Shuttle Bus

Marcais

The 7:45am was packed and 8-10 people were turned away. Generally, there are only 7 or 8 people on the 7:30 bus. I will try to sort this obvious mismanagement out.

Keep sending me PMs if there are any issues you have with missed buses, late buses, full buses etc.

The timing of the buses is wrong in a lot of cases as nobody needs to get to the station 20 minutes before the DART.

mikedragon32

The bus which meets the train in the evenings has been filling up noticeably too. It was dangerously overcrowded on Monday when meeting the 18:10 arrival (the diesel train). There are limits to the number of people allowed stand on a bus. On that bus, it's 12 afaik, but I counted 19.

With the addition of a new morning service on the line, perhaps it's about time the timing of the bus service was reviewed?

loyatemu

Marcais wrote:

The 7:45am was packed and 8-10 people were turned away. Generally, there are only 7 or 8 people on the 7:30 bus. I will try to sort this obvious mismanagement out.

there are 2 buses at 7.15 - the regular (yellow) bus goes down to the crescent and picks up along the spine road. a smaller minibus waits opposite Godfathers Pizza and they then go to the station together. I was on the larger bus this morning and it was reasonably full though no-one was standing.

Both buses then return to charlesland, but only the yellow one does the 0730 run. The next run after that is listed on the timetable as 0750 (for the 0805 train) - is there 2 buses on this run?

loyatemu

mikedragon32 wrote:

The bus which meets the train in the evenings has been filling up noticeably too. It was dangerously overcrowded on Monday when meeting the 18:10 arrival (the diesel train). There are limits to the number of people allowed stand on a bus. On that bus, it's 12 afaik, but I counted 19

the real problems occur when the Gorey train (1817 arrival) is running late, as it then picks up a lot of passengers who normally get the following Dart and the bus can't cope with these extra numbers.

Marcais

Changing the 7:30 bus to 7:40 would solve one problem. No need for an empty 7:30 and a full 7:45 for a 7:54 Arrow. I'll try to get on to the Res. Committee to get this changed unless anyone sees a reason why 7:30 makes any sense?

Charlie-Bravo

I think I've mentioned this before...have the bus go round and round every 15 or minutes...if someone wants to be early for the train in the morning they time it themselves and don't rely on the bus...if they want to chance it, they get a bus closer to the time. This way at least you have a choice and have nothing to complain about if you manage to miss your DART!

I see that if you are working in the village and leave work at 6pm you can catch the shuttle home but if the train is late, yes it will fill up, make it leave at 18.20 on the dot. It will just help...its unfair to make people already on the bus wait for a delayed train and its unfair for the people on a delayed train get refused onto the bus because the bus is already full.

matt-dublin

Guys this is something you need to raise with the management companies. If the times are wrong you need to contact them directly.

Enough complaints will warrant a change.

Do so by email or post, also cc your residents comittee on the complaint so they can follow it up.

loyatemu

Marcais is on the residents committee afaik.

The bus is supposed to be a Dart shuttle service so it makes sense for it to be timed to coincide with the Darts rather than running every 15 mins (though a clockface timetable would be easier to understand and remember).

The 0730 bus used to run at 0735 - possibly it was moved back because the bus wasn't making it back in time for the next run. The 0805 also leaves ridiculously early - the Dart isn't until 0830.

LMC

All the management companies & residents committees would need to be contacted in other to change the times, as it would effect everyone in charlesland! In saying that, it does make sense that the bus coincides with the dart but also ensuring your covered for unexpected delays on route.

Marcais

It's a bit more complicated! The 8:05 leaves at that time as there was feedback that college kids had to meet up with a bus and any later would be too late.

As for the 7:30, the owner is not sure why that is at 7:30 instead of 2 buses say at 7:40 ( a 7:45 and a 7:40 would be pushing it a bit too close for one to make it back up and collect passengers for the 8:05)

The owner had had the driver take a count for a week of the usage on each bus and this should be useful, looks like usage drops noticeably on Thursday and Friday, not sure why, maybe lucky so and so's on flextime?

As far as I know, there's a new DART schedule out shortly. The owner will meet with the committee to agree a schedule to meet needs shortly. It may be for example that the 8:05 issue re. meeting the bus in Greystones is no longer as issue if there is a Dublin Bus from Charlesland which meets this need. All to be bashed out soon.