The man who kicked the hornet's nest

Okay okay, I admit it. The title is a bit dramatic and clickbaity. However, it’s also kind of fitting for the topic of this particular article, because there’s recently been a major upset of the status quo for some people in Cork. But before I get ahead of myself, let’s take this step by step. As some of you may know, I have neither a car nor a driver’s license, and as such, I’m more or less dependent on public transport for much of my transport needs. That means that I’m effectively dependent on Bus Éireann, and those of my readers who live here in Cork know what that means.

I guess a polite way of describing the type of service that Bus Éireann provide would be “special”. The same way that a young kid who always decapitates animals would be called special, just before he or she shoots up the local middle school. Yes, the metaphors in this article are going to be pretty extreme, get ready for that. Anyway, services on all routes are fundamentally unreliable, and have been for some time now. In fact, they’ve been so ever since I emigrated to Cork back in 2012. Buses often arrive with significant delays, or they just don’t show up at all, something which is especially prevalent on weekends and bank holidays. The real-time passenger information displays at major bus stops are so unreliable and “creative” that they could as well be working in the Trump White House. 

Back in the day when Cork's Shandon Bell Tower was built, it's four clock faces all displayed slightly different times to "confuse the devil", apparently hoping that the devil would not grasp concepts such as UTC. This gave the tower the nickname "Four-faced liar". These real-time passenger info displays are its modern day counterpart it seems, "two-faced liars", given the accuracy of their information.

And then, there’s the bus drivers. They are an “interesting” bunch to be sure. Granted, there are a number of drivers who really care about doing a good job, providing good service for their passengers, and you can usually tell that straight away. However, there are far fewer of those around than I’d personally like. The second, much larger group of drivers are basically only in it for the money. They see driving buses simply as a way of paying the bills. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, since these drivers still try to do a good job, but you can tell their heart isn’t in it. Which, and I need to reiterate this, is not necessarily a bad thing. The same cannot, unfortunately be said about maybe not the biggest, but certainly the most noticeable group of drivers, those permanently on the take. 

They don’t really care about either their job or the passengers they’re carrying, they’re simply trying to get as much money out of Bus Éireann as possible. They basically see the company as theirs to plunder, and themselves as God’s gift to the people of Cork. And if those weren’t bad enough, there’s a noticeable amount of openly racist drivers out there as well, something I noticed particularly during my time at Apple. In fact, there’s one driver in particular that I’ll always remember, a short, round, guy, always unshaven, in a dishevelled Uniform, crumpled beanie hat on top, and with bags under his eyes so large that Ryanair would probably classify them as hold luggage! Basically, he looked like Danny DeVito after a severe case of radiation poisoning. No matter who he was dealing with, a grunt and a nod would be the most you’d get out of him, but woe betide anyone who didn’t speak with a Cork accent. They’d get an earful of abuse.

Don’t expect any help from customer service either. Complaints tend to just “disappear”, or get answered with bland, nondescript text snippets that’ll make a politician’s interview responses seem honest and forthright in comparison! And even if customer service do find it within them to reply to a lowly customer, don’t expect a quick response either. There’s been at least one documented case where a reply only came in in the waning days of 2018. The corresponding complaint had been lodged in Fall of 2017! So all in all, it’s not really a great experience for locals, and an even worse one for the ever increasing number of tourists.

Enter SamMcCormack, from Rochestown. A student at CIT, he is a regular user of Bus Éireann services and has benn “enjoying” them for quite some time. He eventually got fed up with the endless delays, particularly on his local bus lines, the 223 and 216, and decided to do something about it. In Mid-December 2018, he set up a Facebook Page to collect feedback from similarly disenfranchised customers, and “Improve Cork Bus Éireann Services” was born. The page quickly garnered traction,  attracting over 1000 likes within less than a month, with local and national news outlets quickly catching on and running stories on that new campaign. He managed to get in contact with the city council, the National Transport Authority (NTA), Bus Éireann themselves, and even Minister for Transport Shane Ross to find some kind of solution to the issues Cork is facing. The aim of the campaign?

Simple – A reliable, efficient bus service for Cork. Not too much to ask for.

Well, apparently it is. After initially making some headway, including with Bus Éireann CEO Stephen Kent, the company has now begun to clam up. Mr. Kent refuses to have any more contact with the campaign, referring everything to customer service, ditto for the head of the NTA. Bus Éireann itself has apparently threatened the page's operator with legal action. In addition, Minister for Transport Shane Ross has proven to be as useful as a cat flap in an elephant house, so no news there. More worryingly, the campaign, and Mr. McCormack himself, have come under fire from Bus Éireann drivers and people connected to them. It appears as if some don’t like the extra attention being put on them, but it was all pretty par for the course. Then came the video.

These types of comments, while not dominant, certainly aren't rare to find.

