Archive for July, 2009
Dublin City Marathon 2009 Map
From Monday 27 July, private traffic will be diverted away from College Green with only public transport (Buses and taxis) being allowed to travel through the area at all times. Restrctions will apply from Monday to Friday between the hours of 7am to 10am and 4pm to 7pm.
The bus gate aims to to ease congestion in the area which sees up to 60million cars a year travelling through and improve conditions for pedestrians, cyclists and public transport. Transport for Dublin.ie gives information on the College Green Bus Corrider and proposted infrastructure developments in the city of Dublin under Transport 21. The Map on Transport for Dublin.ie is poor to say the least, so we have put together a Google Map showing the traffic restrictions in the area.
Driving from North Dublin to South Dublin City Center and vice versa is now a lot more complicated between the hours the bus gate will be in action.
- The black line is for driving from North City Center to South City Center
- The Red line is for driving form South City Center to North City Center
As always, if you have any questions about this or any other matter please do not hesitate to leave a comment.
Related Stories
- ‘Bus gate’ to be introduced in Dublin city
- Dublin Bus Gate plan comes into effect next week
Info Ireland – Travel in Ireland Blog by Travel in Ireland is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at the Info Ireland Blog.
This is not the first, second or third time the Irish Independent has published short sighted populist articles without proper research that criticise the car rental industry, both in Ireland and abroad. I have commented on one of these articles before (Festive Car Hire Rip-off Nonsense) which commented on a poorly research article about the price rises in the car rental industry during the Christmas peak period.
While reading the Independent this morning I came across an awful situation in which an Irish holiday maker ended up in while travelling to France. The holiday maker in question had rented a car on a laser card, which the car rental company refused to accept when she arrived to collect her rental car.
There can be no doubt that arriving at an airport to collect a car and being refused is an awful situation, but laser cards cannot be used as security against possible damage to the car. The renter in question was refused a refund and her question revolved around this. She unfortunately had to get a taxi form the airport to her eventual destination at great expense.
The Irish Independent unfortunately thinks this is a simple case of daylight robbery on the part of the car rental company which is a very simple view of the situation (link).
“You had a confirmed booking and had paid the amount requested so it seems both unusual and unfair that you were not given the car. You should be given a refund for the €308 paid, given you did not receive the service you had paid for.”
Only recently (30 June 2009) the Independent published an article recommending that people read the fine print when renting a car, but no mention of the fine details of this rental where mentioned which would of no doubt said a laser card cannot be used to rent a car.
It would have been a nice gesture for the car rental company to refund some if not all of the €308 they had taken as deposit against the car rental, but the company could have turned away business to hold a car for this customer. As a result of a mistake by the renter in paying by laser card, the car rental company should not be out of pocket.
While the car rental company had room to manoeuvre in this situation, none of these options were mentioned in the article. Additional insurance could have been prepaid along with fuel and a small deposit taken to cover any possible liability in the case of damage.
Of course, I’m presuming the car rental company were acting in a fair way which may be completely wrong. The car rental company could have had no cars left and because the payment was made by laser card, had grounds on which to refuse a car. .
In Ireland you cannot rent a car with a laser card or debit cards because the car rental company cannot put a hold on funds until the car is returned safely, as would happen when you check into a hotel.
The moral of the story is please use a credit card when renting a car, and not a laser or debit card which while appearing to act like credit cards do not offer any security for the car rental company. A company renting you something worth maybe 35k will want to protect themselves and only a credit card allows themselves to do this.
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The number of new cars sold in a country has always been one of the main barometers to the health of the economy. Unsurprisingly, car sales have slumped in Ireland when compared with 2008, down over 60% year on year.
Figures from the motor industry show that car sales are down 39% for June 2009 when compared with the same month in 2008. While the June figures appear to show a much smaller drop in car sales figures when compared with the rest of the year, June 2008 had experienced low levels of sales.
