Could bus stops on busy routes be further apart?

shltter

Flukey wrote:

Yes it does. It has just been introduced at the beginning of October. I only saw it for the first time last week. There should be more buses going out the Stillorgan Road towards Bray. The 84 is not frequent enough, so this is welcome. Another bus serving Stillorgan is the 746 from the airport, but again it is not very frequent.

but you could get the 5minute service on the 46a into town
then get the 10 minute sevice on the 41's to the airport

Flukey

I am not concerned about going to the airport, just pointing out that like most of the other buses, it doesn't serve Stillorgan very often. People in the area have the Aircoach which provides a 15 minute interval service to the airport, so they are more likely to go for that rather than a two bus option. Dublin Bus, in their wisdom, :rolleyes: are not likely to change their mind on the bypassing of Stillorgan at rush hour so there is not much point in us continually debating it.

We should move on to something else other than the service of Stillorgan village. There are far bigger problems with Dublin Bus than that, like not having a decent night service. There is a need for more imaginative routes linking suburbs instead of the "into town and back out" option to get to somewhere that wasn't that far from where you started. There are some routes that don't go into the city at all, but there is a need for a lot more of them. There are some that cross the city, but there is a need for more of those too. They could also try some novel ideas like circular routes, instead of ones that go back and forth between two points by the same route. Circular routes, with one designated terminus, could be good to link nearby suburbs. They could have buses running clockwise and anti-clockwise along the route. There are a lot of large areas of population or areas of work that are not properly served, like the IFSC which has been mentioned. I'd love to get into Dublin Bus and address some of the yawning gaps in their service and give them a few imaginative ideas as well as the downright obvious solutions to problems that everyone bar them can see.

antoinolachtnai

I agree completely about inter-suburb routes. It strikes me that the obvious thing to do would be to have a number of circular routes serving the M50 and surrounding areas, with high quality, covered luas-style stations at the intersections. This would effectively mean that you could get to or from any point near the M50 to any other point around Dublin by taking a maximum of two buses, and without going into the centre. That has to be something that would be worth doing.

It would obviously not be cheap to do, because you would need 100 or more buses and some civil engineering for stations and bus priority, but the capital cost would still be less than EUR 100 million, a tiny fraction of the cost of any of the tunneled rail projects that are proposed. It would benefit literally hundreds of thousands of people within two or three years.

shltter

antoinolachtnai wrote:

I agree completely about inter-suburb routes. It strikes me that the obvious thing to do would be to have a number of circular routes serving the M50 and surrounding areas, with high quality, covered luas-style stations at the intersections. This would effectively mean that you could get to or from any point near the M50 to any other point around Dublin by taking a maximum of two buses, and without going into the centre. That has to be something that would be worth doing.

It would obviously not be cheap to do, because you would need 100 or more buses and some civil engineering for stations and bus priority, but the capital cost would still be less than EUR 100 million, a tiny fraction of the cost of any of the tunneled rail projects that are proposed. It would benefit literally hundreds of thousands of people within two or three years.

there is /was aplan (not from dublin bus) called the circle plan which was something similar to that
reckoned they could provide a better service with less buses
involved feeder buses

shltter

Flukey wrote:

I am not concerned about going to the airport, just pointing out that like most of the other buses, it doesn't serve Stillorgan very often. People in the area have the Aircoach which provides a 15 minute interval service to the airport, so they are more likely to go for that rather than a two bus option. Dublin Bus, in their wisdom, :rolleyes: are not likely to change their mind on the bypassing of Stillorgan at rush hour so there is not much point in us continually debating it.

We should move on to something else other than the service of Stillorgan village. There are far bigger problems with Dublin Bus than that, like not having a decent night service. There is a need for more imaginative routes linking suburbs instead of the "into town and back out" option to get to somewhere that wasn't that far from where you started. There are some routes that don't go into the city at all, but there is a need for a lot more of them. There are some that cross the city, but there is a need for more of those too. They could also try some novel ideas like circular routes, instead of ones that go back and forth between two points by the same route. Circular routes, with one designated terminus, could be good to link nearby suburbs. They could have buses running clockwise and anti-clockwise along the route. There are a lot of large areas of population or areas of work that are not properly served, like the IFSC which has been mentioned. I'd love to get into Dublin Bus and address some of the yawning gaps in their service and give them a few imaginative ideas as well as the downright obvious solutions to problems that everyone bar them can see.

yeah okay think that one is done to death

as regards new routes and route extensions or changes
the department of transport will not allow dublin bus to introduce new routes
change routes or extend routes except in exceptional cases
that has been the position for the last couple of years
dont know if it has changed since brennan got the boot

antoinolachtnai

Yes, the circle plan. I found this online: http://www.gov.ie/committees-29/c-publicenterprise/20031021-J/Page1.htm

The problem with not introducing new routes has to do with the government's plan to partly restructure Dublin Bus. They're not going to allow Dublin Bus to expand and recruit, then have to pay the cost of restructuring it later.

