[Article] Irish Rail lands in rough over Ryder Cup fares

[Mark]

Irish indo

STATE-OWNED Irish Rail was accused last night of jumping on the Ryder Cup rip-off bandwagon by charging close to six times the normal fare for train and bus transfers between Dublin and the K Club in Co Kildare.

CIE, which owns Irish Rail, Dublin Bus and Bus Eireann, issued a glowing press release yesterday announcing that its combined companies would be mounting the largest public transport operation since Pope John Paul II's visit in 1979 in order to shuttle spectators, players and media to the Ryder Cup next month.

But what it didn't say was that not only is CIE receiving €1.3m from the Ryder Cup itself to provide bus services to and from a specially designated site in west Dublin, but normal ticket holders travelling to the K-Club from Dublin city centre are being charged well above the standard train fare for the privilege.

A standard return journey from Dublin's Connolly station to Leixlip's Louisa Bridge costs €3.50 for an adult and €1.80 for a child.

However, Ryder Cup ticket holders taking advantage of Irish Rail's combined package that includes return rail service to and from Leixlip and a shuttle bus 13km away to the K Club are being charged €20 a ticket for adults and children alike.

A standard local taxi that can accommodate four passengers is charging a regular fare of €30 each way to ferry passengers between Leixlip and the K Club.

But Irish Rail spokesman Barry Kenny denied the fares were exorbitant.

"We have additional costs to hire the buses and we have to hire additional staff and security. We are the only dedicated service from the city centre to the K-club. We do have significant costs with the operation."

He said the cost was also in line with the €20 that was reportedly being charged for users of the park and ride service.

Officials from Ryder Cup Travel Services, who are running the operation, were unavailable for comment. However, Mr Kenny conceded Irish Rail would be making a profit on the operation. "We'd hope to make a small commercial return," he said.

But Dermot Jewell, spokesman for the Consumers Association of Ireland, said the fares being charged for the rail and bus services were pure price-gouging. "What makes it even more repellent is that it is being conducted by a state-run company, despite the pleas last week by Tourism Minister John O'Donoghue urging businesses not to hike up their prices in order to cash in on the Ryder Cup," he said.

"It most certainly goes against the grain of the request Minister O'Donoghue has made not to take advantage of the Ryder Cup. It's just profiteering and it's quite unacceptable," he added.

Some 45,000 spectators are expected to attend the tournament each day.

Allison Bray

[Thomas J Stamp]

The really interesting point is that IE announced these fares months ago, if not May in fact, and the Irish indo only noticed it now.

More to the point I'm shocked and appalled that Barry Kenny didnt get Allison Bray to menetion the upcoming new Adamstown Station, the Kildare Route Project, the intorduction of Hourly trains to Cork, the intoduction of 8 car DARTS, the introduction of new improved top of the range services to Limerick, Galway and Sligo, new fleet of intercity rail cars, all of which Treacy Hogan would have slipped in at the end of the copy had he written that.

Standards are slipping at the Indo.

[Mark Gleeson]

Of course this has been going on for years and strangely when I asked around people where more than happy to pay the 20 euro

A LARGE fleet of Bus Eireann coaches will carry music fans to the Electric Picnic in Stradbally Hall Co Laois this weekend.

They will depart from Customs House Quay hourly on Friday between 10am and 3pm. On Saturday buses depart from 10am to 2pm. Coaches will return to Dublin on Sunday and on Monday morning. Tickets are €25 return and must be booked

Irish Indo 2006

Its 50 odd miles down €25 will someone critise this ?

[Rashers]

All the trains are sold out for Saturday morning - I've seen visitors on a Ryder cup related website now stuck as to how to get out there.
You would have throught IE could have provided extra services then, as it's not in the Monday-Friday peak...
Ah well - no doubt the aim was to tell everyone how the services sold out, so how great they were, rather then actually be able to say, we were able to provide everyone who needed to travel with transport.
With Bus Eireann and Dublin Bus banned from providing competitor services, looks like IE have the monopoly on this one.....

[Mark Gleeson]

I'd say they are more limited by bus transfers on the far side and for 20 euro you might want to get a seat, 8 coach train has 336 seats, 4 bus loads, now try 1200 thats 15 buses

Saturday service is the exact same as Friday, seats still left on the early trains Saturday and Sunday, full service on Sunday morning.

Principle restriction on operation is the availabilty of drivers

[Rashers]

Am I right in thinking they are only 4 car services, so if they ran 8 car services, that would double capacity without any extra drivers. But yes the bus transfer remains an issue. Still a couple of extra buses could have sorted it. Plus for once the revenue and EUR20 per person would be good

[Mark Gleeson]

As far as I know most are 8 coach trains, they comprise the empty trains sent out to Maynooth early morning, 1 or 2 may be 4 coach (and can't be longer due to restrictions in parking at Connolly off P7) but the current fleet situation is getting 27/28 out of the 29 29000 units in daily service which is world beating the only downtime is Sunday, the primary issue with specials is infact drivers secondary issue is where to park everything there ain't much space in Maynooth

The only reason the bus transfer works is since Dublin Bus held onto the buses last year it was due to retire, that said only brand new 06D buses seem to be running the shuttle service

With only 6000 sold IE where making a profit, that was Monday so by now I'd say they are upwards of 10k

[colmoc]

