In its second major bus venture beyond the UK, Go-Ahead Group has started operating the first of 30 franchised routes in the Dublin area and has ambitions of doing much more across Ireland. IAN MOLLOY reports on what it has achieved and how it has organised itself to deliver on its promises.
On 9 September, Go-Ahead Ireland began operating new Dublin orbital route 175, marking the start of the long promised and now finally being delivered franchising of bus routes in the Irish capital. This also is the second major venture beyond England for the Go-Ahead Group, which began operating franchised routes in Singapore in September 2016 (Buses November 2017).
It was in August 2017, following an earlier competitive tendering process, that the National Transport Authority (NTA) — which calls itself Transport for Ireland (TfI) in the mould of its counterpart in London — that Go-Ahead was named as the successful bidder for a set of 24 of what was termed the Outer Dublin Metropolitan Area (ODMA) routes. None of these either traverses or comes near to Dublin city centre.
Operation of 23 of the routes is transferring from Dublin Bus, while the 175 is an additional orbital route added to the city network.
As I said …
