ant for Glasgow-Dublin press coach service
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new express carriage service linking w and Dublin was granted to Doigs Greenock) Ltd. in Glasgow on Monday, the Scottish LA, Mr. A. B. Birnie, 3c1 that a grant would be made and the and frequency decided after fuller conon. Doigs Tours are already authorized rate seasonal tours to Eire and have ted a modern terminal building at on, Glasgow, for that purpose. They for authorization to run up to four I Leopard luxury coaches over the year requency of one coach (with three dons) from November to February, two iree duplications) March to April, and ;oaches (with one duplication) from to October 30.
proposed service would be from termiterminal, Glasgow to Dublin return either way; there would be no lifting ist and no setting down.
3ervice is designed to fill the gap which 1 from the cessation in February 1968, le exception of two months at peak of the direct Glasgow to Dublin sail official of the Irish Tourist Board, ting the application, said that the ; statistics showed that some 20,000 ssengers had been carried to and from annually by the direct sea crossing. lad been no replacement of that service tellers in the Dublin area had reported business from Scotland over the 1968 season. The Board was supporting the ;ervice; Mr Shaun Murphy, for the said that there was every prospect that >posed service would receive approval )e authorities in Eire, who were anxious aase their year-round tourist trade and saw this as a useful introduction.
Mr. Sydney Harris, director of Doigs Tours, accepted that the objectors—British Railways and Western SMT—could carry passengers over part of the route but that no other service would take passengers direct, without changing, from Glasgow to Dublin. What they would carry would be a small portion of the 20,000 passengers from Scotland to Dublin who had now to find alternative travel arrangements to compensate for the lost sea crossing. Some of that number would fly. There would be increased use of private cars, and road and rail links would be used. But that still left a proportion unable to pay air fares or determined to have direct crossing, without changing. Return fare would be £8 10s.
Miss A. Connelly, from Boyle Travel Agency in Glasgow, gave evidence that there was a substantial unsatisfied demand among their customers for a direct service and thought that the proposed service would meet that demand.
For the applicants it was accepted that there might be some slight abstraction of traffic from rail, although that had not been proved. The more important aspect was that the public interest justified a grant, in view of the lost direct service, the desire for terminal-to-terminal travel and the fact that rail road services would involve some six changes of family parties, with children and luggage whereas the Doigs Tours express service would not involve a single change. Drive-on / drive-off arrangements using the Sea Lion car ferry from Ardrossan will be used, to Belfast from Glasgow, completing the Belfast-Dublin run by road, always within the same coach.