Bus Services in Limerick City

The timetables on the Raheen and Castletroy (University of Limerick) routes are nothing short of insulting lies. They could win an award for the greatest work of fiction.

The UL one is allegedly every 15 mins most of the day. Surprisingly enough, every single day there is more traffic at peak time, and the buses are late. Of course if Bus Éireann printed a realistic timetable there would be fewer services listed at peak times (due to the buses stuck in traffic). Of course what is needed is *extra* services at peak times.

Add to this the fact that the buses do not stick to the timetable *outside* of peak traffic for the most part, probably because they are randomly servicing the route as fast as they can because technically every single bus is still late. From an observer though, it can end up looking like buses leaving 5-10 mins early. It is impossible to rely on the timetable, even if from the city centre at certain times of day (e.g. evening) the buses leave mostly at the allocated time.

Seriously, the way the buses are being run at the moment is an affront to the customers. I have had days where over an hour and a half of my time is wasted waiting for buses on the UL route where I should never have to wait more than 15 minutes.

It's idiotic - it's not even sensible for Bus Éireann not to run the services properly; it frequently ends up a couple of lightly loaded buses skimming out early, and then a single bus trying to cram heaploads of people onto it 40 minutes later.

They probably need to maintain the fiction of someway adequate services at peak time (as opposed to grossly inadequate) - in that instance what they should do is surrepticiously cancel services they can't fulfill due to traffic instead of not running to the timetable for most of the rest of the day.

does anyone know if theres a bus going from limerick city out to ul round 5ish????? and if so from where!!!!xoxo

Hi Victor,

There are a lot of things in this map that are not explicit in the timetable. That's the point of the map.

A lot of this comes from knowledge of seeing the buses in the city, while also TransportforIreland.ie gives fairly incomprehensible timetables for each license awarded.

When you make sense of these, not an easy feat, you find out officially what routes BE have a license to operate.

So to confirm:

The 301 does operate via Shannon Banks on way to Westbury only. The terminus officially should be at the church, however I've never actually seen the terminus to confirm. For example, I do pass the General Hospital every day, but have yet to see a 301 wait its time there, so Westbury could be something similar.

The 301 does serve the Industrial Estate at the hours indicated. I work there, so I see it everyday.

The 301 also should serve Edward Street but from observation doesn't seem to the majority of times. However, the timetable issued with the license states that it should.

I've seen the 304's around Plassey so they do serve here.

With regards to Maigue Way, looking at this the terminus point after 7pm should be further to the right, but its near enough. After dark this is the official terminus point, can't say I do be around there much after dark to observe.

The 303's routing in O'Malley Park, is the old 309's routing around there. What I haven't confirmed yet, is that Sarsfield Gardens isn't served after 7pm, the map doesn't indicate. Officially, the NTA indicates that it should serve these stops, however I have my doubts that it does. Its more likely to head straight to the Craeval Park turning loop straight down Moyross Main Road.

The 305 has to use this square to turn round at St. Mary's Park, the BE map is a spider map, such detail is irrelevant as there are no stops on this loop.

At Lynwood, there are stops (in true Limerick fashion these stops are actually not marked with poles stuck in the ground) and the bus operates in the fashion shown.

The OSI link you gave doesn't seem to go anywhere. Not sure I understand the point. I drive around here, so i should have got it right, but I can't notice the glaring error. The 304 can be hard to follow in this area, as it takes all the one-way streets given it serves William Street and Henry Street in both directions as per the City Centre stops map.

Hope this clarifies.

Hi,I have been reading through some of the comments re:the bad service in Limerick and after my last visit I decided I would try to see if I could make any sence as the publicity out there is terrible and not very useful.I have worked in public transport in North East England for over 25 years in publicity and timetabeling/schedules so know a little on how to make sence of documents. So using the excellent map as drawn by dublinbusstuff I stared using the licences and timetables at the Transport for Ireland site and along with using the journey planner along with the planner as used by Bus Eireann I think I have nearly cracked the maze that is Limerick city services,on paper-god knows how they run on the street. I contacted the website in Dublin after I spotted several things were wrong,having used a system in England I followed my path and they will be changing a few items.
When I have finished I will send them to Bus Eireann and see if they can do something with the information to change the way they put out bad publicity.