Coaches Uncomfortable for Long Journeys

Vic_08

gctest50 wrote: »

This is what ya need :

And that you can have, all that is needed is to get everyone to pay 40% more for their fares, and definitely no freeloaders.

That is 30 seats in a 12m coach that would take 50 odd standard seats. One of the Dublin Coach Setras had that layout, not sure if they have changed it now.

gctest50

Vic_08 wrote: »

...... One of the Dublin Coach Setras had that layout, not sure if they have changed it now.

same layout, not the same really though

Vic_08

gctest50 wrote: »

same layout, not the same really though

Yeah, standard seats, just in 2+1 layout.

Transdev Harrogate have introduced a fleet of double deck buses with that layout on their Leeds-Harrogate route, along with some rather overblown promotional material and a very questionable catchphrase.

http://www.harrogatebus.co.uk/36.htm


Nothing to match the coach you posted which are common enough in some countries in the far east, although the fares are at a level for western tourists and the well paid, far out of reach of most of the locals. That one actually doesn't seem to have the same legroom of some I've seen, you can get an almost flat recline in the best ones but you'd be looking at 30 seats in a 14m tri-axle.

devnull

lxflyer wrote: »

In the context of services around Dublin, it could indeed prove an advantage - the operators closest to the terminal may have first pick of arriving passengers, but really for long distance customers I don't think that they are going to choose a coach service based on whether the bus stop is directly outside the terminal or a 2 minute walk away.

It's not even just broke down by that, they even charge more for certain bays in the bus park area by the Atrium, personally having heard what the DAA charge on top of their already existing fees for serving the airport it's quite outrageous, but people clearly pay more for the good spots, for example some operators switched from the Coach Park to pay for their own stands outside the Attrium, and that is just as little difference in distance.

lxflyer wrote: »

Of course they subsequently reacted, given it is a commercial service - but the resources haven't changed on the route in terms of the number of departures.

I agree - but at times I have seen people throwing their toys out the pram saying that BE should have been allowed to operate routes of an express nature and even that they heard they were disallowed and it was unfair - if the company didn't have the resources or financial will-power to do it one day before the competition announced they don't have the resources to do it one day after either, they just got beat, but of course sometimes it's a question of resources as you say.

I entirely agree about operators producing schedules that are in cloud cuckoo land (and BE are by no means alone in that) - there should be a monitoring period after any timetable is introduced and if it's not working there should be a minimum period within which it is fixed.

The first service that should be cracked down on is the Aircoach service to Greystones.

lxflyer wrote: »

That was the point that I was making - we are in a kind of hybrid time period now where we are moving from a position where CIE ran all of the services, with significant political interference to one with managed competition by transport professionals in the form of the NTA.

It is going to take significant time to actually get to a common sense position with regard to which of Bus Eireann's services are commercial and which should be PSO. It's a mess that the NTA inherited and to be fair they are trying to sort it out, but I don't believe it will happen over night.

Competition is good and so are non-stop city-to-city express services, but there is still a need for connectivity to be maintained along the corridors - with services connecting towns along the route. The end-to-end service won't always make economic sense on its own - it will depend upon the nature of the roads and the towns en route.

I agree totally with that.

Vic_08 wrote: »

And that you can have, all that is needed is to get everyone to pay 40% more for their fares, and definitely no freeloaders.

That is 30 seats in a 12m coach that would take 50 odd standard seats. One of the Dublin Coach Setras had that layout, not sure if they have changed it now.

In my view 50 seats in a standard coach with a toilet is too many, that is why the Aircoach Panthers are a step down from the other self ordered vehicles in the fleet. It's just average coach, nothing special and nothing especially comfortable, travel in luxury it ain't. Effectively those Panthers take the same number of people as the Jonckheeres despite being a metre shorter.

That Dublin Coach vehicle is a tours vehicle as well not a scheduled service vehicle and as Vic_08 says, that kind of capacity on a schedule service on a regular basis marked in is not viable.

XPS_Zero

I'm curious, what in the current regulatory set up might allow Translink or BE to shove out a competitor if say DublinCoach introduced an end to end non stop (or limited stop at just Omagh,?Monaghan) service?

I'm in the dark on these regs, I understand the new proposed Luas style competition to operate route bundles proposal which works great in the UK, just not the present set up for Commuter and Intercity busses as opposed to "metro" services like 46a. I've heard they won't let a competitor say operate their own version of like the X8 route even at their own expense there has to be some variant in the route seperatly licenced?

XPS_Zero

Just to say I'm the first to say there is the PS obligation I'm not suggesting going full Reagan/Thatcher and dumping anything we can't squeeze a profit out of, just that express services should be an optional addition if viable.

The way the X2 supplements the X1, id like to see that on Dublin-Derry route, there is clearly some demand for it, hell people want a Sligo - Derry connection added to the western rail corridor so if that's on the long term blueprints a bus can be.

I'm talking about the normal service as is but with a few non stop end to ends added. 2h51m is shown as fastest possible from BusAras not huge difference but still 25% off the journey and if they used a decent triaxel new coach or double decker as you need comfort for a journey that long. The thought of it is so unbearable I decided to just get a through-ticket Connoly-Derry and take the Enterprise, change platforms in Belfast Central to second train. Still works out 4 hours but it's an easier journey on a train

devnull

XPS_Zero wrote: »

I'm curious, what in the current regulatory set up might allow Translink or BE to shove out a competitor if say DublinCoach introduced an end to end non stop (or limited stop at just Omagh,?Monaghan) service?

They have to apply for a license for a service within the ROI and it must be non predatory, and be considered to be fair competition with no more than two operators on a particular route (Express non stop services are considered different routes to multi-stop) and not be identical pick up and set down locations.

