We all know the quotation from David Copperfield, the most impenetrable novel I had to study in school.
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds nought and six, result misery.
Translink wishes.
The reality is that Translink has been running at a substantial loss for the last two years. Forget Grand Central, forget new buses, forget the new Enterprise trains, all funded by DfI and not by our fares, this is operational costs. Income against how much it costs to run buses and trains from day to day.
| Income | Expenditure |
| Fare income Concessionary fares reimbursement Railway subsidy Private hire |
Diesel Staff wages and salaries Timetabling Human Resources and Finance Publicity and advertising Maintenance Safety and statutory obligations |
The bottom line is that the total of the left hand column is less than that of the right hand column, and somehow Translink is supposed to manage on essentially a frozen income, facing rising diesel prices and the need to provide a fair pay rise to its staff.
The usual voices have been crying out for a mythical private firm to come to the rescue, which will somehow cut fares, increase services and not take a penny in subsidy from DfI. I’ve been knocking that notion on the head since 2015 (see also 2017) and the same year I also made this post making much the same point as this one.
That Translink is only operating at a £26 million annual deficit in 2026 having run at an effective £24 million deficit about ten years earlier (£12 million actual deficit plus £12 million diesel subsidy no longer available in NI but always available to private firms in England, Scotland and Wales) is quite remarkable, but the reality is that no private firm will operate rural buses in Northern Ireland without subsidy from ratepayers that would make Translink’s subsidy look cheap.
It’s groundhog day, I suppose. Liz Kimmins has done as John O’Dowd did in 2022 and announced a fare freeze which is unaffordable, but this time instead of the Secretary of State coming to “rescue” us with higher fares to keep services running, we are now going to have to pay the price of worse public transport timetables because the sums do not, will not, and cannot add up.
Bottom line: Translink’s income may be many multiples of £20, its expenditure on actually operating services and paying staff is even more multiples of £20.025, and given the precarious state of the potholes on our roads, we have run out of “somethings” that will turn up. Apparently, that will now include buses.
Andy has a very wide range of interests including Christianity, Lego, transport, music, the Alliance Party, chess and computers. Anything can appear in a post.
Andy has abandoned Twitter, needs to update his website, and has a BlueSky account.
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