Bus Fares

lodgepole

Absolute shower of kunts

Hiking the price is one thing, but this fare will require a 5c coin at all times. Which is the biggest pain in the fupping arse. How can such a ****ty bus service justify raising their prices again? I spent a year living in Toronto and i've been on the verge of smashing bus stops since i've been home such is the frustration of waiting on them.

netwhizkid

Man go back to Toronto, If you have a problem with that it only gets worse, I presume you haven't ventured onto an Irish train yet. I have relative that returned here from Abroad, I tried to convince them to have a brain scan in case there was anything wrong! I dislike living here alot btw.

RobertFoster

Lodgepole wrote:

How can such a ****ty bus service justify raising their prices again?

Oil prices? At least they're looking into alternatives.

Time Magazine

They're currently running a ~€60m deficit a year.

And they're still crap.

Devon

We need competition. They know they can offer and provide us with a second rate service because they're the only operator. About a year or so ago there was a new company that ran public buses from Tallaght to the Airport with stops in between but I haven't seen one in ages.

Binomate

Oh noes. The fares have gone up by a whole 5 cent. That'll cost you an extra euro every twenty journeys. Oh God, the horror...

muffin_man

Yeah but it goes up 5c every year! Well almost anyway. Now that each fare has 5c added to it you'll prob end up putting in 10c unless you have a 5 handy! I know you get the refund and all but hey, who actually goes into cash them in, especially when it's only 5c. They might as well have upped the price by 10c!

John R

jerryadams wrote:

We need competition. They know they can offer and provide us with a second rate service because they're the only operator.

If you really want to se what a second rate service is then open competition is the way to go, bus de-regulation was a disaster in the UK.

jerryadams wrote:

About a year or so ago there was a new company that ran public buses from Tallaght to the Airport with stops in between but I haven't seen one in ages.

They cut the service because it wasn't profitable.

There is a private operator running Blanchardstown-Airport-Swords.
A single fare from Blanchardstown to Swords is €4.00.

OptimusMime

netwhizkid wrote:

I dislike living here alot btw.

Well then emigrate, or more preferably do something to make this place a bit better to live in!

That's not meant to be a personal jibe, I'm just sick of people bitching and moaning and doing nothing to improve this place.

Oh and OT, we need bus de-reg like a hole in the head, just look at the UK where bus services were decimated because they were unprofitable.

I'd like to see a European(with relevant experience, obviously) brought in to head up CIE and fix it; how come Holland and France etc can have excellent integrated public transport systems and not us; but I doubt the old boys club who currently run the show(both politically and industrially) wouldn't be up for that.

Rabies

5c isn't much. Oil prices, inflation and workers wage demands have to be taken in to consideration.

bounty

OptimusMime wrote:

Well then emigrate...

i hate people who reply with this cliche smart answer to a complaint, ffs think of something original, do you walk away from all your problems?


haha, i cant belive people pay to waste time waiting for late buses, maybe be forced to stand up in a squashed aisle, listening to spanish students old people teenagers and scumbags, smelling the drunks and catching something off the sick people

KTRIC

bounty wrote:

haha, i cant belive people pay to waste time waiting for late buses, maybe be forced to stand up in a squashed aisle, listening to spanish students old people teenagers and scumbags, smelling the drunks and catching something off the sick people

I hear ya, I shell out a huge amount each year on insurance, road tax and motorbike repayments just so I don't have to sit next to the great unwashed on my way to work in the morning.

luckat

The whole idea of paying cash for bus journeys is fairly outdated. You can buy two-journey tickets for the various fares, and probably some time in the distant future there's supposed to be an electronic card coming in; it was first tested in 1995, so it should be here any decade now.

lodgepole

Binomate wrote:

Oh noes. The fares have gone up by a whole 5 cent. That'll cost you an extra euro every twenty journeys. Oh God, the horror...

Actually it's less the cost and more the inconvenience and the principle. I don't carry copper money around with me, and I don't think a bus service which should have speed and efficiency high on its list of priorities should require such a small coin. Unless it's there to increase the amount of change tickets that go unclaimed.

