Dublin Bus complains it is held to higher punctuality standard than rail services

Dublin Bus has complained it is facing more onerous penalty arrangements for services running late than those applying on the railways.

Briefing material provided to the Minister for Transport, Éamon Ryan, show the company had expressed concern in relation to the operation of punctuality penalties. Dublin Bus said that Irish Rail, which operated on fixed lines, effectively had a grace period of 10 minutes before its services were classified as being late. Dublin Bus services, on the other hand, which operated in a congested city environment, were considered to be late after falling six minutes behind schedule.

The company maintained that if the 10-minute rule was applied to its contract with the National Transport Authority (NTA), it could qualify for incentives as opposed to penalties. It said that talks would be held with the NTA in consultation with Bus Éireann, which had similar arrangements in its contract with the authority.

Dublin Bus told The Irish Times that it regularly discusses all elements of its direct-award contract – including performance and operational incentives and penalties – with key stakeholders including the NTA.

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“These discussions are ongoing”, it said.

The NTA said it was working to improve the punctuality and reliability of planned journey times, particularly on lower-frequency services.

“In line with international metrics, a bus service is considered punctual if it departs from a stop between one minute earlier than, and five minutes 59 seconds later than, the advertised departure time from that stop.”

The NTA said its powers “to incentivise a better punctuality and reliability performance by Dublin Bus are stronger in the current contract” – effective from December 1st, 2019 – “compared to previously”.

“Minimum performance standards are now set on a route-by-route basis, rather than on a network basis, as was previously the case. Failure to achieve the minimum performance standard for a route could result in a sanction for Dublin Bus, while exceeding the minimum performance standard could result in an incentive payment being made to the operator.”

It said the minimum performance standard for each route was set by NTA, taking into account a number of factors, including historic performance and prevailing conditions, ensuring the standards – while ambitious – were achievable.

The NTA said that these were “kept under review and adjusted where appropriate”.

“Bus and rail performance metrics are not directly comparable in this context. Firstly, the 10-minute threshold for rail services is for longer-distance intercity and regional rail services.”

Shorter-distance commuter and DART services were measured on a five-minute threshold, the NTA said, which was again in line with international norms.

“In addition, automated vehicle location (AVL) systems on board buses make the management and tracking of buses easier and allow measurement at a stop-by-stop level. Limitations on the rail system means that performance monitoring is currently only possible at the terminating station, something that NTA wishes to address as investment in improving systems allows.”

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