All change? - Thoughts on Ireland without Bus Éireann

Well, you gotta hand it to the unions, they sure are persistent. The strike by Bus Éireann drivers here in Ireland has entered it's third week, and there are no signs of a resolution anytime soon. Talks at the Workplace Relations Commission, an independent mediation body, are ongoing, but I don't hold out much hope for a resolution, as the two sides are miles apart. Meanwhile, an unannounced "wildcat strike" last Friday effectively shut down Irish Rail and Dublin Bus operations for most of the morning, additionally eating away at any sympathy the working population of Ireland may have had towards the strikers. At the same time, in a Herculean effort, private operators such as Aircoach, or Dublin Coach are laying on extra services, and more and more companies are organizing ride sharing exchanges or shuttle buses for their employees. People, especially in the major population centers of Ireland, are beginning to get accustomed to a life without Bus Éireann, which is looking increasingly likely.

Private companies like Citylink are the clear winners in the ongoing bus strike, and rightly so.

Pretty soon, these could be the only bus stop signs still standing in Ireland.

But how would an Ireland without Bus Éireann actually look? Well, the union viewpoint is pretty clear, rural Ireland will turn into a barren wasteland with people rotting away in their homes because the government refused to open its chequebooks. Sounds like a pretty decent description of the Irish midlands as they are today, no major change there, so. The cities meanwhile choke on the fumes of a metal avalanche, as more and more cars clog the roads. Again, I see no difference to the status quo. I however cannot help but see the opportunity that lies in the apparently imminent collapse of Bus Éireann. Indeed, this collapse would also tear down the encrusted structures in the public transportation sector that have paralysed any meaningful development in there over the last few decades.

As far as public buses, the backbone of public transport in this country, are concerned, we're currently looking at four very distinct kinds of services that are bundled under the roof of Bus Éireann: Direct intercity services; long distance intercounty stopping services serving smaller towns and villages, intra-county services, as well as urban/suburban services around the major population centers. Each of these serviceb types has its own challenges and peculiarities. Urban bus services for example are faced with frequent stops, large passenger movements at these stops, and a demand for very high service frequencies, which can be as low as a bus every 5-10 minutes on the main lines. On the other hand, competition on these routes tends to be limited. On the other end of the scale, the direct intercity services will usually only serve a very limited number of stops, Aircoach for example only has one stop on its Cork to Dublin Airport service, and that's in Dublin city center. However, these services are more often than not the scene of fierce competition and fare battles. Intra-, and inter-county stopping services meanwhile serve as a lifeline for the communities they serve, but are often poorly utilised and considered the "ugly stepchildren" of public transport in Ireland. Yet, their vital importance to smaller towns and villages makes it imperative that these services are preserved in any future transport arrangement. So? How do we square this circle? 

Intercity Express Routes

Private companies like Aircoach are already having quite an impact on direct express routes.

Well, the direct intercity routes are easy. Private operators are already battling it out on these, and really the only challenge is for regulatory authorities to ensure minimum standards for drivers, buses, and bus operators. The National Transport Authority, or NTA, is predestined for that, as it is already serving in this function. 

Intercounty Stopping Routes

Even services with numerous stops are already operated by private companies, such as this Dublin Coach service to Waterford.

These are a bit more tricky. I'm pretty sure that some of these routes can be just as profitable as the express lines I mentioned above. However, what about those that are not? Well, that's once again where the NTA comes in. Public Service Obligation, or PSO, contracts are a way for the state to subsidise services that cannot be run profitably on their own. Generally, bus routes serving predominantly rural areas, especially those outside the main commuter belts, would be the primary area for routes covered by PSO contracts. In fact, the NTA is already awarding PSO contracts out to several companies, including Bus Éireann, so the regulatory framework is already in place to provide subsidies for inter county services should the company go down the drain.

So far, the changes with regard to the status quo ante are limited. For the next two service types, the current strike by Bus Éireann offers the chance to break the current Dublin-centric transport policy that has dominated Ireland for so many decades. This is where it gets interesting. Up until now, bus routes were centrally planned by the NTA in Dublin. Now, with all due respect for the NTA, which has been forcing through a number of impressive changes in Irelands public transport sector in the four and a half years I’ve been living in Ireland, they do not have the local knowhow and experience that councils tend to have. Furthermore, as the first results of the 2016 Census here in Ireland have shown, secondary and tertiary urban centres outside of Dublin are growing significantly, with no clear sign of stopping. What’s more, these changes are most likely here to stay, so it is high time for a major change in public transport policy. I’m talking about the establishment of Local Transport Authorities for the 26 counties, as well as Metropolitan Transport Authorities for major urban centres such as Cork, Galway, Limerick, Waterford, or Portlaoise. These LTAs and MTAs should be responsible for planning managing public transport within the borders of their respective counties or metropolitan area, and have free reign with regards to route planning, tendering and awarding of routes, while being bound by NTA guidelines with regard to minimum driver and vehicle standards. I have two particular types of service in mind for these authorities.

Intracounty services

Goleen, the destination of these Bus Éireann coach on route 237, is a small community in West Cork. Services like the could very well be better planned by local authorities, rather than remotely from Dublin.