Also Services which are part of the PSO network, so in essence city bus services and non intercity / expressway bus services that are operated by Bus Eireann are protected from direct competition and virtually no licenses in this regard will be entertained, unless they are very different from what is already there.

The difference with cross border services between NI and ROI, since they are international services, they fall outside the remit of regulators both in this country and NI. Essentially no route license is required if picking up passengers in one country and setting them down in another. This is what scares any private starting for example a Derry to Dublin non stop service - there just is no protection for them or real regulation.

mickmmc

There are single axle Plaxton Panthers (Aircoach livery) parked up in Volvo Naas.

I find the best option for travelling from Dublin Airport to Cork is Aircoach.

The 141 Panthers on the Cork route are getting a little tired at this stage and the route could do with new coaches. It is a pity that Aircoach did not purchase tri-axle coaches for extra legroom.

Boulevardier

Devnull, it is true that BE have a number of incumbency/legacy advantages, but these are now more than offset by having to run services in such an inflexible way as they do. The new operators can run non-stop services between any 2 points while BE are lumbering along, often on the older roads having to stop at, or worse still detour into and out of, middle-sized towns en route. That is simply not competitive.

Boulevardier

The more I think about the airport issue, the more convinced I am that BE should run a seperate network to and from Dublin Airport, not serving Dublin City.

At a guess, I would say that they could viably operate 6 buses a day between the Airport and Galway, Limerick and Cork, plus 2 or 3 to Sligo.


Air passengers who are not suited by the times of those coaches could still have the option of using a Dublin coach and the 747 bus to and from Busaras on the same ticket.

devnull

Boulevardier wrote: »

Devnull, it is true that BE have a number of incumbency/legacy advantages, but these are now more than offset by having to run services in such an inflexible way as they do. The new operators can run non-stop services between any 2 points while BE are lumbering along, often on the older roads having to stop at, or worse still detour into and out of, middle-sized towns en route. That is simply not competitive.

But at the same time the privates will argue that if BE starts a new non stop service between cities, it already has a customer base provided to it due to the way transport was run many years ago when they were the other operator.

For example if a new operator starts up a direct service Friday, they don't have that customer base to tap into. BE can start new direct services like any operator, it's first come first served on new services and BE have been slow to the party for whatever reason. If they proposed a new service first, they'd be operating and the private would be locked out.

The fact is an operator has no right to moan that a forward thinking company has provided services on a route and now they have to lumber along and cannot provide the service themselves because someone else did, it's like saying, progress is not allowed unless we decide it is, which is very bad for passengers.

I do agree that there is some pressure on BE to make sure they serve stops which other services do not because they were the only operator and also operate PSO services, but they can't have their cake and eat it, it seems they want the benefit of both the PSO and the commercial models with the downside of neither.

LXFlyer

Boulevardier wrote: »

Devnull, it is true that BE have a number of incumbency/legacy advantages, but these are now more than offset by having to run services in such an inflexible way as they do. The new operators can run non-stop services between any 2 points while BE are lumbering along, often on the older roads having to stop at, or worse still detour into and out of, middle-sized towns en route. That is simply not competitive.

That's simply not true.

On Dublin-Galway BE operate a mix of stopping and limited stop services.

On Dublin-Cork BE operate non-stop to Cashel and then serve the towns.

On Dublin-Limerick BE operate non-stop to Portlaoise and then serve some towns. JJ Kavanagh operate a stopping service.

On Dublin-Waterford & Dublin-Clonmel BE operate non-stop to Carlow and Kilkenny respectively while JJ Kavanagh operates the stopping service.

Between Limerick and Galway there are non-stop and stopping BE services.

There is a need for both express, limited stop and stopping services or are you saying intermediate towns should have no service whatsoever? Usage can be high from those.

BE have already dispensed with stops on the Cork, Kilkenny, and Waterford routes and cancelled route 5 (Dublin-Waterford via New Ross). The NTA have replaced some of these with PSO funded connections and others have been replaced by private commercial operators.

I suspect there will be more of these changes as BE review their commercial operations.

It is down to each commercial operator to apply for what services they want to operate.

Boulevardier

The fact remains that many BE "expressway" services do not do what it says on the tin. There are too few BE non-stop inter city services which use the motorways the whole way down.

Another problem that BE should address is direct services (at least in Summer) between Dublin and popular tourist areas.

Unless I am very mistaken, there is still no BE direct service from Dublin to Dingle, or Dublin to West Clare, or Dublin to West Cork.

People from Dublin, and people arriving from Dublin, do not want to have to change buses in Tralee or Cork. I myself have chosen to holiday elsewhere for precisely that reason.

Also, it may not just be a Summer problem. I am certain that BE could run a viable year-round service at least once a day from Dublin to such places as Dungarvan, Dingle, Bantry and Clifden.

LXFlyer

Boulevardier wrote: »

The fact remains that many BE "expressway" services do not do what it says on the tin. There are too few BE non-stop inter city services which use the motorways the whole way down.

Another problem that BE should address is direct services (at least in Summer) between Dublin and popular tourist areas.

Unless I am very mistaken, there is still no BE direct service from Dublin to Dingle, or Dublin to West Clare, or Dublin to West Cork.

People from Dublin, and people arriving from Dublin, do not want to have to change buses in Tralee or Cork. I myself have chosen to holiday elsewhere for precisely that reason.

Also, it may not just be a Summer problem. I am certain that BE could run a viable year-round service at least once a day from Dublin to such places as Dungarvan, Dingle, Bantry and Clifden.

But why should BE be the ones to offer non-stop or direct services? Why not another commercial operator?

You seem to think that BE should forget about the customers going to points in between.

They offer a mix of non-stop, limited stop and stopping commercial services as they are licensed to do. There are, quite rightly, limitations placed on how many operators can operate the different types of service on each route, and indeed on the time intervals between departures to avoid operators establishing an unfair and dominant position.

