Galway Double Decker Buses

Stevolende · 01-07-2015 11:37am #1

I've been wondering what the story is on double decker buses in town. I know that 409 uses them most of the time, but not all. Seem to revert to single deckers at odd times.
I know that there were a bunch of new buses put on the 409 route about a month and a half ago which I've seen popping up on other routes intermittently. So I've been wondering if other routes are trying out double deckers or if it is just purely randomly what buses are spare at that moment that measn they are cropping up elsewhere.

Is the 409 the busiest service or just supposedly the most frequent. I don't have to use other services during rush hour so don't know how crowded buses get. I think the 403 was getting pretty bad at school out time a couple of years ago though.

So just wondering if there are going to be more double deckers appearing or were the 7 added to the 409 route the full budget for new buses for the near future.

Mrs OBumble · 01-07-2015 12:15pm

http://connachttribune.ie/magic-button-for-bus-drivers-to-turn-traffic-lights-green-276/

Not sure that the article is correct about 407 - it's possible they were mistaken for 403, which definitely needs either bigger buses or more of them at peak times during the school year.

I've seen DDs on route 405 a few times, too. Probably not needed there yet, though passenger numbers have been growing as people realise what a handy route it is.

Stevolende · 01-07-2015 12:50pm

Thanks for that. I think I did see a double decker on the 407 and 402 routes. Not sure fi me seeing something on that route once means anything. Would think there were more single decker buses around to run a spare one of those than a double decker if an extra bus was needed rather than them testing out double deckers on the route. But I'd probably notice the substitution of a single decker less so I may well have been seeing that for years and not noticing.
Looks like there is one 'spare' new double decker bus around town so maybe it does just hop between different routes regularly.
Think that article says €1.5million being invested and 4x €250,000 on the 4 new buses plus a couple of other things. So is it all pretty much gone already?

Not quite sure how that turning lights from red to green thing works in terms of other traffic management either.

Mrs OBumble · 01-07-2015 2:47pm

Not a lot of spare single-deckers as far as I can see: sometimes they even need to borrow one of the coaches just to run the city services.

Stevolende · 01-07-2015 3:00pm

Yeah have noticed the substitution of coaches so maybe that is why they needed to buy a 'spare' bus.
Also noticed that it was 5x 250,000 so there's even less over than i was thinking earlier. plus 2 other, older buses so maybe the entire investment is already gone so those will be all the buses for the foreseeable future and they're thinking of selling off routes anyway, presumably. Certainly are elsewhere around the country.
So maybe it is unlikely that there would be any other upgrading on the system anyway.

Yeah probably just seeing the spare bus and thinking it might indicate something other than it does.

I was told 7 new buses had been bought so that looks like it means 5 actual new ones and 2 2nd hand. I was also told that the previous buses that have run on the 409 service since the introduction of double decker buses whenever that was were pretty much falling apart.
Wonder if that is a similar state to the rest of the buses around Galway.
Also noticing that the new double deckers seem to have a wider wheelbase or something than the older ones. You certainly ghear a lot of scraping of pavements etc from these ones. I would assume that just indicated drivers were used to driving narrower buses, or possibly higher ones.

45mhrc7evo1d3n · 02-07-2015 8:53am

I've noticed a shiny new double decker on the 401 route in Salthill recently. It looks very nice.

Iwannahurl · 03-07-2015 3:03pm

Kye Brief Stereo wrote: »

I've noticed a shiny new double decker on the 401 route in Salthill recently. It looks very nice.

I saw two empty double-deckers in Salthill on June 14th.

Like the old days, except there were passengers then.

Mearings · 03-07-2015 3:20pm

ZJ 1394 seems to have serviced a war zone.

snubbleste · 03-07-2015 3:22pm

Iwannahurl wrote: »

I saw two empty double-deckers in Salthill on June 14th.
Like the old days, except there were passengers then.

I never knew there was bus stops on east eyre square decades ago.

Iwannahurl · 03-07-2015 3:50pm

snubbleste wrote: »

I never knew there was bus stops on east eyre square decades ago.

There were lots of buses, by the look of it, so lots of bus stops needed perhaps.

The photo even shows school buses in the Square -- how very old-fashioned.

Mearings · 03-07-2015 5:37pm

Iwannahurl wrote: »

There were lots of buses, by the look of it, so lots of bus stops needed perhaps.
The photo even shows school buses in the Square -- how very old-fashioned.

Not so long ago (if,like me, you were born during The Emergency ).
Newer double-decker reg: VZI 71.

