Save Our Bus Campaign Public Meeting. Affected Routes: 48a, 14a, 14, 75, 11a, 11b

by Gerry Mullins - Coach Tourism & Transport Council Tue May 31, 2011 12:45

It's doubful your campaign will yield the results you are hoping for, because the economy is in such bad shape.
However, this might be very good news because for every service that is cut, there is a private bus company willing to provide the service at little or no cost to the State. This means a better service for the community, and usually at a lower price to the user.
If your concern is really for better bus services, this is what you should be campaigning for.
Even if you have some philosophical objection to private bus operators, you might still campaign for this. Dublin Bus try very hard to keep private operators off their patch. The thought of the 48a, 14a, 75, etc being given to private companies might motivate them to find a way to preserve those services.

by T Wed Jun 01, 2011 13:04

The record for private bus companies running these things is very poor. In London where buses were privatised the state subsidy had to be INCREASED not decreased because the bus companies could NOT make enough. Additionally it led to higher fares, worse service and lower safety standards. Workers as usual were treated badly and had more job insecurity. [I might also add that the owners of the M3 motorway to Cavan negotiated with the government that if a minimum number of cars do not pass the toll booths each day, that the government would pay them anyhow. And this has happened as numbers have fallen since the recession.]

We should also recall that the reason CIE was formed in the first place is because our transport system was composed of an hodge podge of competing services that ultimately served no-one. You can imagine how bad a crisis it must have been then for the government of the day to actual take such a radical step and nationalize it then.

Another point about privatised bus services is that the companies are obviously there to make a profit, so they naturally look at costs and this is the prime driving force. So they end up analysing their passenger data and decide to cut back as much as possible outside core times like going to and returning from work. They have no interest in going the extra mile to serve the back end of housing estates or running a regular service during the day or weekends.

Already Dublin Bus are pulling back from estates leaving the old, disabled and very young to walk long distances to the nearest stop where they might have to wait over a hour for a bus. This strategy is clearly part of the groundwork being put in place to privatise all routes and has been mandated from the top. Management of course probably feel that if the system went private they would be in a position to getting higher salaries or get rewarded by the private sector. This is something that is a characteristic of the system in the past 20+ years where people in government and regulatory bodies move between lucrative positions in the private sector usually after stints in government bodies or agencies either privatising services or watering down regulations to the point where industry self regulates. The financial sector springs to mind here.

Recently there was a route out to Swords privatised. As I understand it is some kind of express route from the city centre. This is designed to cherry pick passengers and to drive down revenue on the existing route so that Dublin Bus management can say it is unprofitable and we need to eliminate it.

A secondary problem with putting routes out to tender and having multiple bus operators is that they compete. They don't co-operate, so they have no interest in combined ticketing. Again this is what happened in London. They also have no interest in co-ordinating their timetables to the benefit of the passengers.

Lastly the status of bus drivers is very important. A bus driver who is paid very little, has irregular hours, and who must finish up from a different place from where he started and presumably parked his/her car, and who doesn't know if they will have a job next year and regularly has to work Saturday and Sundays makes for a very unhappy and agitated worker. He is not going to have the company's overall health in mind and the overall increase in background daily stress is not conducive to safe driving.

I recall one time talking to a driver on the AirCoach and they are paid appallingly. If they do not have all the corresponding ticket receipts, it is deducted from their wages. I can only describe their conditions as near feudal.

A public transport service is a public and social service. The objectives of a private company will always be at odds with this public remit. The underlying assumption by the neo-liberal view of the day is that this market based system can deliver the goods. It is a one size fits all for every single thing in the economy and social sphere. It simply isn't the case and particulary in this case since every aspect of the desired outcome is at odds.

So for the sake of ideology we often end up with the lunacy of worse service, lower standards, higher fares, poor working environments just to convince us all that there is no alternative when clearly there is. A publically funded transport system that is.

by R Wed Jun 01, 2011 21:19

Folks - I find it difficult to take this seriously.

