12-10-2017 3:23pm

Stevek101 wrote: »

I doubt they plan is that far advanced. Having said that the NTA own most of the deliveries in recent years so it is possible. Supposedly all deliveries from Jan 18 will be in NTA livery so its more likely these will be transferred unless they swap some of the fleet around to keep a balance on the fleet age.

The vote on the purposed livery is due any day now.

Is there any word on it's other designs before it goes to the vote? Are there more ideas proposed for the livery other than what was proposed in BusConnects?

devnull · 12-10-2017 3:27pm

dublinman1990 wrote: »

There is a rumor going around from an DB employee in Harristown which said that some of the 2016 SGs and some AV's will be transferred to GA Dublin. I know that this stuff should not be treated as gospel. But can someone here tell me about how this could be classed as accurate information. If Dublin Bus were tasked with transferring bus fleets from them to GA Dublin via an specific order from the NTA; that could be very complex. If the NTA said otherwise that would be no plans to reduce the Dublin Bus fleet; well is that original plan going to change soon or not?

The AV's were brought for and purchased with Dublin Buses own money and are all due to be withdrawn over the next couple of years or so, so I cannot see for one minute that any of them will transfer to Go-Ahead because it would be more hassle than it's worth for buses that are entering their final stretch in service.

The Go-Ahead fleet will either be made up of all new vehicles with no transfers, all existing vehicles from Dublin Bus and no new, or what I would say is more likely, which is some new vehicles being supplied along with some transfers from Dublin Bus to keep the age side of things more balanced. There is no confirmation yet on which one of these will happen.

The NTA have said that there are no plans to reduce the Dublin Bus Fleet but they have not said how they are going to achieve this. However I would suggest that if vehicles were to leave the Dublin Bus fleet, then they would be replaced by newer vehicles by the NTA.

If the plan to transfer some Dublin Buses to GA Dublin is approved. Is there any way that the spec of the Dublin Bus vehicles can be changed if they were with GA. Will the interiors in some of the transferred buses have to be changed to have a matching spec for both Dublin Bus & GA? There is no way that the new Streetlites would have the same interior as Dublin Bus. If there was a approach from the NTA to match the Dublin Bus livery & interior with GA Dublin. Well that type of work could not make sense in the long term with the Irish transport framework. But is that do-able. GA already have separate brands in place that are relevant for each of their companies in the UK except for GA London with the red bus fleet being used with TfL.

From what I understand, there will be no such thing as a GA or DB Spec in future going forward, the spec will be decided by the NTA since the NTA will own the vehicles and are paying for them as it has done for a few years now.

There will be a new livery across all PSO operators in the Dublin Area to allow a proper integrated transport system where the over-arching system is deemed as being more important than the operator of a bus, like is the case in London.

The NTA Annual report makes it clear that recent bus purchases have been for NTA contracted services and not any one particular operator.

Stevek101 · 12-10-2017 4:52pm

dublinman1990 wrote: »

Is there any word on it's other designs before it goes to the vote? Are there more ideas proposed for the livery other than what was proposed in BusConnects?

Nothing was announced other than these two purposed designed.

devnull · 12-10-2017 4:55pm

The first for me is vastly better than the second, but neither are great and I hope that there are some better options!

Stephen15 · 12-10-2017 5:50pm

Stevek101 wrote: »

Nothing was announced other than these two purposed designed.

They're horrible why can't they go for something clean and simple

end of the road · 12-10-2017 6:13pm

just take the db livery with some changes. the db livery is distinctive and clear. the minute it comes into view one knows it's a dublin bus that is coming. boom, money saved.

devnull · 12-10-2017 6:25pm

end of the road wrote: »

just take the db livery with some changes. the db livery is distinctive and clear. the minute it comes into view one knows it's a dublin bus that is coming. boom, money saved.

The whole idea of moving to a common livery is to a system led, integrated transport network where the overarching brand is deemed more important than that of an operator which is how it works in a lot of cities within Europe, whether that's those in the West of Europe such as London or the East such as Warsaw.

The current system is fragmented with each state funded operator looking after their own interests with their own fare structure, zoning and brand and running their own website, apps and just looking at it from their own point of view at the expense of the overall system which makes it very user unfriendly.

That's before you even consider the fact that the current livery is a trademark of Dublin Bus and no company is going to agree to wear the corporate livery of someone who they are competing with for contracts for example and nor should they be forced to.