While car sales figures are usually viewed in isolation, the car rental market in Ireland during 2008 was responsible for over 12% of all car sales. To the year to date, car rental companies have been responsible for over 10% of all registrations, but the difference of 2% hides the actual figures which are drastic. The total number of new cars supplied to the car rental market has declined by 70% from January to May, or from over 14,000 cars during 2008 to over 4,000 cars during 2009.
With such a massive decline in new cars being purchased by the car rental sector, there is concern that prices could be pushed up. Fewer visitors are expected in Ireland during 2008 which will go some way to ease demand, but car rental companies are also bound to be approaching 2009 with a very cautious outlook, focusing more on fleet usage wherever possible.
“We did a forecast at the end of the first quarter and we did three different scenarios and in the worst case scenario, the numbers visiting the island of Ireland would be down 8 per cent. So we would expect 8 million overseas visitors to visit this year, compared to 8.8 million in 2008.” – Tourism Ireland
In previous years car dealers supplied the car rental market with buy backs, where they would sell the car to the car rental agency with an agreed price for the car to be bought back by the dealer at the end of an agreed timeframe. This allowed car rental companies to expand their fleet during peak periods.
However, the credit crunch and declining sales figures for new cars has left many car dealers in Ireland with yards full to the brim with aging stock, and not wanting to take cars back they had previously sold.
There are many factors to be considered when comparing car rental costs to the tourist including short supply of cars. Many car rental firms will be using aging stock which are likely to be more costly to run, and harder to upgrade to newer stock. Used cars have to be sold by the car rental companies, which have also fell heavily in price over the last 12 months.
Many car rental companies will end up with an aging stock with high mileage and high maintenance costs. Car rental companies such as Thrifty Car Rental are working hard to modernise their fleet and grow market share.
Paul Redmond, chief executive of the Car Rental Council has recently said that while dealers were willing to engage in car hire schemes, the tightening of credit has led to banks refusing to take the risk associated with the value of cars being bought back.
“Dealers have cleared their used car stocks and the banks have moved to reduce their credit facilities so having reduced stock to very low levels they are left with no funding to restock or to engage in car hire programmes. A relief allowed to tourists since the early 1990s that meant they didn’t have to pay a proportion of the vehicle registration tax that applies in Ireland is being abandoned by the Government from 2010.” – Paul Redmond – Car Rental Council Chief Executive
Related Stories
- Car rental woes to impact tourists
- Retail sales plunged in April, led by motors
Info Ireland – Travel in Ireland Blog by Travel in Ireland is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at the Info Ireland Blog.
GPS Hire Prices in Ireland 2009
I have previously looked at this topic (GPS Rental Prices in Ireland), and I thought it might be worth having another look at. Car hire charges in Ireland are always the subject of much controversy (rightly or wrongly), but the additional extras which probably do not form part of the decision making process for many people can really add up.
| Company | Daily Rate | Weekly Rate | |
| Thrifty Car Rental | - | €10 | €50 |
| Atlas Car Hire.com | - | €10 | €50 |
| e Car Rental Ireland | - | €10 | €50 |
| Malone Car Rental | - | €10 | €50 |
| County Car Rental | - | €9 | €63 |
| Dan Dooley | - | €9.90 | €69.3 |
| Car Hire.ie | - | €10 | €70 |
| Irish Car Rental | - | €10 | €70 |
| Hertz Rent a Car | - | €10 | €70 |
| Avis Rent a Car | - | €15 | €75 |
| Europcar | - | €11.35 | €79.45 |
| Budget Car Rental | - | €15 | €105 |
| Others | Daily Rate | Weekly Rate | |
| Sat Nav Hire*** | - | €4 Per Day*** | €28 Per Week |
***Sat Nav Hire.ie is available to Irish residents only and works on a postal system. A ‘pre auth’ will be preformed on your credit card as security, but I have not been able to find out how much this is for.
Considering some of the more expensive prices per week (e.g. Budget Car Rental), it would make sense for people to purchase their own sat nav system before travelling to Ireland. You can buy a Garmin 200w with UK & Ireland maps on Memoryc.com for €136.08.
Info Ireland – Travel in Ireland Blog by Travel in Ireland is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at the Info Ireland Blog.