By this, I mean rural and interurban services that stay within county lines. Some of these services might be contracted out via PSO contracts, while other might pay for themselves. What is important is that these services are planned locally, to not only transport passengers from A to B but also to add as an additional tool for counties to focus development along certain corridors, or even to set up certain routs that cater mainly to tourists. There are many possibilities here, but unless counties, via the creation of local transport authorities, are given the option to develop these, try out what works and what doesn’t, these lie barren and unrealised.

Urban/Metropolitan services

City services like this are predestined for planning and tendering through local transit authorities, and now is as good a time as ever to get that on the road.

Okay, now we’re talking. Any city above a certain size needs a decent public transport system to stay attractive in the long run. While I can’t say much about other cities, In my eyes, the NTA has so far done an adequate to good job with regards to public transport in Cork city and the surrounding metropolitan area. That’s not to say there can’t be improvements. Services feel disjointed and haphazard sometimes, schedules appear arbitrary, and the quality of signage at bus stops leaves much to be desired. I wrote about this in an earlier article. What’s more, the current services do not necessarily match up with the plans of the local city council with regards to the future development of the city. Bus routes planned by LTAs or MTAs, with unified signage at all stops will go a long way towards creating a more coherent feel for local public transport systems. This unified branding could potentially even extend to the buses used, regardless of what company actually operates the routes, and potentially to train services as well.

These last two parts aren’t really fiction. This type of local transport planning has been a fact of life in Germany, Austria, as well as many other European countries, for the last two to three decades. All public transport in the Rhein-Main area around Frankfurt, where I lived before moving to Ireland, is organised in that way, which has the additional benefit of seamless through ticketing. As far as Frankfurt itself is concerned, the integration goes one step further, with all bus, tram, and light rail services operating under the brand of VGF (Verkehrsgesellschaft Frankfurt am Main), despite the fact that several different bus companies operate the actual bus services. This picture is repeated again and again throughout Germany.

The situation is similar in Austria, although that particularly country can also serve as an example of local transport authorities going too far. I went to school in a town called Bad Aussee, right in the middle of the alps. The state border between Styria and Upper Austria runs just a few kilometres north of the town. For over a century, a railway line has been connecting this resort town to the Westbahn, the western mainline linking Salzburg and Vienna, as well as to the Ennstal mainline, providing a link to the southern parts of Austria. Traditionally, services on the connecting railway ran from one end of the line to the other. When state transport authorities were established in Austria towards the end of the last century, these authorities only tendered out services to the last stop within their respective state lines. Almost overnight, the rail line running through Bad Aussee was de facto cut in half. A few long distance services operated by ÖBB, the Austrian Federal Railways, on their own accord, still operated, but most services on the Styrian side now terminated in Bad Aussee, while most services in Upper Austria suddenly terminated in a place called Obertraun, where the train station wasn’t even designed for this kind of operation. I don’t think I need to spell out the effects this had on the numerous students from Upper Austria that crossed the state line every day to attend the same school I attended, do I?

This station used to bustle with activity, until local transport authorities effectively cut off services north from here.

The schedule has been whittled down quite considerably since my school days.

Barren stations or stops like Bad Aussee is something that needs to be prevented from happening in Ireland.

That is the entire schedule for that day. Two services in every direction. This is the reason why interstate or inter county services should be regulated at a national level.

That is the reason why I believe that the regulation of inter-county services should remain the responsibility of the NTA. True, almost two thirds of the population of Ireland may now live in cities and urban centres, but even so, the rural population remains quite significant, and essential services might be closer across the county line, than within the own county. Any truncation of services must therefore be avoided with the same vigour with which politicians try to avoid public scrutiny.

The NTA will also serve another important purpose. Seamless ticketing is still something that hasn’t been totally mastered in Ireland. Granted, Leap Card is a giant leap (pun fully intended) in the right direction, however, its implementation has been piecemeal, to put it mildly. As a national body, the NTA is ideally suited to push the Leap Card System through on all routes within the country, and once Bus Éireann, and its entrenched union opposition to any modernisation or rationalisation is removed, the chance is there to make all public transport in Ireland available with just one card, something which would be a first in Europe.

The NTA will also be needed as a regulatory body. I already mentioned minimum standards for buses and drivers earlier. In this post Bus Éireann Ireland, I can see the NTA expand its remit to include working conditions for drivers. The unions always state that they are afraid of a race to the bottom for drivers. Well, what better way to prevent this than to have an authority which not only sets minimum demands that drivers have to fulfil, but also specifies minimum conditions that operating companies have to adhere to? Companies will of course always have the option to provide better conditions, but the provision of lower limits should stop any race to the bottom dead in its tracks. 

There is so much more I could write on this subject, but I’ve already written much more than I had originally planned. As of now, the strike is still ongoing, as are negotiations at the Workplace Relations Commission. I just hope that all parties realise that there are alternatives to Bus Éireann out there, alternatives to the current system that could be implemented relatively quickly, if the political powers chose to do so. Whatever the outcome is, I hope it comes around quickly, because any prolonged uncertainty will have a strong negative effect on cities, towns and villages all across the country, and on the lives of hundreds of thousands of residents of Ireland who depend on public transport.