DUBLIN BUS has come under fire for providing more than 100 extra buses for the lucrative Ryder Cup not long after demanding that the Government buy the same number to expand its fleet.
A strike was averted last month when the Transport Minister agreed to provide the extra buses, at a cost of €30m to the taxpayer, for the city transport service.
Yet, the semi-state company has managed to come up with 120 extra buses after winning a €1.3m contract to operate a shuttle service to the K Club.
It is believed to be the biggest public transport project since Pope John Paul visited Ireland in 1979.
Last night, a spokesperson for the Coach Tourism and Transport Council, which represents big coach operators, said it was amazed that Dublin Bus could pull approximately 120 buses "out of a hat" to use on a commercial contract when it was so short of capacity.
Dublin Bus said it had secured the extra buses by delaying its bus replacement programme.
It said the extra buses being used for the Ryder Cup were those which would normally be replaced each year, while the purchase of replacement buses had also gone ahead.
But the Coach Tourism and Transport Council questioned how it could afford to buy the new buses without trading in its older fleet.
Chief Executive of the Coach Tourism and Transport, Cora Collins, pointed out that funding had been provided under the National Development Plan for the replacement of 513 buses for Dublin Bus.

www.unison.ie

[Derek Wheeler]

Any of the buses Ive seen are all 06 D models. Can DB explain that one?

And finally, IE have a big banner outside Connolly welcoming their "special" passengers" to the Ryder Cup and "thanking" them for travelling with them. Don't think Ive seen a similar effort for the loyal, regular and relient user.

Corporate Ireland is away with the fairies....on Capital Hill.

[Mark Gleeson]

The entire AX 06D fleet is out in Kildare thats at least 50 possibly more

The 45 route has 1990's reg buses today, as does the 46A and the number 7 lost its new buses, didn't see any of the 3 axles either as I walked across town, serious downgrade in terms of low floor wheelchair accessibility

Does expose Dublin Bus though nothing wrong with 15 year old buses I remember when the bus home was 20 years old still got me there

At least IE didn't pull coaches from other services to milk the system

The contract is actually with Bus Eireann, Dublin Bus where subcontracted part of the job as where IE, Bus Eireann drivers are driving some of the Dublin Bus buses apparently

[Mark Hennessy]

I've been on the 17:55 Maynooth - Harbour on Thursday and Friday.
These trains typically have no PIS and no announcements but for some reason there were audible announcements at every station!
No doubt this trend will continue for the regular pax this week.

[dowlingm]

From what I read elsewhere, the old buses came from storage as DB are only allowed operate a fixed number on scheduled service, staff and maintenance windows were adjusted to cope with the charter surge. I suspect they sent the 06Ds to Kildare since they are newer and presumably less liable to a failure far from "home".

[Alan G]

Where DB got the buses from is fairly straightforward. The majority of the buses used were the 100 2006 batch of AX type buses.

These were ordered as part of the fleet replacement programme and not as part of the 100 extra buses now promised by santa Cullen.

(funny how those 100 extra buses that Cullen announced last month are already arriving now, I could have sworn it took around a year from ordering a bus to delivery)

As the first part of the 2006 replacement fleet arrived the old (1992/3) buses were put into storage, the later batches of new buses were not put into service at all.

All the new deliveries were used on the Ryder Cup, for many of them it was the first services they provided.

With the stored buses returned to normal service during the golf there was nominally enough buses to keep most of the timetabled services running but DB run a large number of un-timetabled extras for the weekday peaks and there was not nearly enough buses and drivers to cover this.

Following the Ryder Cup the new buses were transferred to their respective garages and are all now operating normal services.

In my opinion keeping the new deliveries back for a few weeks was the right decision, the golf was a huge tourist event and providing new, clean buses was undoubtedly good PR. FYI most of the 20 odd buses that had entered service on the 7 route around 2 months before the Ryder Cup had already been defaced inside with most having had windows etched.

Despite the predictable bellyaching of the coach tourism council nothing untoward happened regarding the DB fleet and they do not have any reserve to pull "out of their hat" in their fleet or staff rosters. The availability of 100 extra buses and particularly drivers to cover the extra work had taken months of planning and was only achievable for a very short period of time. I doubt any DB drivers were able to take holidays that week.

In order to accomadate the 100 extra permanent buses Broadstone garage is being re-opened and DB are now recruiting extra drivers.

[Mark Gleeson]

The 7 finally got new buses the first new ones since the mid 1980's

The route was then publically listed as accessible for several months before but for the week of the Ryder Cup it was back with older buses than before with zero accessibilty, thats not on

We caught IE out with the cheeky car park move at Louisa Bridge, it was a clear case of screw the normal punter and grab the cash. Now if this was private sector it would be understandable but its not its heavily subsidised state owned transport

[Alan G]

Originally Posted by Mark Gleeson

The 7 finally got new buses the first new ones since the mid 1980's

That's not correct. The 7 group recieved new buses in 1999, part of the last batch of non-accessible RV type and it kept those buses until about a year ago when they were transferred to other garages.

Originally Posted by Mark Gleeson

The route was then publically listed as accessible for several months before but for the week of the Ryder Cup it was back with older buses than before with zero accessibilty, thats not on

No, it isn't. The real story that was never picked up on was the cutting of regular services and the use of stored buses that despite the best efforts of the maintenance staff had a high failure rate that week.

The accessibility issue was most noticeable on the 7 group as it should not have been announced until after the Ruder cup, they knew that the buses would be pulled from the route during that week.

Originally Posted by Mark Gleeson

We caught IE out with the cheeky car park move at Louisa Bridge, it was a clear case of screw the normal punter and grab the cash. Now if this was private sector it would be understandable but its not its heavily subsidised state owned transport

They should not be doing that but with the penny pinching from the DoT it is unsurprising that both companies jumped at the chance to make a profit from the RC.