AZI 1 to YZI 999 (May 1965 – Jun 1966); Wiki.

doolox · 03-07-2015 5:54pm

....getting the double deckers like the second on in the picture (Atlanteans...I think they were called) to get from Eyre sq to Mainguard St if a bus was handy when I got off the Oranmore bus in front of the Rail Station. I used to go to school in St Pats National and then across the river to St Josephs secondary, run by the same order of Brothers at that time, Patrician Brothers.

Later on in lifes path I used to get the Salthill bus out to the nightclubs in the late 70's early 80's when Salthill was the centre of Galway nightlife at that time although the city centre pubs had better atmosphere from 9.30 to 11.00pm when they closed.

Mearings · 03-07-2015 5:59pm

The Transport Museum's Atlantean D44 (1966)

http://www.nationaltransportmuseum.org/b003.html

Iwannahurl · 03-07-2015 6:19pm

Roughly how many passengers can these double-decker buses accommodate (seated only, or standing as well)?

Mrs OBumble · 03-07-2015 7:12pm

Dublin Bus quote a standard DD has having 74 seats (http://www.dublinbus.ie/en/Your-Journey1/Bus-Hire/). Dunno if these are larger or smaller.

No standing allowed upstairs. But it's fine downstairs - provided the passengers are prepared to get cozy (as happened with a group of loud-talking visiting foreign students on a bus i was on during the week!), id' say they could get 90-100 passengers aboard.

45mhrc7evo1d3n · 03-07-2015 7:16pm

Iwannahurl wrote: »

I saw two empty double-deckers in Salthill on June 14th.

Like the old days, except there were passengers then.

What a great photo, thanks for sharing

. I never knew there were double decker buses in Galway in years gone by, and "hop-on/hop-off" ones at that.

You may well be right about the lack of passengers on the Salthill bus, or at least the lack of paying ones. On the relatively rare occasions when we do get the 401 from Upper Salthill into Eyre Square at the weekends or a weekday evening,I usually notice that the number of bus-pass passengers greatly outnumbers paying passengers. I have wondered how Bus Eireann makes money on the route.

I believe the frequency of the Sunday service has been increased for the Summer months and apparently capacity has also been increased by using double deckers on the route. Shame if it's not being utilised.

Mrs OBumble · 03-07-2015 9:14pm

Kye Brief Stereo wrote: »

...I usually notice that the number of bus-pass passengers greatly outnumbers paying passengers. I have wondered how Bus Eireann makes money on the route.

BÉ's Galway city services are subsidised.

And there are people like me who look like bus-pass passengers (as in we flash a pass at the driver), but actually have a TaxSaver or similar weekly or monthly tix.

45mhrc7evo1d3n · 03-07-2015 9:43pm

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

BÉ's Galway city services are subsidised.

And there are people like me who look like bus-pass passengers (as in we flash a pass at the driver), but actually have a TaxSaver or similar weekly or monthly tix.

Not surprised to hear the service is subsidised, long may it continue.

While I generally disapprove of making assumptions based on appearance, I think it's fair to say that the passengers I have observed with a bus-pass are availing of "free travel". Nothing wrong with that, just saying that in my limited experience, the 401 is not making much money on off-peak services. On the very rare occasions I have travelled by bus at peak times, the passenger profile has been more varied. For the record, I would use the bus more often if there was a frequent route from Salthill to UCHG/NUIG.

Iwannahurl · 04-07-2015 1:47pm

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Dublin Bus quote a standard DD has having 74 seats (http://www.dublinbus.ie/en/Your-Journey1/Bus-Hire/). Dunno if these are larger or smaller.

No standing allowed upstairs. But it's fine downstairs - provided the passengers are prepared to get cozy (as happened with a group of loud-talking visiting foreign students on a bus i was on during the week!), id' say they could get 90-100 passengers aboard.

Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) can carry roughly 20,000-40,000 passengers per direction per hour, based on a capacity of 100-150 passengers per articulated bus.

I wonder does this mean that 75-seater double-decker buses running at high frequency on a QBC could carry, say, 5000 passengers per direction per hour?*

If so, that's would be a lot of cars taken off the road, using just one bus route.

*EDIT -- The answer is No, or at least Yes, but:

Source: https://www.nationaltransport.ie/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Bus-Rapid-Transit-Core-Network-Report.pdf

Stevolende · 07-07-2015 10:29am

That figure of €250,000 per bus keeps coming back to me. Seems a heck of a lot and I'm not sure why it translates to that figure.
Just odd that I regularly ride in something that cost a quarter of a million Euro.

But at least hopefully it won't break down.
Not sure what happened to the previous buses, were they scrapped or put onto other routes. Certainly haven't noticed any double deckers on the route recently being the old style. But am still surprised to see single deckers, hopefully they have learned not to run them at rush hour though.

Galway Double Decker Buses

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