Personally, I think that there is an argument for doing this sort of restructuring, but the government should either get on and do it regardless of the consequences, or else forget about it.

One obvious way around this would be to bring in a new bus company to run 'circle' style routes with completely separate operations from Dublin Bus. Tickets would have to work on both services, of course. There would have to be a big government injection involved to make it worth anyone's while doing this. (Exactly the same was done with the Luas.)

shltter

yes thats the reason but brennan is gone and people need services now

it was not restructuring it was gradual privitisation
there was no real restructuring of dublin bus just taking 25% of dublin bus and giving it to private operators to operate to start with and gradually franchising all of its services

cant see the sense in setting up another bus company when there is already one there

Flukey

One company would do, if it was run right. We as passengers can see all the obvious problems that would not take much to sort out. There are obvious flaws that if were addressed could help to make more money. We hear complaints that they don't make profits and yet in many areas they don't provide a proper service. The amount of potential passengers that are just driven past by the Nitelink is a classic example. Stopping scheduled services at 11:30pm when there are still thousands of customers that want the service is madness for a company that wants to make money. At times you feel like saying "Dublin Bus should do something really radical: Provide a bus service."

John R

Flukey wrote:

One company would do, if it was run right. We as passengers can see all the obvious problems that would not take much to sort out. There are obvious flaws that if were addressed could help to make more money. We hear complaints that they don't make profits and yet in many areas they don't provide a proper service. The amount of potential passengers that are just driven past by the Nitelink is a classic example. Stopping scheduled services at 11:30pm when there are still thousands of customers that want the service is madness for a company that wants to make money. At times you feel like saying "Dublin Bus should do something really radical: Provide a bus service."

The whole "we should have a full night bus service" is complete rubbish.

Almost all routes post 10pm in all directions are lightly used, services to the city are almost empty.

Monday - Thursday, despite the 1 hour + gap after regular services stopped the 00.30 or 1am Nitelinks are never close to full.

The Mon - Thurs service has been cut back in frequency and routes because it was not well used and was not making close to a profit.

Dublin is not a 24 hour city, apart from the city centre the streets are practically empty and even the city centre does not generate hugh amounts of custom except for Friday and Saturday nights. expecting a full night bus service is just ridiculous.

Civilian_Target

About the stops, this seems to be only an N11 problem: I take the 33/41 to work every morning. My route would take about 35 mins to walk (and I walk quickly), it's about 2 and a bit miles long, through Santry. On this route there's 6 stops, including the one I get off at, which is one every 5 mins walk. It's slightly too many, I agree, but every stop is justified, except for perhaps the one at the back Morton Stadium. Overall, I think the solution though is more busses at peak times, not fewer stops. With more busses, the frequecy of the stops will naturally reduced. And I don't know about your busess, but there's barely room to breathe on the 41 out of town in the morning...

Flukey

JohnR, I am not expecting a full all night bus service, but stopping altogether at 11:30 is ridiculous. Naturally there is a drop in demand from about 10pm. People are all out socialising or whatever else they may be doing by then. The buses have been bringing them there for the past couple of hours. Then we have the lull, like we do between other busy parts of the day, but then those people start wanting to go home again later, but the buses aren't there.

As to Nitelinks, part of it is that people don't use them because they don't expect buses to be running. People have got used to there not being any buses, so they automatically start going for taxis. There are no buses to be seen when they come out on the street so they head for taxis. Still, you will see plenty of people waiting for buses after 11:30 not realising that there are none. You'll often get a look of shock from them if you tell them this as you are passing by.

Scheduled services should run later than 11:30 certainly. The Nitlelink runs a very limited service, outbound only and only picking up at a few stops. That is why people don't use it. If you've ever stood at a Nitelink stop, or anywhere after 11:30 you'll see taxi after taxi after taxi, full with people going to places that the buses are not going to anymore. People go for taxis not by choice, but because they know the buses have stopped. You can be certain that a very significant amount of the people that you see getting taxis late at night, probably got the bus into town earlier that night and would get one home or to wherever they are going if they were still running.