There are other non-stop services available:

GoBus and Citylink are non-stop to Galway.

Aircoach and GoBE are non-stop to Cork.

Aircoach are non-stop to Belfast.

Dublin Coach non-stop to Limerick and Waterford.

Dublin Coach offer through services to both Tralee and Killarney via Limerick.

I very much doubt that there is a market for direct coaches to the places you list that would be economically viable. If it was, don't you think an operator would have launched it by now?

You seem to think that BE should magically find additional coaches and drivers to do them as well - that all requires money that isn't exactly plentiful right now.

Boulevardier

LXflyer, that atill paints a picture of a state-run company providing slower and costlier services while the privates cherry-pick the routes they like.

My approach would be to treat BE as the public service premier provider of a comprehensive national public transport network. In a democratic socialist system such as I believe in, private operators should only be a fill-in for gaps in the public service.

In any case, I cannot see why BE would not experiment with direct peak Summer services between Dublin and the areas I have mentioned. I am certain that they would be a huge boost to non-driving tourism in those areas.

plodder

lxflyer wrote: »

They offer a mix of non-stop, limited stop and stopping commercial services as they are licensed to do.

What's the difference between 'limited stop' and stopping?

Regarding the OP, I've done Galway Dublin airport by coach and found it excellent. Journeys on motorway are pretty smooth. I'd probably have a limit of three hours roughly before it becomes an ordeal though.

devnull

Boulevardier wrote: »

LXflyer, that atill paints a picture of a state-run company providing slower and costlier services while the privates cherry-pick the routes they like.

BE had access to the farms where the cherries were for many decades before the privates were even allowed into the farms. The regulations were against private operators for decades, all the cherries were already picked by BE years ago.

Since 1932 the state attempted to make every effort to stop private companies from providing transport services. The commercial operators were left with only the breadcrumbs and still managed to get a small foothold into the industry and continue to provide innovative services that the state companies had no interest in until competition starting providing similar services.

Do you really think that BE would have upped it's game on many key services over the last few years if they were the only operator? They only did it to respond to competition, they are re-active to competition rather than pro-active and don't drive the industry forward a lot of the time, where the private operators generally have.

My approach would be to treat BE as the public service premier provider of a comprehensive national public transport network. In a democratic socialist system such as I believe in, private operators should only be a fill-in for gaps in the public service..

Experience has shown that when an operator is an incumbent and has no competition, there is no incentive to improve their services. As I said, how many big improvements on BE in recent years have been out of BE really driving something forward and how many have been the result of the competition forcing them to up their game?

LXFlyer

Boulevardier wrote: »

LXflyer, that atill paints a picture of a state-run company providing slower and costlier services while the privates cherry-pick the routes they like.

My approach would be to treat BE as the public service premier provider of a comprehensive national public transport network. In a democratic socialist system such as I believe in, private operators should only be a fill-in for gaps in the public service.

In any case, I cannot see why BE would not experiment with direct peak Summer services between Dublin and the areas I have mentioned. I am certain that they would be a huge boost to non-driving tourism in those areas.

BE are as free as any other commercial operator to apply to operate any service they want. But they have to abide by the same rules as everyone else.

The market has changed (and rightly so) so any operator can apply to operate commercial services.

Ireland is not a socialist state so I'm afraid what you're looking for is mercifully not on offer.

LXFlyer

plodder wrote: »

What's the difference between 'limited stop' and stopping?

Regarding the OP, I've done Galway Dublin airport by coach and found it excellent. Journeys on motorway are pretty smooth. I'd probably have a limit of three hours roughly before it becomes an ordeal though.

The BE X20 is a limited stop service, while the BE 20 is a stopping service.

http://www.buseireann.ie/timetables/1469011820-x20.pdf

One serves only several stops or operates in set down/pick up mode only, while the other serves all the towns along the route.

XPS_Zero

With the PSO network, in terms of being very different is that how Swords Express got a licence because it was so different to like the 41s, 102s etc? Also that Celbridge one CircleLine I think it was.

So with all Ireland services if Translink/BE see my hypothetical DublinCoach Derry Express as a big draw there's nothing stopping them just copying it by adding an X5 or whatever and using their dominant position to draw all their passengers leaving their investment in busses etc a failure?

Does anyone know why Dublin Bus never bothered with a south side 747 type bus? Clearly the market was there as Aircoach has gobbled it up? Is it that FirstGroup being a MNC could afford to loss make while setting it up and DB couldn't afford that initial investment? Isn't that the supposed main advantage of public owned companies though that they can loss make sometimes? If AirLink had done what AC did they'd be contributing a profit to the state the way ESB does.


Are there any ACTUAL point to point non stops on BEs network besides the X2? Most seem to have intermediate stops I'm not saying they don't need to...just the point of the thread being comfort and the faster the journey time on a bus by its nature the better, I prefer rail but you can't get to some places on a train so I'm curious? Any?




With regard to public v private...................

As said above were not socialist the EUs set up under the idea of a "social market economy" IE Social Democracy. Market based but with strong state provision in some sectors (health, education, security) and strong regulation of said market (except finance apparently but that's another day's work....). We've seen full blown centre right neoliberalism which even the supposed social market away got drunk on in the early 2000s didn't work, we saw central economic planning where the state decides how much steel and glass gets made didn't work, the only model that's consistently provided highest quality of life for the highest number is social democracy.

Boulevardier I think we should avoid locking ourself into an ideological cage too much and not treat public as inherently superior in this area private inherently the backup option. Sure in healthcare, education, etc we do mostly public with the private services (almost unheard of in Ireland in educations case but for a smattering of mostly unknown third level colleges) supplemental only as you say.