It's about time public transport was brought in line with other European cities where the overall system is deemed much more important than the overall parts that make it up all looking after their own interests. Maybe then we could have proper integrated ticketing, information and a more user friendly system.

The transport system in Ireland is outdated, unfriendly for tourists, disjointed, fragmented, confusing for people to understand, contains a myrid of zones and fare structures, barely integrates at all with things being duplicated by operators who are looking after themselves, it's time for a change to one where the customer comes first like TFL and not the operator and that is what I really hope BusConnects does.

end of the road · 12-10-2017 6:32pm

devnull wrote: »

The whole idea of moving to a common livery is to a system led, integrated transport network where the overarching brand is deemed more important than that of an operator which is how it works in a lot of cities within Europe, whether that's those in the West of Europe such as London or the East such as Warsaw.

The current system is fragmented with each state funded operator looking after their own interests with their own fare structure, zoning and brand and running their own website, apps and just looking at it from their own point of view at the expense of the overall system which makes it very user unfriendly.

That's before you even consider the fact that the current livery is a trademark of Dublin Bus and no company is going to agree to wear the corporate livery of someone who they are competing with for contracts for example and nor should they be forced to.

It's about time public transport was brought in line with other European cities where the overall system is deemed much more important than the overall parts that make it up all looking after their own interests. Maybe then we could have proper integrated ticketing, information and a more user friendly system.

The transport system in Ireland is outdated, unfriendly for tourists, disjointed, fragmented, confusing for people to understand, contains a myrid of zones and fare structures, barely integrates at all with things being duplicated by operators who are looking after themselves, it's time for a change to one where the customer comes first like TFL and not the operator and that is what I really hope BusConnects does.

the fact is the db livery is distinctive, along with the bus eireann livery. if the NTA want an all over livery, then a modified version of these liveries for all operators contracted is the way to go. a modified version of the db livery for city services around the country, and a modified version of the bus eireann livery for all contracted provincial services. familiarity is key. the exact operator doesn't even have to be mentioned.

devnull · 12-10-2017 6:48pm

end of the road wrote: »

the fact is the db livery is distinctive, along with the bus eireann livery. if the NTA want an all over livery, then a modified version of these liveries for all operators contracted is the way to go. a modified version of the db livery for city services around the country, and a modified version of the bus eireann livery for all contracted provincial services. familiarity is key. the exact operator doesn't even have to be mentioned.

There is an argument that familiarity isn't key and actually is going to be a negative thing rather than a positive thing because it will give the impression to many people that nothing has changed despite the vast amounts of money that may be put into it because they see nothing different from the outside and it'll bring all the years of negative experiences and baggage with it.

Like it or not, despite recent improvements in public transport, public transport still has an image problem and far less people take public transport in Dublin than many of the other cities in Europe. Some of the reasons for this are due to past perceptions, some of them are due to ignorance, but we need to shake them off and leave these in the past where they belong.

If we want to reduce congestion in our cities and attract people out of their car we don't just have to change the technical things about how the service is run and invest in our infrastructure, we have to also do something about the image problem that public transport has in much of our country and try and shake off those images.

You have got to look at this from the eyes of the people who don't use public transport rather than the eyes of the people that do, because if we do not encourage more people to use public transport over the next 5-10 years the traffic is going to be far worse than now and to do that we need to show them that things have changed and make a complete break with the old system on all levels.

I would agree that familiarity would be a good thing if we had a excellent, well developed system that was very well regarded, but unfortunately we don't have such system

Dyr · 12-10-2017 7:06pm

Jesus, we've had some diabolical liveries foisted on us over the years (including the current dublin bus canary yellow which would give you tinnitus when they're queued up along a street) but that effort is even worse than the old city swift one. Could they have found more washed out colours?

Tell me its just a proposed design

RayM · 12-10-2017 7:18pm

They're both terrible, but the first one might look a bit better without all that blue on the front.

SPDUB · 12-10-2017 7:41pm

devnull wrote: »

There is an argument that familiarity isn't key and actually is going to be a negative thing rather than a positive thing because it will give the impression to many people that nothing has changed despite the vast amounts of money that may be put into it because they see nothing different from the outside and it'll bring all the years of negative experiences and baggage with it.

