Bus operators hit with fines of over €2m for inadequate services
Dublin Bus and GoAhead Ireland were hit with fines of over €2m combined in the first six months of this year for their failure to provide adequate levels of services, an Oireachtas Committee has heard. File Picture: Leah Farrell / RollingNews.ie
Dublin Bus and GoAhead Ireland were hit with fines of over €2m combined in the first six months of this year for their failure to provide adequate levels of services, an Oireachtas Committee has heard.
Representatives from both companies and the National Transport Authority (NTA) faced questions from the Oireachtas Transport Committee on Tuesday, where NTA chief executive Anne Graham said that recent software improvements and a reduction in cancelled services would reduce the number of so-called “ghost” buses on the roads.
Commuters in the capital have been reporting increasing levels of such ghost buses, that appear on the real-time passenger information (RTPI) as being due at a certain time but simply never arrive.
Dublin Bus CEO Andrea Keane acknowledged a deterioration in the reliability of such RTPI for passengers in recent months and said that staffing shortages had contributed to an increase in cancelled services.
Ms Keane said that, even with a concerted campaign to recruit more drivers, Dublin Bus is “not keeping pace” with the expansion of the network.
As is planned for Cork, the Dublin Bus network is undergoing a redesign that has seen routes already transformed for many parts of the county.
Fianna Fáil TD for Cork East James O’Connor asked Ms Keane three times how demand allocation is managed at peak times.
She said that efforts are made to prioritise low-frequency services when shortages occur to ensure that, for example, the only route that hour still runs while cancelling another service with a frequency of every 10 minutes.
Ms Keane also said that Dublin Bus was open to the idea of a dedicated Garda unit to support public transport services.
Under questioning from Labour TD Duncan Smith, she admitted that the level of fines dished out to Dublin Bus this year was at a higher level than previous years.
Ms Graham, meanwhile, said that a park-and-ride strategy for greater Dublin was being progressed to allow for greater connectivity for people commuting from outside Dublin.
The NTA also indicated that planned expansion of BusConnects routes in Dublin had already been put back due to driver shortages across the network.
Committee chair Kieran O’Donnell said that 20 TDs and senators wished to contribute to the meeting, which was an unusually high number.
“I want everyone to get in,” he said. “This is about the public that are using the bus services. We’ve a duty to extract the information and find the solutions. [I want] pinpoint questions.
"We need answers here, we need solutions.”
