NTA Incompetent?

LastStop

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119861391#Comment_119861391

New garages earmarked for Finglas and tallaght. Nta built and successful operators will have use during contracts.

mikeybhoy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119938875#Comment_119938875

The KCs, KDs and the RH/A/Vs all had centre doors and were OPO operated even some of the early AVs used for the Airlink had them which were later used on the 16/41. The AWs also had a rear door in the rear section.

Your right to a certain extent that dwell times were bad and that can be put down to Ireland copying the UK model as opposed to the better model used on the continent. The dwell times did improve in Dublin after Autofare was introduced in the late 90s after a spate of attacks on drivers when cash was carried. I can not for the life of me under why this was never introduced on BE city services in Cork, Limerick and Galway. I do remember hearing that BE even used throw the odd coach on a city service in Cork which is totally unsuitable.

A lot of the past issues with public transport in Ireland can be put down to a chronic underfunding of public transport services as opposed to CIE incompetence. The NTA look good because public transport is actually beginning to get a proper subsidy unlike before.

As for BE services from Dublin to Cork being crap before the motorway was built that could probably be put down to the fact that CIE probably didn't want to have it's bus service competing with the train. The train was probably seen as the better option in those days as the motorway had not been built. The M7 was only opened in 2010 after the NTA was founded.

I'm not saying the NTA are all bad but they do seem to be lacking in experience and seem to be making mistakes only learning as they go. Do you actually use GAI operated services on a regular basis because the general consensus I hear is they are crap. I fail to see how there has been any improvement over DB operating them.

mikeybhoy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119940016#Comment_119940016

Thought the garage in Finglas was a temporary arrangement whilst other depots were being fitted with chargers. Haven't heard anything about Tallaght.

bk

"I'm not saying the NTA are all bad but they do seem to be lacking in experience and seem to be making mistakes only learning as they go. Do you actually use GAI operated services on a regular basis because the general consensus I hear is they are crap. I fail to see how there has been any improvement over DB operating them."

I'd argue that the benefit of GAI's presence was a good firm kick up DB's arse.

I feel like since tendering was introduced, DB have significantly improved the quality of their service, I'd assume because management realised they no longer had a monopoly and they needed to get their house in order or they would potentially lose even more routes to GAI or other operators. Even more so for BE which were far worse.

Personally I don't really care if a service is operated by a commercial company or a public one. Like most people I don't care as long as the bus turns up and gets me to my destination. All I care about is that a quality service is delivered to the public. I would have happily taken a BE Expressway service between Cork and Dublin if it had offered the same service as the commercial operators (3 hours, toilets, wifi, 24/7, etc.), but it didn't.

What I am against is monopolies. Both private and public monopolies, in my experience they both lead to a bad experience for the customer, just bad in different ways. My experience with public monopolies like Telecom Eireann or CIE, was a lack of efficiency, innovation, drive to do new things or introduce new services. A lack of customer focus. Even a little competition seems to improve that greatly.

I don't think GAI are anything special either. But I do think it is a little unfair as they have been given the worst bus routes in Dublin, forced to buy and build their own depot and they face much the same driver hiring and retention issues that DB and the entire industry face.

"As for BE services from Dublin to Cork being crap before the motorway was built that could probably be put down to the fact that CIE probably didn't want to have it's bus service competing with the train. The train was probably seen as the better option in those days as the motorway had not been built. The M7 was only opened in 2010 after the NTA was founded."

The non stop Aircoach service was launched in 2012, well after the Motorway was opened and the NTA formed.

That is what is so INSANE about it. The government had spent hundreds of millions building a new motorway between Dublin and Cork and for two years BE, a public owned company, couldn't even bother making use of that Motorway!!!!

Frankly it was a disgrace, all that public money spent on a new motorway and a public company wouldn't even use it!

I agree with you that the reason they likely didn't make use of the Motorway, was because they feared the damage it would do to their sister companies rail service. I admit I always took the train because it took 3 hours versus 5 hours or so for the BE service. Once Aircoach came along I immediately switched to Aircoach and have only used the train to Cork once since.

But this is a perfect example of why a monopoly like this is bad for us customers. BE should never have been allowed to get away with this. This is the perfect example of why we shouldn't have a single public company having a monopoly over all services and have at least some competition.

To be honest, I feel DB/BE/IR should all be completely separated from CIE and made truly separate (but public owned) companies. No reason why DB couldn't compete for tenders to run city bus services in Cork or BE vice versa. Hell even IR could perhaps try to run bus and coach services, like Deutsche Bahn does in Germany. Competition is good for customers.

mikeybhoy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119940827#Comment_119940827

I don't care who's operating the bus service either actually when GAI first came in I welcomed them in and was looking forward to the improvements that were promised by the NTA and gave them a chance. Unfortunately four years into the contract and I've been very disappointed by them the service wasn't great at the beginning but since covid ended they've been an absolute joke.