The reason we do it that way in those major areas is those things are more effecently and fairly funded socially rather than individuals bearing their full cost (a full college cost being 10-20k, some healthcare could be 6 figures) so there's a lot of good reasons to view public as the best way of delivering them.

Transports different. I want state providing basics like healthcare, security, education. I don't want them providing retail services. Transports a hybrid area in between for two reasons:
1. By nature
2. By experience.

Look at 100% state provided transport: CIE, such an inefficient disaster they were literally terrified to give them metro and Luas services so put them under a new model via the RPA (now NTA basically). Why? Total state control didn't work well, total private set up as with rail in GB one company owning tracks another 5 owning trains etc disaster. So we tried a hybrid model with Luas. State owns infarstructre private company competes to manage day to day, Works well with busses in London too btw.

By nature Transports a hybrid model and I do t think we should look at more commercial involvement here the way we would if they tried to privatise the secondary schools, abolishing all state funding or instead of expanding medical cards as we're doing just made private insurance mandatory. Private involvements enhanced transport in Ireland not taken away from it.

Just one simple example. UCD state funded but management of some areas is private, now I'm not happy about the way they do it sometimes but in my apt building on campus if the lifts broke a calls made its fixed that day. The DART station nearest us had its lift broken for months...MONTHS cos maintenance was in house, faced no competition nothing to move them and they took their sweet time with, well, everything.

LXFlyer

XPS_Zero wrote: »

With the PSO network, in terms of being very different is that how Swords Express got a licence because it was so different to like the 41s, 102s etc? Also that Celbridge one CircleLine I think it was.

So with all Ireland services if Translink/BE see my hypothetical DublinCoach Derry Express as a big draw there's nothing stopping them just copying it by adding an X5 or whatever and using their dominant position to draw all their passengers leaving their investment in busses etc a failure?

Does anyone know why Dublin Bus never bothered with a south side 747 type bus? Clearly the market was there as Aircoach has gobbled it up? Is it that FirstGroup being a MNC could afford to loss make while setting it up and DB couldn't afford that initial investment? Isn't that the supposed main advantage of public owned companies though that they can loss make sometimes? If AirLink had done what AC did they'd be contributing a profit to the state the way ESB does.


Are there any ACTUAL point to point non stops on BEs network besides the X2? Most seem to have intermediate stops I'm not saying they don't need to...just the point of the thread being comfort and the faster the journey time on a bus by its nature the better, I prefer rail but you can't get to some places on a train so I'm curious? Any?

You have to understand that prior to the NTA taking over the licensing process that it was in limbo land under the auspices of the Department of Transport. Civil servants were supposed to make commercial decisions but failed to do so, and licence applications were taking years to process, and at the same time Dublin Bus were being refused permission to increase frequency or capacity on routes which had any interaction with a private operator, even where that was only for a very short part of those routes.

Swords Express spotted that no operator was licensed to operate from Swords via the Port Tunnel to Dublin city centre and applied for and eventually were awarded a licence.

Dublin Bus foolishly had not done so, and when the Port Tunnel opened continued to operate the 41x via Drumcondra, but drivers would generally check if anyone was going to Drumcondra and if not would take the Port Tunnel to save time.

Once Swords Express were issued a licence this had to stop and the 41x had to revert to the normal route as otherwise you would have a PSO subsidised route operating in direct competition with a commercial operator.

Local residents then put pressure on Dublin Bus and local politicians to allow the 41x to operate via the Port Tunnel and ultimately the solution found (which involved Dublin Bus, politicians and officials from the DoT walking around Swords) was to re-route the 41x within Swords and thus create a different route to Swords Express so that they could be regarded as not clashing. This took months to achieve. This led to a court case taken by Swords Express against the DoT.

Circle Line was slightly different. It was a commercial operator that operated a successful peak hour only Celbridge-Ballsbridge and South Lucan-Ballsbridge service. Again both routes had different routings to the DB 67x in Celbridge and 25x in Lucan. The service charged a slightly higher fare than DB but commuters were happy to pay it for the express nature of the service.

They then decided to expand into an all day Celbridge - Ballsbridge - Nutgrove service. It proved to be a mistake for a while variety of reasons:

1) It was effectively competing with half-hourly PSO subsidised DB route 67 during the day for off-peak customers. Those customers were far more price sensitive and weren't prepared to pay higher fares for a service that off peak was not much faster than the 67.

2) They didn't have the resources in situ at the implementation date and as such could not operate the approved schedule. The DoT refused to allow them to publish a revised timetable that could be delivered as it was not licenced. The result was no one knew when buses were operating as the company could not publish the service it could provide.

3) Even when that hurdle was overcome and the resources were in place there were no timetables on any stops and publicity was atrocious.

It was an unmitigated disaster from start to finish - Circle Line bit off more than they could chew frankly - they should have stayed operating the successful peak hour service that they had built up. Mortons then pulled the plug on the entire operation and tried loudly to blame Dublin Bus for everything.

Just as a footnote - while Circle Line operated, DB were flatly refused permission by the DoT to increase frequency or capacity on any Lucan Road route, even the buses to Leixlip or Maynooth (neither served by Circle Line) for fear of legal action.

Similarly the 37 could not be extended from Carpenterstown to Blanchardstown Shopping Centre because it shared the same route from Ashtown Park Gate to Castleknock Station as URBus - a much lower frequency commercial operator that then took a much more direct route the Shopping Centre than the 37 ever would.

Thus certain areas were deprived an improved bus service due to civil servant ineptitude.

Why did DB not expand the Airlink? Again it's a commercial operation - they could not and cannot use public funds to finance it. They would need to find the money themselves to buy the buses to operate it and recruit drivers separately too. Given their financial position, that's not something that they would be particularly able to do. They chose not to take DSP passes in order to maximise revenues.

