Margaret Thatcher used to say that the definition of failure was a man in his 30's taking a bus. The news that Bus Eireann are planning to reduce Expressway services
in Wexford shouldn’t come as a huge surprise to anyone. Bus Eireann run a route
5 to Waterford from Dublin along the N25/N30/N80/N81. Not the most direct route and certainly not
the fastest. But one that connects a lot
of villages with big towns. The route doesn’t hit dual carriage way until it
reaches Tallaght. By comparison you can
travel from Waterford to Dublin on the M9 in about 2 hours comfortably. It’s a no brainer if you want to go from
Dublin to Waterford by Bus Eireann as to which route you’d take. Route 5 is for the axe.
Many local communities are fearful of the impact of
downgrading of service and ending of dropping off points. Bus Eireann claim that the Expressway service
does not receive a subvention and as a consequence must be profitable. As a consequence they see routes terminating
at Dublin Airport and linking to big urban areas the future for their fleet
investment. Elderly passengers on bus
passes don’t seem to rate with the boys in Broadstone. They are feeling the raw heat of competition
from the private sector on their neck.
It’s very hard to feel sympathy for Bus Eireann. For years the CIE group has gone to the
government with a begging bowl looking to be bailed out when in fact they could
have look at how to configure services to attract passengers. The presumption that everyone wants to go to or
from Dublin is wrong. It’s possible with
great time delays to go from Bunclody to Wexford return by bus. It takes almost
2 hours unless you want to take the only direct bus that departs at 19.50 and
arrives at 20.40 but few appointments in Wexford are this late! On the other hand if you want to go from
Camolin to New Ross it’ll take as long as 3 hours in the morning although about
an hour later in the day. In both cases
the journey is about 30 miles. Clearly
for a service branded “Expressway” connecting passengers for destinations other
than Dublin isn’t high up the agenda.
Simply by interconnecting services in Wexford passenger
numbers using these services could be higher.
Simply by listening to councils, numbers could be higher too. As a councillor I asked Bus Eireann to run a
service between Wexford and Carlow. Both
big towns with 20,000 passengers each, connected by a good road with the
potential to interchange bus passengers for Kilkenny. Carlow IT has a Wexford campus with plenty of
students and a market. Sadly I was wasting my time.
At least there is the potential for another operator to
tender for the route. Follow the N81 to
Dublin and you come to Tallaght with its IT, Square Shopping Complex and
Hospital. There is a market heading to
this side of Dublin from Co Wexford and Carlow. So why did Bus Eireann fail?
That’s for the National Transport Authority to decide. Any change in service must get the approval
of the authority. There needs to be a
business case to reduce services, the NTA will have to listen to the case put
to retain the service. In that case Bus
Eireann’s suggestion that it will end the service is conjecture if Wexford County
Council want to fight the decision by putting the business case to retain and
interconnect the counties services.
It’ll be the first test of council’s role in economic
development.