Listen... I don't care about the actual cost. I paid can$2.50 for every journey I took on public transport when I lived in Toronto. But I never waited for longer than 2 minutes, I could get within 2 minutes walk of any location in Toronto from wherever I was (through transfer tickets) and the service was fast.

Dublin Bus have done nothing to improve their service in the last few years but we are still seeing the price go up. Last week I was waiting for either of two buses. I was at the stop at four o' clock and one was due at 4:05 and another at 4:15. The one that was due at 4:05 arrived and left at 4:55. It wasn't even a case of the 4:05 not arriving and this being the next scheduled... If that was the case he was leaving early. And the worst part was that the bus that eventually took us had been sitting just below the bus stop since I had got there.

There are countless examples of how Dublin Bus is failing at their job. If they were to announce a fare increase to €2 but provided an actual improvements for that (ticket machine at stops, transferable tickets, guaranteed reliability) I would be singing and dancing their praises.

luckat

Everyone carries mobile phones now. If your bus is late, phone the garage controlling it and ask the controller politely where it is at the time: "I'm waiting for the 2.55 16A from Tallaght, do you know where it's reached on the route now, please?"

If it became the norm for people to do this, I suspect that the bus service might improve.

Tha Gopher

What I hate the most about Dublin bus is that there are stops which have advertising which is regularly updated/changed, yet they cant be arsed putting a timetable on the stop (or else, they bother replacing the ad posters but dont bother replacing the timetable that has been scratched to fcuk by vandals)

And whys there usually no proper seating at any bus stop? I heard its to keep the homeless off sleeping on them but tbh how many homeless people sleep rough in Blanch? Theyre all in town.

As for the Urbus someone mentioned earlier have never used it, way too pricey.

luckat

Yes, the homeless are a terrible danger all right.

Back in the bad old days when Ireland was poor we didn't have people sleeping on the street - at least, it was very unusual. Then, mentally ill people tended to live in mental hospitals, and there was a large programme of council house and flat building. The idea of a *child* sleeping rough was inconceivable.

But we do things better now.

Civilian_Target

You all bitch and moan about Dublin Bus - I think they deliver a pretty decent service at a very reasonable price. Try looking around at other places - you can easily do a whole lot worse.

Binomate

Civilian_Target wrote:

You all bitch and moan about Dublin Bus - I think they deliver a pretty decent service at a very reasonable price. Try looking around at other places - you can easily do a whole lot worse.

I couldn't agree anymore. I don't know what bus service everyone else is getting in this thread, it sounds like a horrible bus company, but the one I get is grand.

Civilian_Target

Civilian_Target wrote:

You all bitch and moan about Dublin Bus - I think they deliver a pretty decent service at a very reasonable price. Try looking around at other places - you can easily do a whole lot worse.

Agreed.

Stark

It totally depends on what route you're on. I used to get the 123 bus regularly and that service was absolutely brilliant. These days I get the 38. It's okay most of the time, but you get the problem of drivers waiting for ages at the termini, then driving off leaving passengers standing. There are also more "out of service" buses than there should be on the route. If you live somewhere like Malahide, then expect terrible service.

My therapist says I'm not allowed bitch about Cork buses anymore...

Alkers

That price hike is pretty silly tbh. They should round them up to a more manageably figures e.g. €1, €1.50, €2 etc so there isn't as much messing with changeand what not. I mean what difference is 5cent here and there going to make to their losses, may as well increase them to handy figures. They're still very cheap compared to busses in most other countries I've been to.

John R

Simona1986 wrote:

That price hike is pretty silly tbh. They should round them up to a more manageably figures e.g. €1, €1.50, €2 etc so there isn't as much messing with changeand what not. I mean what difference is 5cent here and there going to make to their losses, may as well increase them to handy figures. They're still very cheap compared to busses in most other countries I've been to.

The bus fare increases are all political. Every year or two the same stupid game is played. CIE (and now LUAS) ask for a 10/15/20% increase at the beginning of December, it usually reaches the papers with some snide comments on how terrible they are then just before Christmas the govermnent announce that they are agreeing to a small increase, they think it makes them look good.

