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HAVE AN OPINION on buses, from cleanliness to ticketing?
The National Transport Authority (NTA) is now inviting members of the public to submit their views on bus services as part of a public consultation process on the 2014 public bus service contracts.
On 1 December 2009, the Authority awarded Public Service Obligation (PSO) direct award contracts to Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann for an initial period of 5 years.
The new contracts are required to commence from 1 December 2014, and the NTA has said it is interested in hearing views on the matter from members of the public and interested parties.
It wants to hear these opinions before making a decision on the approach to be adopted with these new contracts.
The NTA said that following this “exploratory consultation”, it may consider undertaking one or more procurement competitions for the award of part or all of these contracts. Alternatively, it may decide to directly award part or all of these contracts to the existing contracted parties.
The consultation document asks for people’s opinions on topics such as:
If you would like to have your say, the public consultation document and questionnaire is available to download here (click for link) and when completed must be emailed to 2014busconsult@nationaltransport.ie
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I’d love up-to-date timetables and a website that didn’t make me feel like walking.
The website is key, bad layout, needs to be made user friendly. Good service overall by Bus Eireann. Use them a lot, Privatisation cant happen over here, we need a company who can make some money on the more popular routes to cover all the losses on the rural routes. A private company will only worry about the profitable routes.
Why oh why oh why can I not find a geographical map of the bus routes? Sure the metro style maps are great and all, but if I am from outside the area and I need to get off the bus at the stop closest to my buddy’s house/my hotel/the local sports pitch, what use are they?
It would cost next to nothing to employ a student to input the routes in Google maps, or to integrate a GPS in to the buses for accurate recording of ACTUAL travel times.
their is a route planner option on Dublin Bus website !.
submitting “opinions ” to the NTA is a bad idea. it will be flooded with biased rhetoric from private companys
I would agree that given the size of the market that a monopoly that is held to standards (and accountable for them) would probably work better. Privatisation is not a really viable proposition – as it only really works well on certain routes. There is a place for the private sector.
The one big change that has to be made is the elimination of the antiquated and ridiculous “stage” system that Dublin Bus use and the gradual removal of cash fares. I have a LEAP card yet I still have to queue and tell the driver my destination or fare. How backward is that? I should be tagging on for 90min of transit and changing modes of transport if I need to.
I don’t get the bus but I hear good things
have your say