I'd actually go as far to say GAI have been a complete disaster I'd actually agree with you the only good it's done has been to DB. I don't see how GAI got the worst routes they signed the contract they should've known what they were getting themselves in for.

Funnily enough even though you think BE were worse than DB. BE have actually won more tenders than DB. BE won the tender to operate the Waterford City routes and have recently retained the 101 and 133 only losing the Kildare/Offaly commuter routes to GAI. DB on other hand have lost both their original tendered routes to GAI and have more recently lost the W4/W6 tender to GAI.

I agree with competition myself but only where it's logical intercity and airport routes it makes but not so much on city routes where PSO type services are the way to go. I can see the logic of competition on commercial services in this way but to me I can't see much advantage of tendering out PSO services the NTA are just subcontracting an operator to provide services on their whether that be DB, BE, IE, GAI, Transdev, Stagecoach, Arriva or whatever other international operator decides to enter the Irish market.

If we do go down the road of full scale tendering which seems to be the aim of the NTA whether they'll get their way or not is another question like London. And if CIE were to be disintegrated completely would it not make more sense for DB and BE to merge and IE to solely focus on rail. No point having two state owned bus operators.

Burt Renaults

GAI's contract has been a complete disaster. They're doing exactly what the NTA demands of them: operating the highest possible amount of services with the lowest possible amount of resources (i.e. buses/drivers), while paying as little as they can get away with. Interestingly, that worked really well during the early days of the pandemic, when there were plenty of drivers desperate for work, generous timings/turnovers and (crucially) no traffic on the roads.

To make the services work properly, regardless of who operates them, the state needs to spend big - ensure that drivers receive a fair wage, buy a lot more buses and neutralise (by whatever means necessary) the effect that private traffic has on buses. The NTA needs to dig deep and do a lot better.

mikeybhoy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119942385#Comment_119942385

If they felt that the contract was unachievable then GAI really shouldn't have signed it in the first place and asked for changes to make it realistic and achievable. The first lockdown was really an ideal world scenario for public transport operations no traffic or passengers nothing that could possibly delay service so I wouldn't read much into that as it was a once off event.

GAI seem to have trouble with the number of buses they have but I don't see the same issues with lack of buses with DB from going past Donnybrook on the top deck of the 46a/145/155 I would say at a guesstimate 15-20 buses are parked up there and that's at the height of the evening rush. Now those could be buses off the road for various reasons but if they have a lot of spare capacity in terms of buses that should really be sent to GAI.

100% on private traffic needs to be more bus lanes and more enforcement of existing bus lanes. Gardai need to do their job. I remember being on holidays in Italy a few years ago and noticed an illegally parked car was blocking a bus getting through a tight stretch if road within five minutes a truck with a hiab was there and had it removed in less than two minutes.

TranslatorPS

DB made the frankly criminal decision to get rid of dual door buses after they got rid of the conductor.

It was DB **** decision when they got rid of conductors, to move to the model of single door buses, with the drivers selling tickets, which lead to terrible dwell times. This is a great example of how incompetent DB management were.

It was like something straight out of the 1940's. When they got rid of the conductors, Luas style ticketing was common on buses through out Europe, multiple doors, no driver interaction, validate ticket on board. DB management choose to go with by far the worst ticketing and operation model possible.

I was once given one reason why off-board ticket sales wouldn't have worked in the 1980s was a poorly developed network of shops at the time, which would have made it difficult to provide tickets everywhere, which admittedly is a reason outside of CIE and DB's remit. At the same time, for some reason mainland Europe was able to do the same, and I doubt the situation would have been much different - what, did we have more newsagents around at the time?

I do remember hearing that BE even used throw the odd coach on a city service in Cork which is totally unsuitable.

Until the 3 March 2012 network reconstruction in Galway, there was a regular departure on the 4W operated by a coach, because it was built into a 425 duty and the driver just kept the bus through for the outbound 425 right after it.

I can see the logic of competition on commercial services in this way but to me I can't see much advantage of tendering out PSO services the NTA are just subcontracting an operator to provide services on their whether that be DB, BE, IE, GAI, Transdev, Stagecoach, Arriva or whatever other international operator decides to enter the Irish market.

The advantage is when you have one major operator already at the scene, especially one who has a monopoly - it becomes a control tool to ensure that the incumbent monopolist doesn't explode their operating costs, and that they don't have too much power over the functioning of the network as a whole. On the other hand, I usually don't agree with full-on contracting like London or Copenhagen have done - my attitude is to have a 60/40 split (the split between a direct-award and tendered contracts is irrelevant) so that the network doesn't collapse altogether, but at the same time we cannot afford monopolies here. @bk has said enough in post #55.

If they felt that the contract was unachievable then GAI really shouldn't have signed it in the first place and asked for changes to make it realistic and achievable.

This isn't the kind of things you could have possibly predicted back in 2017 while coming in as an outsider, unless you dedicate an entire team to observing how DB were doing it, which obviously wasn't anywhere near what GA would have eventually operated like. Dublin's problems are systematic and are going to strike all operators - the difference is going to be economics of scale.