Add to all of that the fact that whenever DB and BE tried reviewing their networks and proposed cancelling or merging loss making routes that were carrying single digit passenger numbers,local politicians would object, the Minister would get involved behind the scenes, and the plans would have to be abandoned. The amount of political interference was ludicrous to say the least.

Re BE - the X2 is a Translink service - nothing to do with BE.

BE operate the X51 non-stop between Limerick and Galway, and there are a couple of non-stop route 4 trips on Sundays between Dublin and Waterford.

They also have the joint venture with GoBus between Dublin and Cork - GoBE that operates non-stop.

As I've already posted - there are so many legacy issues here to deal with, and route tendering due to be awarded later this year (a massive issue for the CIE unions), that the sector is going to be in a state of flux/change for the next 5-10 years in my opinion before it finally settles down.

Boulevardier

Regarding Airlink, people may not remember that in the late 80s/early 90s, DB ran a "hotel service" from Dublin Airport to Ballsbridge and adjacent areas. It was little used and abandoned after a couple of years. Aircoach managed to make a success of it some years later, and the rest is history. I have no idea why it succeded the second time and not the first, but I very much doubt that it is a case of state=bad and private=good.

The saga recounted by LXflyer above is a good illustration of what a dog's breakfast the present system is.

A far simpler way of doing things would be to designate DB and BE as the default suppliers of most routes, and then to franchise out (for 5-10 years) any route which BE or DB did not elect to run, or run adequately. Such franchises could even be filled by more than one operator per route.
That would prevent predatory competition while still giving reasonable space for expansion of services to the public.

With all due respect XPS, the EU has not helped. It has enforced a neoliberal model of enforced competition in public services, and that is not the answer to our transport needs. The EU could help a lot more by removing or at least modifying crippling "state aid" constraints on our public service provision.

XPS_Zero

lxflyer wrote: »

You have to understand that prior to the NTA taking over the licensing process that it was in limbo land under the auspices of the Department of Transport. Civil servants were supposed to make commercial decisions but failed to do so, and licence applications were taking years to process, and at the same time Dublin Bus were being refused permission to increase frequency or capacity on routes which had any interaction with a private operator, even where that was only for a very short part of those routes.

Swords Express spotted that no operator was licensed to operate from Swords via the Port Tunnel to Dublin city centre and applied for and eventually were awarded a licence.

Dublin Bus foolishly had not done so, and when the Port Tunnel opened continued to operate the 41x via Drumcondra, but drivers would generally check if anyone was going to Drumcondra and if not would take the Port Tunnel to save time.

Once Swords Express were issued a licence this had to stop and the 41x had to revert to the normal route as otherwise you would have a PSO subsidised route operating in direct competition with a commercial operator.

Local residents then put pressure on Dublin Bus and local politicians to allow the 41x to operate via the Port Tunnel and ultimately the solution found (which involved Dublin Bus, politicians and officials from the DoT walking around Swords) was to re-route the 41x within Swords and thus create a different route to Swords Express so that they could be regarded as not clashing. This took months to achieve. This led to a court case taken by Swords Express against the DoT.

Circle Line was slightly different. It was a commercial operator that operated a successful peak hour only Celbridge-Ballsbridge and South Lucan-Ballsbridge service. Again both routes had different routings to the DB 67x in Celbridge and 25x in Lucan. The service charged a slightly higher fare than DB but commuters were happy to pay it for the express nature of the service.

They then decided to expand into an all day Celbridge - Ballsbridge - Nutgrove service. It proved to be a mistake for a while variety of reasons:

1) It was effectively competing with half-hourly PSO subsidised DB route 67 during the day for off-peak customers. Those customers were far more price sensitive and weren't prepared to pay higher fares for a service that off peak was not much faster than the 67.

2) They didn't have the resources in situ at the implementation date and as such could not operate the approved schedule. The DoT refused to allow them to publish a revised timetable that could be delivered as it was not licenced. The result was no one knew when buses were operating as the company could not publish the service it could provide.

3) Even when that hurdle was overcome and the resources were in place there were no timetables on any stops and publicity was atrocious.

It was an unmitigated disaster from start to finish - Circle Line bit off more than they could chew frankly - they should have stayed operating the successful peak hour service that they had built up. Mortons then pulled the plug on the entire operation and tried loudly to blame Dublin Bus for everything.

Just as a footnote - while Circle Line operated, DB were flatly refused permission by the DoT to increase frequency or capacity on any Lucan Road route, even the buses to Leixlip or Maynooth (neither served by Circle Line) for fear of legal action.

Similarly the 37 could not be extended from Carpenterstown to Blanchardstown Shopping Centre because it shared the same route from Ashtown Park Gate to Castleknock Station as URBus - a much lower frequency commercial operator that then took a much more direct route the Shopping Centre than the 37 ever would.

Thus certain areas were deprived an improved bus service due to civil servant ineptitude.

Why did DB not expand the Airlink? Again it's a commercial operation - they could not and cannot use public funds to finance it. They would need to find the money themselves to buy the buses to operate it and recruit drivers separately too. Given their financial position, that's not something that they would be particularly able to do. They chose not to take DSP passes in order to maximise revenues.

Add to all of that the fact that whenever DB and BE tried reviewing their networks and proposed cancelling or merging loss making routes that were carrying single digit passenger numbers,local politicians would object, the Minister would get involved behind the scenes, and the plans would have to be abandoned. The amount of political interference was ludicrous to say the least.

Re BE - the X2 is a Translink service - nothing to do with BE.

BE operate the X51 non-stop between Limerick and Galway, and there are a couple of non-stop route 4 trips on Sundays between Dublin and Waterford.

