Why do so many buses have the words "Out of Service"

swingking

Have any of you realised that there is so many buses out there that are "out of service". Does this mean that the buses are out of petrol or are they plain sh1t.

Also, why do some buses that are out of service have people on them. And worde yet, let some people off, down the road, and then continue on.

This happened to me this evening and is it the drivers choosing who to let on??

If there are any bus drivers out there, I'd love to hear from you

Wishbone Ash

swingking wrote:

Does this mean that the buses are out of petrol

I'd imagine that they are all out of petrol as Dublin Buses run on diesel fuel.

swingking

my mistake

are they out of diesel then

JPA

Doesn't it mean they're going to the garage or the drivers shift has finished?

Creamy Goodness

sorry i may be incredibly slow but if they were out of diesel would they not be not moving?

Wishbone Ash

Cremo wrote:

sorry i may be incredibly slow but if they were out of diesel would they not be not moving?

LOL


Sometimes, if a route is running severely out of schedule, the controllor will instruct a driver to go "out of service" and begin again to try to get things back on track.

corktina

i think they may go out of service to the approriate end of the service (depending on which rush hour it is ) to start their journeys....no point in them all going IN service in the direction with few passengers.

Aquavid

Also, due to the way that the destination displays are now linked to the ticket machines (on the last few hundred buses) the "Out of Service" is being displayed a lot more when the driver is changing between duties, when drivers are changing midway on a route, and at either terminus for a couple of minutes.

Aquavid

KC61

swingking wrote:

Have any of you realised that there is so many buses out there that are "out of service". Does this mean that the buses are out of petrol or are they plain sh1t.

Also, why do some buses that are out of service have people on them. And worde yet, let some people off, down the road, and then continue on.

This happened to me this evening and is it the drivers choosing who to let on??

If there are any bus drivers out there, I'd love to hear from you

It would be interesting to know where this happened.

Either way, here is the potted guide to bus operation. Bus/driver duties are drawn up by the scheduler in order to provide a pre-determined level of service. Bus routes operate from specific garages (with some exceptions). For example route 46A operates from Donnybrook, route 31 from Clontarf, route 25 from Conyngham Road etc.

In order to provide a certain level of service, and to comply with legislation regarding working hours most buses will operate empty (called "working special" in the industry) between the garage and either terminus at the start and end of their day's work.

As an example, this can be seen in the early morning by the stream of out of service buses operating from Ringsend Garage to the Tallaght area so that there can be an early morning service inbound. The same is true of every other garage in the city. Most people not being up at this stage of the morning miss this phenomenon. However, this manifests itself in a far greater way in the early evening (6pm-8pm) when the greater populace are out on the streets and they witness the return of these buses to the garage. The reason being that there is a greater frequency/demand outbound in the evening peak and that is where resources are focussed. As a result, many duties finish with the outbound service, and in order to comply with working hours the drivers need to be back in the garage by a certain time and the only way of doing this is to send them back empty to the garage from the outer terminus.

As for driving with passengers on board and having out of service displayed, this can only happen at the behest of the route controller. No driver would ever do this on their own. Why would it happen? One bus could be running particularly late and in order to make up time to be at the next terminus the controller could instruct the driver to operate on set-down basis only and display "out of service". This will generally only be done where there are alternative buses still operating along the route to pick up passengers.

markpb

swingking wrote:

Also, why do some buses that are out of service have people on them. And worde yet, let some people off, down the road, and then continue on.

I've seen this happen quite a bit on city centre streets like Westmoreland st. I always presumed they were long-distance buses that are about to terminate.

swingking

when you put it that way, it does actually make sense

It can be annoying though when you see 5 buses that are out of service

BTW I was on templeogue road waiting for a bus

Ended up 15 minutes late for work

KC61

Those would have been (in the case of the empty buses) 15/15B/49/50/54A/56A/75/77/77A buses returning as per their roster to Ringsend or Donnybrook out of service, and in the case of the bus with passengers on it one of route 15/15B/49/65/65B that were exceptionally late. Sometimes the controller will tell the driver to work in service to Templeogue Bridge in such a case and then go special in order to make up his time, the theory being that there will be a bus from one of the other routes operating in service.

I know it seems daft and frustrating, but as I say take a trip onto Templeogue Road between 6 and 7.30 am any day and you'll see the same if not more buses going in the opposite direction to start their day's work!