Go-Ahead Dublin City Routes - Updates and Discussion

It doesn't matter how many operators are there, it would still be same total of number of routes set by the NTA. If DB lose some routes and they go to the GAI or another new operators, DB wouldn't need all the extra drivers left and another operator would partially absorb that surplus.

Just the very beginning would be challenging to a new operator, especially getting these drivers in (this is probably what you're talking about). GAI also was recruiting a good few months, and they were getting new routes in phases so were constantly looking for staff and filling the new gaps.

i don't think it's much of an opportunity ultimately as a lot seem to transfer off to db in the end.

i think his post is talking about go ahead rather then db.

At the very least when GAI don't operate, it's usually because of one of three reasons:

a) the previous trip was so late that the one not operated would also be ridiculously late (although I have issues with the way this is actually framed within the contract when compared to some contracts I know elsewhere in Europe - the NTA still have much to learn here IMHO);

b) there was no driver available to cover the duty (while it was pointed out earlier that it's an industry-wide problem, GAI are not too innocent in that their terms could be a little more welcoming - in other words, they could do well to improve their staff retention);

c) there was no bus available in the garage to pull out - this used to be an issue in the earlier days when GAI just didn't have enough buses to actually operate the service, so this could be fended off to the NTA, but at the same time there are little bits like the 18+76+236 duties taking their breaks in Ballymount garage, which frankly does increase the number of buses needed on the road, and this happened due to a now ex-GAI driver (this group of routes used to take their breaks in Liffey Valley SC - those who know what happened, they know).

Meanwhile, my experience of DB not operating a trip is actually more often down to either one of these two:

a) drivers deliberately messing around in order to drop pieces of work, be it trips or entire laps, or indeed entire duty pieces. Tricks such as driving slowly to arrive after the next departure so that the driver is sent up to start further along the route, or if well timed, is sent up to the handover point, or breaking late so that drivers can then play the "take my whole break, return late" card - I believe there was a motion years back to make drivers only take the legally required 45 minutes if their break started late so that they can return as close to the schedule as possible - of course it never went through;

b) spare drivers refusing to take a duty. I am told that for whatever reason this is possible. An example from my personal experience is from the last Dublin Bus 17A timetable, where Mon-Fri 17A/54 was a 11h45 spreadover duty (the longest s/over on the schedule back then) with a 3h25 break - essentially a split duty: if the rostered driver didn't show up, usually nobody from the spare drivers would take it, at least not in the morning. That there would be a 40 minute gap between 9.10 and 9.50 from Blanch? Pfffft.

Of course, GAI's point a also applies to DB, but sometimes it can be a coin toss whether the trip you're missing is due to truly external issues, or because of somebody tossing around...

This applies to Go Ahead too. Although their tighter turnaround times (and insistence on never running more than a minute early, even at the end of a journey, where an extra few minutes might ultimately prove useful) mean that a driver doesn't even need to "throw the anchor down" to get a curtailment. On certain routes, all they have to do is drive in accordance with company regulations and the law, align the bus neatly with the footpath, wait until passengers are seated before moving off smoothly, etc. On plenty of occasions, I did 90% of a trip on-time, stopping frequently to ensure that I wasn't running early, in the full knowledge that I'd be hitting heavy traffic near the end. And with only five minutes turnaround time, the next trip was guaranteed to get curtailed.

This wasn't explicitly clarified to me at the time I heard the explanation, so thanks. Then again it could have been assumed that I was giving out about a particularly long duty (such as the one I mentioned there), but nonetheless, that's much better.

I vehemently oppose any and all running early on the principle of betraying those awaiting in favour of those already on-board, but that doesn't change the fact that running times are seriously messed up on some routes - especially those routes that still use the original running times that went into force when GAI took over the routes (in particular, 33A, 33B, 102, 104, 184, 185, 238 come to mind - 239 was particularly impossible as well). The problem with traffic is that it's of course unpredictable, and hence so are the actual times, but I dare think that much can be still done on that front. Also, while at it - they should avoid the absolute mess they're making of the 17 and 18 where each trip appears to have its own running time profile - that is not how AVL data estimation should work nor be used, as I suspect that's how they got to that particular mess.

GAI can afford to attempt tighter turnaround times simply because they have a better grip on actual running times than DB do, but this is heavily interconnected with my previous paragraph, so here we are.