They also have the joint venture with GoBus between Dublin and Cork - GoBE that operates non-stop.

As I've already posted - there are so many legacy issues here to deal with, and route tendering due to be awarded later this year (a massive issue for the CIE unions), that the sector is going to be in a state of flux/change for the next 5-10 years in my opinion before it finally settles down.

The AirLink FT passes always bugged me, though I use mine on AC and wouldn't have use for AirLink as I actually think just having one cc to airports kinda crappy and limited plus it's not a v comfortable bus, I see the European companies have plush comfy double deckers they should use those, but surely the only possible revenue loss because of FT would be opportunity lost?
If your bus is filling up and you've two seats left and you give them to FT passengers, besides the FTblock grant which you'd have had anyway you're loosing out on a fare a premium customer might have paid, but surely that relies on bus being full?

I rarely see an AC or AirLink full in fact I don't think I've ever seen it! So if they're usually not full an FT passengers not an opportunity lost surely?

I get that Nitelink and AirLink are commercial but surely they could have put PSO Xpresso style xyz area to Airport routes non commercial I mean the gap was obvious, I remember there was even an AerDART feeder for a while and you can do a DART-102-Airport at Sutton or Malahide they could have had some kind of 102 style cross city route like 39a now. Seemes like an obvious loss.

Don't get me started on the bloody poorest everything crowd. They want to straighten out the 7/7b/7d routes and put the 7 ending at the Brides Glen Luas. This is another obvious thing that's been screaming out as common sense for years. The current 84/7 stop at Cherrywood insanely dumps you a mile away from the Luas and on the wrong side of the roundabout not 10 meters from the bloody 145 stop.

So they propose and start building a UCD campus style bus stop terminus there and RBB and the usual suspects are complaining granny's will have to walk an extra xyz. I've been sick and weak I know walking further can be a pain but looking at map it's not far yet shaves 20 min off the route str8injbg out those bends.

LXFlyer

XPS_Zero wrote: »

The AirLink FT passes always bugged me, though I use mine on AC and wouldn't have use for AirLink as I actually think just having one cc to airports kinda crappy and limited plus it's not a v comfortable bus, I see the European companies have plush comfy double deckers they should use those, but surely the only possible revenue loss because of FT would be opportunity lost?
If your bus is filling up and you've two seats left and you give them to FT passengers, besides the FTblock grant which you'd have had anyway you're loosing out on a fare a premium customer might have paid, but surely that relies on bus being full?

I rarely see an AC or AirLink full in fact I don't think I've ever seen it! So if they're usually not full an FT passengers not an opportunity lost surely?

I get that Nitelink and AirLink are commercial but surely they could have put PSO Xpresso style xyz area to Airport routes non commercial I mean the gap was obvious, I remember there was even an AerDART feeder for a while and you can do a DART-102-Airport at Sutton or Malahide they could have had some kind of 102 style cross city route like 39a now. Seemes like an obvious loss.

Don't get me started on the bloody poorest everything crowd. They want to straighten out the 7/7b/7d routes and put the 7 ending at the Brides Glen Luas. This is another obvious thing that's been screaming out as common sense for years. The current 84/7 stop at Cherrywood insanely dumps you a mile away from the Luas and on the wrong side of the roundabout not 10 meters from the bloody 145 stop.

So they propose and start building a UCD campus style bus stop terminus there and RBB and the usual suspects are complaining granny's will have to walk an extra xyz. I've been sick and weak I know walking further can be a pain but looking at map it's not far yet shaves 20 min off the route str8injbg out those bends.

Why would offering FT on Airlink be a benefit to DB?

DB get paid a fixed annual amount from DSP - not a per passenger amount. So there is no marginal revenue from it.

At peak times the 747 is regularly full.

And you're welcome for the history lesson - a thank you might actually be appropriate given the length of my reply above rather than another rant.

XPS_Zero

Boulevardier wrote: »

Regarding Airlink, people may not remember that in the late 80s/early 90s, DB ran a "hotel service" from Dublin Airport to Ballsbridge and adjacent areas. It was little used and abandoned after a couple of years. Aircoach managed to make a success of it some years later, and the rest is history. I have no idea why it succeded the second time and not the first, but I very much doubt that it is a case of state=bad and private=good.

The saga recounted by LXflyer above is a good illustration of what a dog's breakfast the present system is.

A far simpler way of doing things would be to designate DB and BE as the default suppliers of most routes, and then to franchise out (for 5-10 years) any route which BE or DB did not elect to run, or run adequately. Such franchises could even be filled by more than one operator per route.
That would prevent predatory competition while still giving reasonable space for expansion of services to the public.

With all due respect XPS, the EU has not helped. It has enforced a neoliberal model of enforced competition in public services, and that is not the answer to our transport needs. The EU could help a lot more by removing or at least modifying crippling "state aid" constraints on our public service provision.

The EU has helped labor rights and equality in spades.

The service worked the second time because it was more than just a hotels service it INCLUDES hotels but also has a huge catchment zone even into county Wicklow, and was being run by people who, if it failed, they lost their investment, the former was being run by people who it was no skin off their nose if it didn't work out.
One had a massive incentive to get it right the other had none.

Making DB and BE stay as default suppliers gives us the same problem, they've no incentive to innovate or improve services since they know there'll be zero contracts lost and zero consequences if they don't. They WERE the default for years look what they did with it?

1. Fare hikes each year for 20 years
2. Ignoring huge gaps in service provision
3. A confusing patchwork of a route map with no logic to its numbering
4. Timetables on bus stops that don't tell you when the bus gets to that stop specifically in many cases no timetables period

Irish Rail are even worse as the lift example shows. The hybrid model works well elsewhere. Total state control has just given us a creaky old progress allergic machine.