I live on the southside. I have a friend who was living on the northside for some time. Usually when we'd meet up we would do so in town. If I was going over to meet for a drink in one of the pubs near him, or he near me, unless we got a taxi we'd have to finish early. If we were in town we'd have the Nitelink, which would be handier for both of us and give us more time, so we rarely drank near each other's homes. On a few occasions when I would have gone over to his local, to get home I would get a taxi into town to get the Nitelink out. So I can't get a bus into the city, but I can get one out. That is a bit silly, isn't it? You could potentially have the situation where you could get the last bus into town and have to wait around for an hour to get another one out to complete your journey.

The taxis do great business at that time because the buses just disappear at 11:30. There are still lots of people that want to get into town or to other places that would use buses if they were running. The Nitlelink is fine if you are right in the centre of the city, but if like me and my friend, you want to cross the city or travel from the suburbs, not even the Nitelink is of any use.

The Nitelink is ok if you are in the centre of town wanting to go out, but if you are in Crumlin wanting to go to Santry or in Phibsborough wanting to go to Rathfarnham or Dun Laoghaire wanting to go to town or whatever, the Nitelink is useless. If you are in the suburbs you might not even get a service as late as 11:30. If the service continued to a proper level for another couple of hours, that would make more sense. People don't stop wanting to travel at 11:30. If they did, the taxis would stop too. People would much rather get a bus than be fleeced by a taxi.

There is a safety issue too. More public transport would make it easier to get the people off the streets late at night. Lots of fights break out in taxi queues because they are there so long. Nitelinks are not 100% safe of course, but they can get a lot more people out of town a lot quicker. Because of the lack of buses a lot of people head to the centre of town instead of to other suburbs, because it is easier for them to get home from. If it was easier to get to and from other places, people would be spread out more, reducing the crowd in town. When it comes to meeting friends anywhere outside the centre of the city, it is usually no problem getting there, but difficult to get home from, because the bus that got you there is no longer running. We have taxis or if you want you can walk or drive, but the buses that bring you to a place early in the evening should still be there at some level of service to bring you back home again. We don't need 24 hour buses, but we do need more after 11:30pm.

Victor

Flukey wrote:

Lots of fights break out in taxi queues because they are there so long.

To be honest, I can't remember the last time I saw a queue (of people) at a taxi rank.

Flukey

You still see queues alright. Personally if I am getting a taxi I'll start walking towards home and hail one on the street, which makes far more sense than standing at a rank. The queues aren't as long now since there are more taxis. There never was a shortage of taxis at night, just a shortage of buses. Even taxi drivers have said to me that they would welcome more buses at night.

shltter

Flukey wrote:

As to Nitelinks, part of it is that people don't use them because they don't expect buses to be running. People have got used to there not being any buses, so they automatically start going for taxis. There are no buses to be seen when they come out on the street so they head for taxis. Still, you will see plenty of people waiting for buses after 11:30 not realising that there are none. You'll often get a look of shock from them if you tell them this as you are passing by.

.

flukey your talking nonsense

people dont expect there to be buses thats crap
i doubt if you will find anyone who socialises in town that does not know about the nitelink
friday and saturday night there is a bus every 20 minutes from 12:30 till 4:30
on about 20 routes plus another 3 routes that go out to ashbourne or balbriggan

it is one of the most heavily advertised services that dublin bus provide

there are two main reasons why the buses dont ooperate back into town
one is security
second is that there are not that many people travelling in to town at that time so it does not make much sense to have a bus working back into town carrying 1 or 2 people and have a 100 people standing in town waiting for it

in your next post you actually prove the point the reason you can get a taxi by starting to walk is that the taxis are coming back into town empty to take someone from town back to the suburbs that is where the demand is


there are no buses to be seen
mmm maybe you should have a look around trinity college d'olier st or westmoreland st

shltter

Flukey wrote:

One company would do, if it was run right. We as passengers can see all the obvious problems that would not take much to sort out. There are obvious flaws that if were addressed could help to make more money. We hear complaints that they don't make profits and yet in many areas they don't provide a proper service. The amount of potential passengers that are just driven past by the Nitelink is a classic example. Stopping scheduled services at 11:30pm when there are still thousands of customers that want the service is madness for a company that wants to make money. At times you feel like saying "Dublin Bus should do something really radical: Provide a bus service."

scheduled services dont stop at 11:30

the nitelinks are a scheduled service a timetable is provided
it makes sense to tighten the service down to 23 routes with a regular 20 minute service rather than spread an irregular service over 50 or 60 routes


the problem is that dublin bus is charged with operating as a commercial company ie that it should be profitable
but it is also charged with providing a public service

hopefully when the new public transport regulator is appointed it will be their job to identify services that should be provided and to provide funding for these services to be provided