As is this beauty of a comment from a Bus Éireann driver. Someone might want to tell him that bus watching is an actual hobby, by the way ;)

On January 4th, 2019, A video was published on the campaign’s Facebook page showing a bus driver on one of the Cork routes, since identified as the 203, typing away on his smartphone while driving. From information available on the campaign website, the video was taken in October 2018, and the incident reported to Bus Éireann immediately. However, nothing happened, having apparently fallen into BÉ’s legendary customer service black hole. After the video was uploaded again, and the whole situation was reported to Bus Éireann again, things kicked up a notch. The insults became a lot more personal, with more than one threat being issued against Mr. McCormack, with Bus Éireann employees again involved. How do I know? Well, if they display it in their public profiles, you’re bound to notice. Anyway, back to topic. In addition to these personal attacks, these individuals also attacked the video itself and the person who originally uploaded it, accusing them of somehow faking it. As for Bus Éireann themselves, well, they’re not looking too good in this themselves. After the publication, and another email to Mr. Kent, the head of customer services at the company replied, stating that they had dealt with the matter internally, but refused to provide any further details, and declined to say whether the whole thing, a pretty serious traffic offence, had been reported to the gardaí.

Effectively, the company appears to be covering up the whole incident. Make no mistake, this bus driver has not only broken the law, but he has endangered the lives of his passengers and other road users, and I for one find this circling the wagons mentality, and the fact that they value their employee’s anonymity over public safety concerns deeply worrying. Mind you, I’m no angel with regards to traffic, and I honestly don’t mind if a bus driver gets out his phone when at a red light or in a traffic jam, or if he grabs a quick sip from a bottle of water and then puts it back. Persistent phone usage in a moving bus however is an absolute no-go. If he really needs to be that connected, the driver should get a smartwatch, that way he’ll be able to see any notifications on his wrist. As an avid Apple Watch user, I’m speaking from experience that this actually works.

All these incidents clearly demonstrate one thing: Bus Éireann is wholly unsuited to the task of providing high quality, reliable, and efficient public transport in Cork. It shows that bus drivers effectively operate without any oversight, even in security related matters, and that management is either unable, or simply not interested in ensuring a decent quality of service. What’s more, the wave of hostility from the side of certain segments of the Bus Éireann workforce in Cork show a kind of territoriality that I really haven’t seen outside of drug related turf wars, and indicate that the company is rotten to such a degree that any reform or rationalisation is likely impossible.

So, where do we go from here? Well, given the facts I mentioned above, there really is only once solution to the whole quandary, although it’s a drastic, painful, and likely unpopular one. Back during Bus Éireann’s strike in April 2017, I had already suggested that the government should let the company fail, and instead get private companies to operate its services. Back during that time, the limp tea towel in charge of the Ministry for Transport missed the opportunity to let that happen. In light of the issues mentioned above, I’m afraid that the government really won’t have any other option than to either disband the company outright, or at the very least use the upcoming publication of the Cork Metropolitan Area Transit Strategy to put the city routes and any additional services needed out to tender and to award them to private competitors. I myself outlined such a possibility in my own take on possible improvements to public transport in Cork. Bluntly said, the future of Cork as Ireland’s second city is too crucial to leave public transport in the hands of Bus Éireann.

In all fairness, not all about Bus Éireann in Cork is bad. New buses have been rolled out in recent years, with certain types of double-deckers, such as these ones, even sporting USB charging ports for smartphones. 

As for single-decker buses, these Mercedes Benz Citaro buses that were introduced over the last year or two are certainly equal to anything running on the continent. Unfortunately, the service still lags massively behind the hardware.

Where does that leave the passengers who have to battle with delays, substandard services, buses not arriving at all, or driving past a stop empty? Well, the most important thing is to record and report every single such accident. Nearly everybody has a smartphone today, so if you see something, record it. When it comes to misconduct, I personally would always try to get the issue resolved with the driver in question, however if that turns out to be impossible, or if the bus driver is the issue, record as much as possible, report it to Bus Éireann and put it up onto a public transport to ensure that the incident doesn’t just “disappear”. Also, make sure you contact your councillor, TD, the NTA, and even bombard everyone’s favourite wet blanket in the Ministry for Transport with letters and email. This situation will never get better without a prolonged public campaign. 

One final thing. I know that dealing with the public isn’t easy. I’ve been in customer service for much of my working life, and have held exclusively public facing jobs, so I really know what it is like. I feel the frustration, the exasperation, and the anger that sometimes comes with that. I can’t remember how many times I sat at my desk at Apple in Hollyhill, shaking my head at a deeply negative customer satisfaction survey just because I didn’t provide a free of charge replacement device for an iPhone that had fallen of a fifth floor balcony. And yes, we got those surveys unfiltered, and so did our managers, and they did have consequences. However, as frustrating as it might be at times, it is NEVER acceptable to take this out on a customer. There is a certain level of professionalism that can be expected, and that I expect from every person working in a customer facing role, just as much as I expect it from myself. If someone is unable to stick to this basic level of professionalism, then they are unsuitable to dealing with the public, and should move, or be moved, to a position that doesn’t require customer contact. Until this mentality takes hold at Bus Éireann, I’m afraid that company is beyond saving.