Just since we moved towards the hybrid model with the NTA etc look how much has changed with the mere hint of competition, RTPI, new busses, improved rationalised routes, wifi...and incidentally DB had to be TOLD to do all that by...a private company doing a review.

XPS_Zero

lxflyer wrote: »

Why would offering FT on Airlink be a benefit to DB?

DB get paid a fixed annual amount from DSP - not a per passenger amount. So there is no marginal revenue from it.

At peak times the 747 is regularly full.

And you're welcome for the history lesson - a thank you might actually be appropriate given the length of my reply above rather than another rant.

I'm not saying they should. I was asking a very very specific question to try to understand why AL don't do it and AC do. Hence my question about opportunity cost. As I already mentioned the block grant you can see I know they're not paid per journey. I was making the point that FT is only a normal fare opportunity lost if the bus is full, and since I've never seen a 100% or nearly full AirLink being around both a lot, and it's rare I see a 100% full AC, I was thinking it an odd decision.

As to the rest.....I don't know what the he'll you're talking about nobody was ranting at you, I've been asking questions and making contributions same as you, no ranting was involved at any stage. I'm not even sure where you're misinterpreting my tone from I read back over my last few posts and I can't see how anyone would consider it ranting.

I've been agreeing with you and or asking questions, putting forth my own opinions same as you...that's it.

I've made long contributions too, I didn't see your thanks at the end of any of them. I'm rarely on Internet boards (for this EXACT reason , stupid stuff like this). I come here because it's very hard to get offended on a technical v specific topic...or so I thought.

Boulevardier

Mod, perhaps this thread is going a bit off topic? It is meant to be about coaches doing long journeys.

LXFlyer

XPS_Zero wrote: »

I'm not saying they should. I was asking a very very specific question to try to understand why AL don't do it and AC do. Hence my question about opportunity cost. As I already mentioned the block grant you can see I know they're not paid per journey. I was making the point that FT is only a normal fare opportunity lost if the bus is full, and since I've never seen a 100% or nearly full AirLink being around both a lot, and it's rare I see a 100% full AC, I was thinking it an odd decision.

As to the rest.....I don't know what the he'll you're talking about nobody was ranting at you, I've been asking questions and making contributions same as you, no ranting was involved at any stage. I'm not even sure where you're misinterpreting my tone from I read back over my last few posts and I can't see how anyone would consider it ranting.

I've been agreeing with you and or asking questions, putting forth my own opinions same as you...that's it.

I've made long contributions too, I didn't see your thanks at the end of any of them. I'm rarely on Internet boards (for this EXACT reason , stupid stuff like this). I come here because it's very hard to get offended on a technical v specific topic...or so I thought.

Sorry my point was I made a very long post answering your specific questions - a simple thanks would be sufficient that's all.

You've only posed questions - I'm not sure what I'm supposed to thank?

LXFlyer

XPS_Zero wrote: »

I'm not saying they should. I was asking a very very specific question to try to understand why AL don't do it and AC do. Hence my question about opportunity cost. As I already mentioned the block grant you can see I know they're not paid per journey. I was making the point that FT is only a normal fare opportunity lost if the bus is full, and since I've never seen a 100% or nearly full AirLink being around both a lot, and it's rare I see a 100% full AC, I was thinking it an odd decision.

As to the rest.....I don't know what the he'll you're talking about nobody was ranting at you, I've been asking questions and making contributions same as you, no ranting was involved at any stage. I'm not even sure where you're misinterpreting my tone from I read back over my last few posts and I can't see how anyone would consider it ranting.

I've been agreeing with you and or asking questions, putting forth my own opinions same as you...that's it.

I've made long contributions too, I didn't see your thanks at the end of any of them. I'm rarely on Internet boards (for this EXACT reason , stupid stuff like this). I come here because it's very hard to get offended on a technical v specific topic...or so I thought.

Sorry my point was I went to some considerable trouble making an exceptionally long post answering your specific questions - a simple thanks would be sufficient that's all. Instead you just continued asking more questions or making more observations.

Rant was an incorrect term and I apologise if you're offended but you are asking an awful lot of questions, which I have done my best to answer in exceptional detail.

I'm not reallysure why you'd expect me to thank posts that are asking lots of questions?

Again to a degree I just question why I bother to be honest.

end of the road

XPS_Zero wrote: »

The EU has helped labor rights and equality in spades.

The service worked the second time because it was more than just a hotels service it INCLUDES hotels but also has a huge catchment zone even into county Wicklow, and was being run by people who, if it failed, they lost their investment, the former was being run by people who it was no skin off their nose if it didn't work out.
One had a massive incentive to get it right the other had none.

Making DB and BE stay as default suppliers gives us the same problem, they've no incentive to innovate or improve services since they know there'll be zero contracts lost and zero consequences if they don't. They WERE the default for years look what they did with it?

1. Fare hikes each year for 20 years
2. Ignoring huge gaps in service provision
3. A confusing patchwork of a route map with no logic to its numbering
4. Timetables on bus stops that don't tell you when the bus gets to that stop specifically in many cases no timetables period

Irish Rail are even worse as the lift example shows. The hybrid model works well elsewhere. Total state control has just given us a creaky old progress allergic machine.

Just since we moved towards the hybrid model with the NTA etc look how much has changed with the mere hint of competition, RTPI, new busses, improved rationalised routes, wifi...and incidentally DB had to be TOLD to do all that by...a private company doing a review.

they're is nothing to innovate though. fare hikes would happen regardless of the model or who runs the services. transport fares only ever go one way and that is up. i no more like it then anybody else but sadly it is reality when government want the passenger to take the greater burdin of paying for the service. Those changes mostly aren't anything to do with competition as such, but regulation and implementing things that were on the to do list but didn't get done but needed doing. we didn't need private operators to implement all this, just a regulator to force it. i do believe as well that for the intercity services a private and state service do work, however for subsidized routes the economies of scale that BE and db offer are best for those services.