Like it or not, despite recent improvements in public transport, public transport still has an image problem and far less people take public transport in Dublin than many of the other cities in Europe. Some of the reasons for this are due to past perceptions, some of them are due to ignorance, but we need to shake them off and leave these in the past where they belong.

If we want to reduce congestion in our cities and attract people out of their car we don't just have to change the technical things about how the service is run and invest in our infrastructure, we have to also do something about the image problem that public transport has in much of our country and try and shake off those images.

You have got to look at this from the eyes of the people who don't use public transport rather than the eyes of the people that do, because if we do not encourage more people to use public transport over the next 5-10 years the traffic is going to be far worse than now and to do that we need to show them that things have changed and make a complete break with the old system on all levels.

I would agree that familiarity would be a good thing if we had a excellent, well developed system that was very well regarded, but unfortunately we don't have such system

Sorry this sounds like something out of W1A

Corporate rebrandings have the reputation of being used to fool the public and especially in public services to bung some money to friends.

devnull · 12-10-2017 7:58pm

SPDUB wrote: »

Corporate rebrandings have the reputation of being used to fool the public and especially in public services to bung some money to friends.

Generally most re-brand exercises tend to be used in order to make a break with the past and start afresh and shake off any perceptions with the old brand that people may have which in turn makes them more likely to try and use said company again as they don't link the new brand with past bad experiences.

If we are going to spent €7.5bn on restructuring the countries transport system then we want more of our population to start using it and discover that things have changed rather than looking in and thinking that nothing has changed.

The image of public transport needs tackling as well as the technical and infrastructure issues we have with public transport.

Dyr · 12-10-2017 8:20pm

Using white as a base colour is bad enough but then putting pastels over it is just plain awful. Looks like a faded 1980s B+I ferry

We might want to actually see some positive change before we start talking about re-branding, basically just turd polishing otherwise

devnull · 12-10-2017 8:25pm

Bambi wrote: »

Using white as a base colour is bad enough but then putting pastels over it is just plain awful. Looks like a faded 1980s B+I ferry

We might want to actually see some positive change before we start talking about re-branding, basically just turd polishing otherwise

Of course. There is no point in doing re branding before we see improvements. But realistically we are going to have to have the branding decided by the time go ahead commence services.

The second livery is a complete mess and like lots of random blobs that are everywhere. I don't particularly like the first but it's passable but ideally something different.

Claude Wilton · 12-10-2017 9:10pm

London simplified the mess of 1990s private liveries back to the traditional red.

Probably too radically traditional for marketing and PR people to revert to the classic green and eau-de-nil livery that signified Dublin buses for years after the war Emergency

hardanro · 12-10-2017 9:18pm

devnull wrote: »

There is an argument that familiarity isn't key and actually is going to be a negative thing rather than a positive thing because it will give the impression to many people that nothing has changed despite the vast amounts of money that may be put into it because they see nothing different from the outside and it'll bring all the years of negative experiences and baggage with it.

Like it or not, despite recent improvements in public transport, public transport still has an image problem and far less people take public transport in Dublin than many of the other cities in Europe. Some of the reasons for this are due to past perceptions, some of them are due to ignorance, but we need to shake them off and leave these in the past where they belong.

If we want to reduce congestion in our cities and attract people out of their car we don't just have to change the technical things about how the service is run and invest in our infrastructure, we have to also do something about the image problem that public transport has in much of our country and try and shake off those images.

You have got to look at this from the eyes of the people who don't use public transport rather than the eyes of the people that do, because if we do not encourage more people to use public transport over the next 5-10 years the traffic is going to be far worse than now and to do that we need to show them that things have changed and make a complete break with the old system on all levels.

I would agree that familiarity would be a good thing if we had a excellent, well developed system that was very well regarded, but unfortunately we don't have such system

I don't think there are any recent improvements in public transport. 3 years ago I was able to find a seat at 8 in the morning. Now 4-5 buses pass by without stopping between 8 and 9, and no sign of DB thinking of adjusting their fleet or increasing frequency to solve this problem.
That's why people doesn't want to give up their car for a public transport. It's not an image problem, DB just doesn't have the capacity and the professionalism to handle more people.
If you are used to drive 45 minutes to work, would you give up your car in favor of a public transport where you wait that time only to get on a bus?

Go-Ahead Dublin City Routes - Updates and Discussion

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