Flukey

Scheduled services stop for an hour at 11:30 even if you classify Nitelinks as scheduled. They can reduce service but they shouldn't stop. A company wanting to make a profit, shouldn't be leaving potential customers for an hour without a service and then passing willing and paying customers, by only allowing a few pick up stops on the Nitelink. There are elements of their daytime services that could be iimproved to improve their profits. Sure there are routes that make losses that they still have to serve as part of their public service duty, but there are other areas where they could make improvements and make some money.

shltter

Flukey wrote:

Scheduled services stop for an hour at 11:30 even if you classify Nitelinks as scheduled. They can reduce service but they shouldn't stop. A company wanting to make a profit, shouldn't be leaving potential customers for an hour without a service and then passing willing and paying customers, by only allowing a few pick up stops on the Nitelink. There are elements of their daytime services that could be iimproved to improve their profits. Sure there are routes that make losses that they still have to serve as part of their public service duty, but there are other areas where they could make improvements and make some money.

it is a timetabled service that operates on a set route for a set fare
thats scheduled

what do you suggest that they should start at 11:30 as well

the fact is that there is not really much demand for buses at that time
you dont see queues at the taxi ranks at 11:45 or 12:00

what are the elements of daytime service your talking about tell us

Flukey

There may not be much demand, but there is some and they should be serviced. The "rushing to get the last bus" people would stay a bit longer and be part of the demand after 11:30pm. There is usually lots of people on the last bus, but only because it is the last bus. Lots of them would still be around after 11:30 if they knew there were more buses. There are always lots of people around after 11:30pm. Lots of people miss the 11:30pm bus so they want the service, but have to go for a taxi, start to walk or go off somewhere to kill an hour before the Nitelink. Whatever way you look at it, the demand for a bus service does not completely dry up at 11:30pm and resume again at 12:30am. There should not be that hour of a gap. It should be a lot narrower.

What are the other elements to be improved? I think they've been covered plenty of times in the Communting/Transport forum. Dublin Bus has improved a lot over the past 10 or 15 years, but look through the threads here and you will see areas that could be improved. Everyone here has voiced their opinions on Dublin Bus so there are no shortage of problems and solutions out there.

shltter

you see thats the problem that i tried to point out to you
dublin bus is charged with operating as a commercial company as well as providing a public service
you as a customer dont care how much it costs you want a bus there when you want it irrespective of demand that is the public service you want
however there is not an endless supply of money to deliver the service you are looking for unfortunately dublin bus cannot just provide services because you think its a good idea the cost has to come into it if the demand is not there to sustain the service


the second part of your answer is a cop out you made a statement about things to improve the service and profitability that these were obvious
i asked what they are but you haven't provided an answer yet
what are the problems and solutions that there is no shortage of

Flukey

I know Dublin Bus just can't put buses out anywhere and everywhere when there isn't enough demand. I am using buses for a long time and they have improved the service by extending services and introducing new ones. That is the type of thing I am saying they should continue to do. They've plugged a lot of the gaps in their service. I remember the dark old days of CIE and the service they used to provide. They've brought in new routes and new types of services, like the Swifts and Imps. There was a requirement for those long before they were finally brought in.

What improvements would I like to see? An improved night service, as well you know. No matter what you may say, the current service does not meet the current demand. People do want to travel after 11:30pm and although we have the Nitelink the majority of people that want to travel aren't within 5 minutes walk of the wall of Trinity College or D'Olier St. The Nitelink only serves a small part of the customer market. I've frequently seen or been on half empty Nitelinks, getting emptier as they go out, passing willing and paying customers. With the amount of traffic on the street at that time of the night, picking them up is not going to slow it down much, particularly when they are dropping people off at many of the same stops. Then of course the bus returns empty, again passing customers that want to travel in that direction. Of course at one time we did not even have the Nitelink, so that is an improvement and at first it had even fewer routes and no pick up points, so it is improving, but there is still a large market not being tapped into. There is definitely more money to be made.

We get the arguments that it isn't profitable to provide some services. That can be true but often it has proved not to be the case. A few years ago we were told that serving the airport would not be profitable and there was little or no demand. Along comes Aircoach and suddenly Dublin Bus start running a number of routes, all of which are very busy. They've had to add more since they started. So a lot of the situations do turn out to be profitable when a service is put in.