Boulevardier

XPS zero, sorry to see you fall for old-hat neoliberal rubbish about state companies having no incentive to innovate, etc etc.

This is precisely the sort of attitude which led to the disastrous UK privatisations, though of course, in view of how that has worked out, you now have to pretend to prefer a "hybrid" model.

Irish Rail is a cheaper and more reliable service than most UK railways nowadays.

devnull

When it comes to stations and information provided at them Ireland is so far behind they are stuck in the past from about 20 years ago. All you have is tiny screens on the platforms which display the minimum amount of information most of which presumes you already have a in-depth knowledge of the Railway, the routes and what train stops where.

Go to a UK station and you simply look at a huge amount of LED boards that have full detailed information on and whoever you are, you can easily find where you need to go and what train you need to take. Irish Rail requires you to have in-depth knowledge of the routes which is awful for tourists and a clear

It's even worse down the country, since most of the stations have no screens at all or just one in the hall. And in Limerick Station you have the crazy situation where about 100 people start queuing up for a train 20 minutes before it arrives since that is the only time the ticket office opens, sometimes leading to the train being delayed because everyone are still buying tickets.

You have no proper journey disruption information system like journeycheck and handling of disruptions before 7.30am does not exist, there could be a tree down and no trains are running, but since central control doesn't start till 7.30 you just wait happlessly on the platform for a service that will never come, and the company tells you that actually no trains are running half an hour after everyone at the station figured that out by themselves.

At Connolly the screens outside the station next to the doors have been permanently off for the last 6 months, if you get off at platform 5/6/7 you have to go all the way around to Platform for to see a table of departures for the other platforms, when a screen could easily be provided on Platform 6/7.

That's before you even talk about the fantastic destination and passenger information systems on Irish Rail that frequently do not know where they are going or in some cases three different displays on the same train feature completely different information, I have never seen a company that struggles as much as Irish Rail with this all over Europe.

You then have crap line speeds and generally slow services and frequency on not all lines is great, although not all of that is their fault, you have bad allocations of rolling stock on some services which can be avoided, you have rampant fare evasion which nothing is really done about and barrier jumping and ticket office staff who couldn't care less, ridicolous delaying changeovers at Clontarf Road, there are a lot of things wrong with Irish Rail, I used them for 2.5 years commuting and I saw it all.

On an ordinary day if you travel off-peak things are fine. But if something goes wrong and you travel during peak or before 7.30am, you have no chance, they couldn't care less about you, I stopped using them because I got sick of the constant late running and the fact I was being too late for work because there is no handling of outages before 7.30am,

Crazy situation, I leave home at 6.25, check Irish rail twitter and website, everything running fine. Get to station, board says 7 minutes to train. 10 minutes later it still says 7 minutes, ask the guy in the station what is going on, he doesn't know, can he call control? No it's too early. I tweet Irish Rail what is going on, no reply. Wait another 10 minutes, still no info, call a cab. Irish Rail reply to my tweet an hour later saying that they were "offline" and they will make sure announcements are made now and update the website, that a tree fell on the line at 3am in the morning, yes a tree fell on the line at 3am in the morning, and staff were on site at 5am I was told, yet nobody could tell passengers before 7.30 despite the first train is 6.30? Sorry, we are not online then, I was told in a follow up tweet.

Whilst sometimes the handling of disruption in the UK can be sketchy, the number, clarity and detail of announcements in Irish Rail in comparison leaves to be a lot to be desired. If a train is cancelled, Dublin Bus are taking tickets we hear here, in the UK it will give specific information and updated info every few minutes, I was in Birmingham New Street (everything a modern station should be) recently and the information was fantastic, there was a fatality and announcements with full details every few minutes, staff actively asking people who looked confused or stressed if they need help, screens being udpated with full information and staff being deployed out of offices onto the concourse to help customers.

In Irish Rail, even if you ask someone their answers normally consider of a few words which are not very helpful and almost they make you feel guilty for even speaking to them.

PS: There is huge investment in rolling stock in the UK at the moment, there is well over 6,000 carriages of modern rolling stock on the way at the moment, rolling out now (abelt with teething problems) on Thameslink is a really high tech Siemens train with an excellent passenger information system, with all the investment in infrastructure the railway in the UK is going to look very different in 5 years time with antiqued stock all gone.

end of the road

Boulevardier wrote: »

XPS zero, sorry to see you fall for old-hat neoliberal rubbish about state companies having no incentive to innovate, etc etc.

This is precisely the sort of attitude which led to the disastrous UK privatisations, though of course, in view of how that has worked out, you now have to pretend to prefer a "hybrid" model.

Irish Rail is a cheaper and more reliable service than most UK railways nowadays.

All that could be solved by the NTA enforcing information provision standards in the contract with IE. the reason the information at a lot of stations in the uk is good is due to contracts making a minimum standard of information compulsory. however they're are a number of stations where this falls short for many different reasons all be it they will be either rural or on branches with irregular or not so good services. as you know i agree with you on a lot of things in relation to irish rail but their issues wouldn't simply vanish if they went tomorrow, because to me at least the NTA don't seem bothered about improving the railway.

as for the investment in the railways in the uk, all down to government in some form. however, it is all stuff british rail planned to implement but couldn't do because they were starved of funds, or the reimplementation of critical bits of tracking that br had to remove to save a pittence to convince the politicians they were saving huge amounts of money just so they could continue getting the pittence they got. the uk model is expensive and while the investment is welcome and good to watch it's not worth what is being paid and the amounts of hands in the pie, + all the disintegration. their model hasn't been followed for good reason.