As concern grows that speeding buses and trucks are contributing to the mounting carnage on Irish roads, Martin Cullen, the transport minister, has told officials to check the journey times that bus companies put on the licensing applications they send in to the department.
The minister has also written to Dublin Bus and Bus Eireann warning the state-owned companies to stay within the speed limits. This follows a report by the National Roads Authority (NRA), which shows that buses are among the biggest culprits for speeding.
“This report has indicated . . . that speed non-compliance is a particular issue for buses with, for example, 76% of single- deck buses exceeding the speed limits on two-lane national roads, and 79% in urban national 50km/h zones,” Cullen wrote.
The NRA figures also showed that all single-deck buses were exceeding the speed limit on motorways and national primary routes.
There are suspicions that some coach operators are travelling at breakneck speeds in a cut-throat battle for market share. Reduced journey times are considered the main differentiator in the industry, because fares have fallen dramatically since deregulation.
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Bus Eireann has complained to the Department of Transport about what it claims are abuses of timetables by private competitors. It bases this claim on internal dossiers that it has compiled after following other operators’ coaches.
The department granted privately owned Aircoach a licence based on a timetable that showed it would take the company two hours exactly to complete a journey from Dublin airport to Belfast. The Bus Eireann analysis claims that to arrive at scheduled stops on time would require a driver to breach the speed limit on at least three occas-ions. The first leg of the journey to Drogheda could only be completed in the 25 minutes advertised by travelling at an average speed of 96km/h, it says. The average speed limit is 80km/h.
Bus Eireann says it also clocked Aircoach buses travelling at 106km/h “where possible” on parts of the Dublin-Cork route, which has an 80km/h limit for such vehicles.
Aircoach lengthened the Dublin-Belfast journey by 25 minutes late last year. Marc Reddy, the managing director, said he had “no idea” how his company had managed to obtain the licence for the route based on the proposed journey times. “I don’t even know who applied for it; it was before our time.”
Reddy added that on some routes Bus Eireann timetables appear tighter than those of the private operators.
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The Department of Transport says timetables are examined when licensing applications are received. “It is an integral part of the process,” it said. “But on the foot of the information (Bus Eireann) have proffered, the minister has asked his officials to conduct a full review.”