So what other new things should they add? There should be more buses going into workplaces like industrial estates. Slowly they have been doing that. I know of a number of routes that have been extended into them and there is more scope to do so. Customers also want to be able to get into them, so there should be some runs in between the rush hours too.

We mentioned the IFSC in other threads. Having worked near it for a while, I used to see huge numbers walking down the quays, many of whom, including myself, had got off buses in the city centre. A lot of the buses running down the North Quays could go further down and serve it. With the IFSC and other developments down there, it is like a whole new city, which is hardly served by any bus bar the 53(A). We also have the ferry ports down there and guest and residential accommodation. Many of the companies are running their own buses, because Dublin Bus doesn't go down there. Special buses are put on for the events in the Point, because Dublin Bus doesn't go down there. Some of the existing buses could either go down and loop back around into the city or even have their terminus down there somewhere. There is more and more development going on there, so demand will increase further. Luas intends going there. Dublin Bus should already be there in force. Other growth areas around the city need to be watched too.

Most routes are radial, with the city centre as the hub. Often to get to somewhere, this means getting a bus in towards the city and another back out towards your destination, which wasn't that far from where you started. There are some routes that don't go into the city at all, like the 17 and 18 and there are some that go right through the city. There should be more of both of those kind of buses. With a bit of research they could find out where people travel to and add more routes on some of those areas that would have sufficient traffic. This could also take some pressure off the other routes as not as many people would be using them to go into and out of town, so some of the resources could be got from freeing up those routes a bit.

I mentioned circular style routes in another thread, where instead of going back and forth between two points along the same route, you could have routes that go and return by a different route. This would be handy for linking areas that are near to each other, without going near the city. A sort of a variation on the Imps idea. They could also be used for linking areas within the city. You could have routes that follow the two canals around the city for example. Research and planning could identify viable routes. As has been the experience before, some may prove more profitable than expected. More traffic might be taken off the roads, speeding things up and some pressure could be taken off other routes as I have said.

There are lots of problems on individual routes, where there are not enough services. One good example, is a non-city route (a good thing), the 75 running between Tallaght and Dun Laoghaire. I have had occasion to work in Tallaght and get it from Kilmacud to Tallaght. There is definitely a need for more runs toward Tallaght in the morning. There seems to be more coming from Tallaght than Dun Laoghaire. The 75 has a number of points where it really fills up. Approaching the Industrial Estate, approaching the school just before Ballinteer and coming in towards Tallaght itself. As the bus gets nearer to each of these, it really fills up and often has to pass some stops leaving passengers stranded. The next 75 generally isn't for at least half an hour, so if you miss it or it passes you by, you are stuck. It obviously is not meeting the demand there and just a few extra ones in the morning are needed. That is just one route I am familiar with, having travelled on it often, but I have seen the same kind of thing on other routes and heard similar things from people who travel on other routes. We all know routes that at certain times have certain stops with a lot of people waiting at and have full buses go by them. Some are on well served routes, so an empty one is likely to come by soon, but some are not so well served, yet this happens day after day.

There are a few ideas. I am sure you have a few yourself and others have too. It would be nice if we could all sit down with a map of Dublin, a map of the route network and a few of the management from Dublin Bus. We'd come up with lots of potential ideas that could be looked into. Over the years Dublin Bus has been "Changing with the city" and they are getting closer to "Serving the entire community" but there is scope for more. As a sister company puts it, they are not there yet, but they are getting there.

I don't drive and my work has taken me to different parts of the city for periods of time so I have a lot of experience as a regular passenger on various routes and a particular interest in the whole area. Many of the shortcomings I saw years ago have now been addressed. Hopefully some of the others, like proper night services, will be too. Many of their initiatives have proved far more successful than expected and generated further customers, so some of the things you have doubts about would probably work out a lot better than you expect. Sometimes the demand creates the service, but we have often seen a service creating a bigger demand.

EvilDoctorK

To get back to the original question ... on some bus routes the stops are indeed ridiculously close together

One of the most stunning examples I can think of is on the North Circular Road coming down to Dorset St (at the back of the Mater) - there are two bus stops there which must be under well 100m apart (served by the 122 bus)- small thing I know but there must be countless examples of this in the city.

It might be an idea if there was a minimum distance between stops of say 400m (and maybe then ensure that all stops had shelters) ? ... but I think it would be politically unpopular to remove busstops (as you can see from the above Stillorgan example even if it's not quite the same thing.)

shltter

yeah on a slightly related point dublin bus at one stage introduced hail and ride on some of the imp routes
no bus stops just put out your hand wherever you are
what a disaster ten people on the one road all standing outside their front gates one after another