No account is taken of how these increases will effect how the service is run, a few years ago at the time of the Euro changeover Dublin Bus applied to merge the two lowest fares into a single fare of €1, it was rejected by the government because they were afraid of being accused of raising fares.


For those moaning about having to have lots of coppers the solution is simple. Go in to your local shop and buy a bunch of pre-paid tickets. They will be at the lower fare for a few months and for many journeys they are cheaper than cash fares to begin with.

Dave!

F*cking hell! I hate Dublin Bus.

It'd be great if some motivated person (not me) were to organise a boycott or something. I'd cycle to college every day rather than get 2 buses, if I thought it made a difference to them.

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

I like dublin bus - low price, quite frequent, good coverage, (usually) polite staff...

Smurfpiss

Dublin bus is alright i guess.. i mean it usually gets you there. but they're never on time and usually stink of wee.
price hike seems awkward but i'll live with it.
I have to agree with the OP, my parents live in toronto and it is one hell of a good transport system. completely integrated. you can get transfers from metro to either bus or tram at each station. And they are very frequent, clean and good value when you consider you could theoretically travel the entire city on one fare.

spiderlegs

I have a love hate relationship with Dublin Bus.Sometimes they're great, they're on time the busman lets me on for free and it's not packed and I'm happy.Other times, they leave me waiting twenty minutes in the freezing cold and rain and get me squashed between strangers.it all depends.

lodgepole

Civilian_Target wrote:

You all bitch and moan about Dublin Bus - I think they deliver a pretty decent service at a very reasonable price. Try looking around at other places - you can easily do a whole lot worse.

Which routes do you use regularly out of interest? I know that when I was in college I was well serviced by the 46a. But from home I get the 15 or 15b, the 49, the 75 and the 65. None of which are reliable.

Take today for example, just after I started this thread. I left for the bus giving five minutes for it to come from the terminus (15). The bus came 25 minutes late, not coinciding with any bus on the timetable. Getting the same bus home this evening from college street I was there at 6:15 with a bus due at 6:25. No bus came until the next scheduled bus at 6:50. These aren't isolated incidents and it doesn't matter that they only occur on certain routes. I can't rely on Dublin Bus. I just can't... If I have to be somewhere then I have to either leave with ample time to allow for their lack of punctuality or convince somebody to drive me. That's not the kind of service that a capital city should have.

I stand by everything i've said previously. A price hike is fine in principle but we won't see any benefit from the extra 5c that we're going to have to pay from next week on. The service will remain adequate for some and poor for others.

Don't even get me started on the 75...

senordingdong

Lodgepole wrote:

How can such a ****ty bus service justify raising their prices again?

You've said it right there.

Civilian_Target

Stark wrote:

It totally depends on what route you're on. I used to get the 123 bus regularly and that service was absolutely brilliant. These days I get the 38. It's okay most of the time, but you get the problem of drivers waiting for ages at the termini, then driving off leaving passengers standing. There are also more "out of service" buses than there should be on the route. If you live somewhere like Malahide, then expect terrible service.

Nawt wrong with the 38/A - especially given that you're 15k from the city centre out there. Sure, there's a lack of decent cross city service, particularly to the airport - but overall, miles ahead of somewhere like Belfast.

And the arkward price of the normal tickets aren't really a huge deal anyway - most frequent users have prepaid tickets, its way handier.

I'm a definite believer though that they should integrate the whole lot, and seperate the whole city into 4 or 5 zones, and just have zonal pricing for the whole lot, and a single card to do everything as well.

projectmayhem

my regular routes (19/19A) are great tbh. i have no issues whatsoever with this price "hike" (it's 5c more. if you hate it so much queue in the traffic in a car or pay for a taxi)... it's hardly going to break the bank. years ago i would have had the opinion that dublin bus were a shower of idiots, but they've improved massively.

some routes are obviously still horrendous, but the price increase may help solve some problems. i've noticed they got some newer buses now, with tinted windows. pimp my bus, indeed.