CIE asks Dublin Bus to stocktake

CIÉ has asked Dublin Bus for commercial valuations oall of its city bus depots, in a move which could raise hundreds of millions of euro for reinvestment in State transport services.

A report containing the commercial valuations of garages and depots is due to be delivered by the bus company to the chairman of CIÉ, Mr John Lynch, before July 5th.

News of the potential sales emerged yesterday, one day after the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, commented that CIÉ's Broadstone garage would be part of the redevelopment of a large area of the north city, adjacent to the proposed Dublin Institute of Technology Campus at Grangegorman.

Dublin Bus is already relocating its Broadstone fleet to its new €43 million garage at Harristown south of Finglas and Bus Éireann is to relocate its headquarters to Mitchelstown, Co Cork. CIÉ is convinced that alternative, cheaper locations could be found for other garages close to the city centre which would command premium prices in the current property market.

The depots and garages include those in Ringsend, Clontarf, Conyngham Road, Mountjoy Square, Broadstone and Donnybrook.

The transport holding company has rejected arguments from Dublin Bus that the cost of "light travel" - the amount of time a bus travels without passengers from its depot to the start of its route - would undermine the potential of the deal. It has also rejected suggestions that the entire process would raise just €50 million - or about the same amount as the costs of relocation.

CIÉ believes substantial sums in terms of hundreds of millions of euro can be realised and has instanced Ringsend depot, where buses which currently serve Tallaght are parked. The company believes land an equal distance from Tallaght in the other direction, would be cheaper and easier to access than Ringsend.

There is clear development potential at Ringsend, where a number of high-rise schemes have been developed around the docks in recent years.

However, Donnybrook garage and depot, which has been conservatively valued at €100 million and could represent the most expensive of the bus station portfolio, may not be able to realise its full commercial potential as it is a listed building.

It also emerged yesterday that traffic gridlock is costing Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann almost €70 million a year. The figure was contained in the CIÉ annual report for 2003 which revealed that bus speeds in the Dublin area were now as low as 12 k.p.h, almost half the international average.

None the less, the report also showed more people are now using public transport than at any time during the past 25 years. Dublin Bus carried in excess of 149 million passengers in 2003, an increase of 2.3 per cent over the preceding year. The buses carry 500,000 passengers a day. Dublin Bus is now ranked in the top quarter of all bus companies across Europe when measured in terms of customer satisfaction, comfort and safety, service reliability, fleet quality, frequency of service and staff behaviour.

A record 35.5 million passenger journeys were made last year on Irish Rail services and the company said it expected this to rise to 44 million by 2007.

Bus Éireann's performance has also shown growth in passenger journeys at higher rates than elsewhere in Europe. The number of rural commuters was 17.8 million while 21.4 million passenger journeys were made on city routes and 9.2 million passenger journeys on the inter-urban Expressway services.