(Yes - I did consider applying to GAI for the scheduler position when it came up twice in the last 7 months: for a whole 5 seconds, as I am in no position to seek work in Dublin at the moment.)

Of course there are numerous ways of messing around here - I merely listed the ones that came to mind when writing this.

Another aspect of this is that there are often times when running times are just insufficient for the route. Dublin Bus' AVL timings aren't exactly the most generous things on the planet, so you can be guaranteed that if an AVL trip arrives at terminus after the next departure on paper, there is a noticeably small chance it'll make it in reality. (Alas, this isn't a DB topic.)

Surely the service they could deliver should be the one that they committed to as part of the PSO?

They've had a big recruitment drive, so they may (or may not, I don't know) have enough drivers right now, at this moment in time. But I'm not aware of them having done anything to address the retention issues that have plagued them since 2018.

I could be wrong... time will tell.

Behind a paywall unfortunately https://www.independent.ie/business/irish/bus-operator-go-ahead-made-26m-profit-from-irish-routes-41672422.html

I’m not excusing GAI at all.

But if you think it isn’t happening elsewhere you’re mistaken. DB don’t announce them on their website - you have to look at the TFI real time app to see the cancelled and curtailed departures.

I’ve had a cancellation or curtailment most days this past fortnight.

3 x 15b in a row were cancelled on Tuesday evening in both directions, along with multiple 14, 15, 16 and 65b departures.

Every single day there are multiple cancellations or curtailments on cross-city routes due to “operational issues”, code for lack of staff. As @devnull says - the TFI Real Time app will tell you what cancellations and curtailments are happening when you select a particular stop.

Buses parked on the river side of Eden Quay is a sure sign of journeys being curtailed.

The entire industry is suffering a staffing shortage right now and that is seeping through to service reliability.

The link below lists all of the BE departures cancelled yesterday in the Northwest:

https://www.buseireann.ie/service_updates.php?id=6010&month=Jun

My own view is that the NTA need to cop onto the fact that the companies don’t have the staff and produce schedules that CAN be delivered. They should put a halt on expanding services until the companies can actually deliver the existing ones.

I must be imagining the issues that I outlined above then?

As someone above said about Eden Qy, The amount of cross-city routes at the moment running short C versions is very noticeable and is usually due to no relief driver. Sure you only have to listen to control reading out the long list of available boards for overtime every morning around half 8 to understand how bad things are atm.

The main reason why you would consider GAI to be an issue in particular is because their scale of operations is so much smaller than the other two major PSO operators, so the amount of cancellations they may have becomes a considerably larger proportion, one easier to highlight and notice.

Personally I have been stood up by Dublin Bus a number of times in the past as well - before the pandemic though, mind you, so cancellations at the time were more likely to be due to the previous departure running noticeably late, but I've had my share of departures cancelled outright due to the lack of a driver.

GAI's problems are really down to their relatively less attractive pay, which results in rather nasty staff retention rates. And it's a lot more difficult to find spare drivers when you have a pool of about 90 (that's my guesstimate on what the Commuter network should employ to cover the amount of duties I know they had 1.5 years ago) than when you have a pool of about 400 (my expectations on some of the larger DB garages).

It isn't, rightly so, but you started posting in an area where people have actual answers, so you're getting one.

It doesn't matter who the company is at this point, the problem is industry-wide. There aren't enough drivers to spare anywhere. The framing of the NTA-GAI contract is a part of it (although they do have a perfectly sufficient fleet for the commuter routes), the company's internal policy is another, and then that's on top of the international shortage due to the effects of the pandemic and what not.

Another part of the contract of course is that it's rather difficult to terminate it - a few trips missing every day is far from enough for it to happen. You'd have to have half the service missing all the time and the other half not running on time for the termination clauses to kick in.

I wasn't suggesting they would - merely stating (after a cursory glance through the contract itself) that it's so difficult to terminate it, either the Apocalypse, the Kim dynasty, or something to that extreme effect would have to happen for a termination to be considered... and even then you could say it's a third party act anyway.

I certainly think that the NTA have been too lax in drawing up contracts that penalise individual cancellations, but do not add more severe penalties for cancelling departures that are directly after one another.

There should also never be a situation where the last departure on a route can be cancelled. Rather than the more severe financial penalties that such action attracts, it should be cast in stone that they should operate.

Agree with all of this, BUT there should never be situations where on such lower frequency routes that two or more departures in a row are cancelled due to staffing issues.

Control need to manage the resource better.