Transport minister to meet with National Transport Authority about ghost buses

Ellen O'Donoghue

The transport minister will meet with the National Transport Authority next week to discuss so-called ghost buses.

This comes after complaints from passengers about disappearing services in the greater Dublin area.

New transport minister Darragh O’Brien told Newstalk that he wants to get to the bottom of the problem.

“People do want certainty. From time to time, buses will be cancelled, and I think people understand that. I want to get to the bottom of this [and] assist the operators where I can,” Mr O’Brien said.

“But most importantly for the commuters, the customers who are paying to use these services to ensure that they have certainty that when they go for a bus, that bus will turn up, that will be the purpose of my meeting with the NTA next week.”

“Where bus operators don’t meet their service level agreement, fines are imposed so there are penalties, but that’s just the financial element of it. What I want is assurances that this matter will be dealt with as best as possible,” he said.

Dublin Bus and Go Ahead were fined close to €5 million last year for not meeting performance standards, with €4 million in deductions imposed on Dublin Bus during the first three quarters of 2024, according to The Irish Times.

Dublin Bus spokesman Harry McCann, however, told Newstalk that they have made big improvements.

There’s nothing worse than going to a bus stop, waiting for a bus and it doesn’t arrive, but we’re at the moment, tracking our real-time passenger information, about 98 per cent accuracy, so we’re performing about 98 per cent of our scheduled services, this is a real rarity for our customers from a Dublin bus perspective,” Mr McCann said.

Go Ahead, meanwhile, has apologised for services not turning up in the greater Dublin area, blaming ‘ghost buses’ on a shortage of technical staff and seasonal illness.

The disappearing services have affected many routes including Liffey Valley to UCD, the Square to Blackrock and Bray to Greystones.
Dublin South West TD Paul Murphy told the Dáil that commuters cannot trust the service.

“A UCD student contacted me to say he was late for lectures three days in a row because of cancellations, delays and overloaded S6s that didn’t stop. He says many ‘young people like me are considering buying cars because public transport is so unreliable’,” Mr Murphy said.