Public Transport Regulation Bill 2009

icdg

http://www.oireachtas.ie/viewdoc.asp?fn=/documents/bills28/bills/2009/5909/B5909S-memo.pdf

Hot off the presses...

Well, the 2nd DTA has lasted shorter than its first incarnation back in 1986! The bill...

• Renames the Dublin Transport Authority as the National Transport Authority
• Dissolves the Commission for Taxi Regulation and transfers its powers to the Authority.
• Gives the Authority the power to licence bus services nationally.
• CIÉ licences to continue until Authority grants them replacement licences (same doesn't seem to apply to private operators).
• Licences would appear to be more or less an apply - grant/refuse process. Doesn't seem to be any provision for competive tenders.
• NTA allowed erect road signs.
• Renames the CTR Advisory Council as the SPSV Advisory Committee.

antoinolachtnai

As I understand it, there will be two types of bus services - those operated under a public service contract (subsidized, basically) and all others. PSC routes do not require a licence under this act.

I am quite concerned with the act. It would appear to mean that all private sector licences will effectively be cancelled after two years and will have to be applied for from scratch. This is despite the fact that the holders have built up these routes over many years.

It will also make it easy for the NTA to overwhelm unsubsidised private routes by overrunning them with its own subsidised routes.

The NTA is basically another CIE. The only differences appear to be that

- it may be better run.

- it will have far greater powers and will regulate its competitors as well as itself.

- it will not be subject to any oversight whatsoever, except by way of the courts.

markpb

HSE mark 2. What role does the vast staff of the DoT have now? Will there be redundancies there or have we created another quango that duplicates the work and cost of a government department and gives the minister deniability when things fail to improve? What does this act do that could not be done without creating a new body?

More waste, more cost, no change.

Edit: the sections relating to land use and planning are interesting, I will be curious to see how that pans out.

AlekSmart

the sections relating to land use and planning are interesting, I will be curious to see how that pans out.

Good to see somebody cutting to the chase.

If this DTA was being established in line with the recommendations of its original "Implimentation Group" report it would have assumed full responsibility for all Land Use & Planning within its area of operations.

This L U & P deficiency was astutely identified by the original expert working group as the PRIME reason for the ramshackle nature of our existing dysfunctional range of PT services.

In simple terms it was/is why significant resedential developments were planned,funded and constructed without ANY prior inclusion of the Public Transport requirements.

Nobody who lives,works or attempts to commute within the Greater Dublin Region today can but wonder why this Land Use & Planning aspect was the FIRST (and only MAJOR) item in the Implimentation Groups report to cabinet....and also the FIRST to be rejected by the same Cabinet.

It all looks so familiar to me i`m afraid...a rather typically Irish answer to an Irish problem......:cool:

dub_commuter

The act seems to favour CIE even more so, you may say at first how can this be when private operators now can bid for PSC routes.

But take someone like Aircoach or Citylink who have had routes for years and the sole licensor, they have had these routes for years and continue their licenses unless they give them up, under the new system they would only have them for up to two years or so, so it kind of makes the idea of long term investment on these routes as kind of pointless as they don't know if there is going to be running the service in two years.

From the state operation point of view, their existing routes are protected and will never risk losing them like the likes of the ones mentioned above, and we could be in a scenario when the routes come up for tender, CIE/DB etc bid for the routes in question that run in competition to their own routes, to take away any competition.

It's not a level playing field and short term licenses for private and long term ones for public routes is not the way to go as it firmly protects CIE, and in the UK, the biggest problem with short term franchises in the rail industry, is thery are too short to encourage investment. Similar will happen here, if you give an operator a 5 year franchise they're much more likely to develop a service than a 2 year service - so I guess it's up to Dempsey if they want to settle for no investment and second best.

antoinolachtnai

Well, not exactly. The routes all have to be tendered by 2014, as I understand it. This is obviously a positive development.

Contracts have to be put in place by December 2009 with DB and BE for all subsidised routes. These have to be put in place on a market-based price.

(This is under the 2008 Act.)

Licences are initially for 2 years. They can be longer, up to 5 years. However, 5 years is very short for a non-exclusive licence. You still have to develop the route. That could easily take three years, or longer if there is expansion.

There is little incentive for private investment in bus routes in this situation.

Another problem is that the system forbids flexibility in routes, i.e., the idea that a route might change according to demand (for example http://www.bathnes.gov.uk/BathNES/transportandstreets/Parking/parkandride/RoyalUnitedHospital/RUHflexible.htm)