With the exception of one or two departures on the 48a in the morning peak, there's never any more than 10 people on any one bus! In fact I've often had the top deck to myself coming home in the evening peak. That in this day and age is unsustainable. We can't afford it!

While no none likes to see buses being cut back the reality is there will still be a more than adequate bus service to/from Dundrum where people can connect into a 44 or a LUAS.

Interestingly in your list above, it's the things you leave out that stand out more than the things you mention:

You fail to mention that the new 14 will be at the same frequency or better than the existing 14/14a service.
You fail to mention that the 46n NITELINK is now serving Ballinteer at a higher frequency than the 48n did
You fail to mention that the 16 service is going to be significantly increased along Grange Road
You fail to mention that the 175 will be faster from Ballinteer to Tallaght or Dun Laoghaire

by T Thu Jun 02, 2011 00:15

This is just putting a positive spin on what are cutbacks. We are also supposed to accept that because you think the bus does not have enough passengers, it just fine to cancel it. IThe lame excuse is that we can't afford it. We can't afford the bailout. How much did we give AIB in the last batch of money? Was it 3 or 4 billion euro? And so far the banks have received well over 20 billion and counting with a final figure of 90. It costs just under 300 million to run Dublin Bus a year, so that would mean for 3 billion we could effectively have a FREE BUS SERVICE for everyone throughout the ENTIRE CITY for 10 YEARS!

It is disingeneous to the 44 is a replacement for the 48a. The 44 service itself has been cut back a lot over the years and I know that from people who use it. But what I find difficult is that you expect people to walk all the way down to Dundrum. Fine if you are young and healthy but not if you are older, infirm or possibly got kids with you. Or simply that it happens to be pissing rain? And as for the 44, apparently the timetable is going to be "simplified". This is a eupherism for cutbacks.

The 48N used to come up from town via Dundrum and then up to Ballinteer, down to Nutgrove and then to Rathfarham. The suggestion that the 46N is a replacement is beyond belief. It goes out from the City Centre by Stillorgan, Foxrock, Cornelscourt then Ballyogan and finishes up in Sandyford Village. .

The other Nite links which have been cancelled are: 40N, 27N, 44N, 52N, 54N

There has been cut backs on the following nite links: 15N, 29N, 31N, 49N, 77N

When the last round of cutbacks were made, Dublin Bus assured us that they were increasing the frequency. A check of the timetable quickly showed this was simply untrue.

In the case of the 14 and 14a, what they probably mean is that when you tot up the number of trips for the new combined route, there will be more than either the present 14 OR 14A, but certainly not both. And that is a cut back. If you were to solely rely on one or the other of the 14 or 14a then you would be waiting at least 1 hr which is not very satisfactory when you consider the 48a is to be cancelled.

One should also note the combined 14/14a will run all the way to Fairview on the Northside. This means that the probability of buses being late or cancelled will rise very significantly as the route is greatly lengthened. It also means that when delays develop, we will see the "Out of Service" sign more often as the central bus control instructs drivers to leap ahead as it were to get the system back onto timetable. And you can be sure it will happening on the days its raining and traffic is jammed up

It remains to be seen how the 175 pans out. And I haven't seen any announcements regarding the increases in the 16 which are hard to believe considering the extent of cut backs all over the city and that 220 buses have been taken off the road.

by R Tue Jun 07, 2011 19:03

The proposed frequency of the 14 is every 15 mins peak and every 20 minutes off peak. That is exactly the same as the combined 14/14a service in the morning peak and during the day. It is better than the current 14/14a evening peak service and evening off-peak service.

In my post above I did not suggest walking to Dundrum to get the 44 - I suggested taking the 14 or 175.

The 16 has been announced today as every 8 minutes peak and every 10 minutes off-peak to/from Kingston. That's a 100% increase on the present service.

As for the 46n, with respect at that hour of the night I wouldn't really care what route it takes if it gets me home for €5. Again there were only ever handfuls on the 48n. We've now got a half hourly service home for €5 and that ain't bad.