WHILE WE wait for Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann to introduce “real-time” passenger information, private operator John O’Sullivan (right) has motored ahead and fitted the technology to his Dublin Coach buses, which operate between Portlaoise and Dublin airport 16 times a day.

Founded in early 2008, Dublin Coach has installed GPS tracking systems that will allow passengers to monitor bus arrival times or flight information via the web or an iPhone. It’s a welcome (if long overdue) innovation.

Dublin Coach is carrying about 800 people a day and O’Sullivan told me this week that it’s “breaking even at this point”. It has five coaches that cost the guts of €2 million to put on the road.

This is O’Sullivan’s latest transport incarnation. He founded Aircoach in 1999, breaking Dublin Bus’s monopoly on carrying passengers to the capital’s airport with its swish big blue coaches

The Clare entrepreneur sold 90 per cent of the company to First Group, a British operator, in 2003 for €15 million before selling the balance for €1.5 million. He parted company with Aircoach in mid-2005.

O’Sullivan and his wife Una also run the Quick Park car park in Santry, the first private operator to challenge the Dublin Airport Authority’s car park monopoly. The land is owned by developer Gerry Gannon.

Park Fly Ltd’s 2007 accounts show it made a pre-tax profit of €790,000.

O’Sullivan said it was “around break-even” in 2008 as the number of passengers at Dublin airport began to slip. “We’re running fast to stand still,” he told me.

O’Sullivan said the car park would handle about the same number of vehicles this year, due in part to price cuts earlier this year to stimulate demand.

“We’ve been impacted by the downturn but we’re doing well in terms of market share.”