it isn't simply expressway that is at risk but the whole company. If the whole company goes insolvent then rural ireland will be effected until such time as replacements are found.
Of course, since whilst the company has two separate branches, all staff work for the one company and resources are shared between both branches, apart from the fact state assets cannot be used on commercial services because this would be considered as highly illegal state aid.
A way of avoiding this is to splitting the company down the middle and making both arms totally separate, however the unions would never accept that as it would mean that those working on Expressway would need their terms and conditions adjusted to be in line with market norms.
The non Expressway services had a large increase in funding last year and are not losing money and the performance is in line with expectations. The Expressway services are losing money so are the cause of this issue, because it is the performance of those services which is dragging the whole company down, because of mismanagement of the company by management over a number of years.
It might also require an increase in subsidy to attract those replacements, which it will be a case of whether government wishes to pay up. the fear over rural bus services is based on potentially factual realities that may or may not come to fruition, lets hope they don't come to fruition
"Potential Factual Realities" is this like Donald Trumps "Alternative Facts" I have to give you credit, you really made me laugh at that which is quite a task at this time of the night. What you say could be true, but a private who has a lower cost base with smaller, lower cost vehicles, more local to the routes could do it for less as well, not saying they will but it's possible.
When BE have withdrawn commercial services in the past the regulator has tendered services to cover for them which have been up and running as quickly as possible as it is to complete a tender and all of which have been drawn up to connect with other methods of public transport.
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The regulator are known for criticising "calling out" and blaming all and sundry, all the while not giving a stuff about for example, rail users, for which they are as far from a passenger voice as it gets. In truth those users have no voice and never will sadly.
The problem with the rail contract is that it wasn't one which was drawn up by the regulator, it was drawn up before their time by politicians over a long period of many months and pretty much the regulator were only established right at the end of the procedure, a short time before the contract had to be signed or there would be no contract at all for rail services.
The current Bus Eireann, Luas and Dublin Bus contracts were all new contracts which were created from scratch within the last couple of years and the whole process was overseen by the regulator. In 2019 Irish Rail will also be getting such a contract when the existing 10 year one expires, until then the regulator have little power compared to the bus operator, believe me though, that will certainly be changing, unless a soon to be elected FF government prevents it.
Many city bus services in ireland don't have enough patronage to be left to operate commercially, but provide benefits to the economy as a whole hence are subsidized for social good.
Some services within Ireland don't have enough patronage to operate commercially and of course are going to need to be subsidised, no doubting that, not in the slightest. However at the same time, I also don't buy that every single city bus route in the whole country apart from a handful cannot pay it's way. There are many cities in the UK which have many routes that take far less revenue per bus and far lower load factors that still pay their way commercially, yet Dublin Bus can't find a single route which does?
In relation to the double door issue in dublin bus, drivers aren't refusing to use double doors. they cannot use them because the stops are not set up for their safe operation and there are no plans to make them safe.
This is the excuse which is trotted out over and over again, the argument from the unions is that there is no rule as to what is considered "safe" and they do not put down any criteria of what this is. They simply say that a driver should be able to use his/her discretion as to what is safe. Then you have the current situation where 99% of drivers state that they do not have to give reasons to the company or the regulator why the stop is unsafe since they have a right to use their discretion and they are using the right at every stop to not open the doors.
I'm very puzzled if the staff do not feel the stops are safe, they are not keen to act how they can be made safer, every time they are asked this question they do not appear to be able to say why they are not safe or what needs to be changed and just keep making unrealistic demands such as "we will use middle doors if we are exempt from any accident for any reason." which no company will ever allow because it promotes grossly negligent behavior in the knowledge that no matter how dangerous they act, they can't be in trouble.
from what i hear there is very little interest from operators anyway, and it's nothing to do with the unions, but the subsidy and other issues
There are six operators interested, however there were more who dropped out because of the fact that the original ITT was changed somewhat following pressure from unions and the changes meant that the revised ITT made it more unattractive and economically challenging for smaller operators to compete.
Some of these issues were relating to TUPE, possible disputes and strikes which could happen, issues about government owned facilities and bus stations and depot facilities, the attempt by the NBRU to get staff costs removed from tenders, all of these things which were instigated by the unions.
the unions did suggest that privates only running at peak times, refusing passes, running small vehicles, charging higher fares, all may be an issue, but that was before the model that would be followed became known, because it was believed by all that de-regulation would be the model that was going to be followed, and it took a long time before the truth actually came out. Once it did the unions excepted what was said and back-tracked.
The tendering model was published almost two years ago now, even as recently as last week the unions were still distributing leaflets and holding meetings talking about bus passes not being taken, withdrawal of non-peak time services, huge increases to fares and massive timetable cuts. They are trying to scare the public and it's that kind of campaigning I don't like, but I realise that coming out honestly and saying pretty much it's all about money and their terms and conditions and nothing else doesn't make such a great case for public support.
Nobody has ever talked about de-reg for the last few years, the only people who have been doing so tends to be Sinn Fein, who didn't want to be anywhere near government following the last election under any circumstances and couldn't run fast enough away from the prospect of power, the unions and a lot of the extreme left wing media. It's designed to strike fear into people, during the recent strike debate many people were asked to back-up this so called de-reg wish with some hard proof, and they just kept repeating the same rhetoric without being able to back any of it up.
However the most amusing thing I have seen in the left wing media and union groups recently is a call for de-reg on routes where Bus Eireann doesn't have a presence right now to allow them a license they otherwise could not get, whilst at the same time keeping the regulated licensing on routes where they already are serving. I don't know if that itself was amusing or the fact they called this "leveling the playing field." that phrase also makes me laugh, because in any industry 99/100 it means totally the opposite.
but it won't be improved by privatization/tendering but by the regulator actually regulating and penalising for failure.
But the problem is that what we are seeing and have seen over the last few years is that at the moment the companies/unions see themselves as being more powerful than the regulator and what the regulator is attempting to do is face that down, but considering the holy mess they were left with when they took office and some contracts which were already virtually signed before they took office, they cannot do that straight away.
The problem right now is there is real fear in the regulator if the companies and the unions do not get what they want, there will be strikes and the whole public transport system will be brought down until the regulator has backed down and that is the biggest issue Ireland has, there is a massive power struggle over who is in charge of transport and it's provision in the state and it's no wonder that public transport is so poor in Ireland when that is going on. Do I blame the companies and unions over this solely though? Certainly not.
The fact a situation has developed like this has to be laid at the door of politicians who allowed such a unholy mess build over the 90s and into the 00s with no proper regulation and politicians who were asleep at the wheel who despite having more money at any time in history, felt all they had to do with transport is hand over blank cheques to the state companies and everything else would take care of itself and they could just sit back and watch the money roll in because all that nuts and bolts stuff could be done later, since there was plenty of time and the money would never run out and the Celtic Tiger would never die and those who thought it would should go off and commit suicide.
