Dublin Bus workers threaten strike

MiniD

I think we all know the issues at this stage, but I would just ask DubCommuter and MeanMachine one question. What alternative can you offer to running the 128 route keeping in mind the following points.

* This route has a 10 minute frequency. How do you propose to maintain this when drivers will be driving out of service buses back to the garage?

* Do you think you can justify running empty buses across the city, simply because the driver doesn't want to travel back to the depot by another in-service bus?

* In the time it would take an empty bus to drive back to Harristown, change driver and return to the route. This same bus, in service, could have made it's way from either Rathmines or Clongriffen, and collected passengers, maintaining a high frequency service throughout the day.

My only suggestion is to move this route to a different garage and get it running as soon as possible. As you're both set against the current plans approved by the Labour Court, which you're entitled to be, I'd love to hear what alternative to the above points you both have.

bk

Frankly the more I hear and learn about this, the more ridiculous it sounds.

You get paid to head back to the garage, your only arguing about an extra 10 - 15 minutes commute time, when the vast majority of people don't get paid for commuting to and from work at all.

As MOH has said, no I don't head straight home at the end of the day, working in IT you often have to work longer hours (looks like I won't finish until 8 tonight) and weekends with no overtime and completely unpaid and then you have to commute when you do finally finish.

To me it seems many people are being inconvenienced over a very minor issue that was decided against you by the labour court.

meanmachine3

miniD i had a look at where clongriffin is, it seems its closer to harristown than either kinsealy or sutton stn. yet the 102 route starts breaks and finishes in harristown,i know you'll probably say that it's not a cross city route or it doesn't go near town, but it still looks closer.plus there is a 24 hr bus lane on the n32. an extra 5-10 mins from clongriffin.

bk how many jobs are there where you start in one place finish in another then have to travel back 11 or so km to your starting point to pick up your car.
we do NOT get paid for driving into work. your work starts at the approiate time in the garage and in most cases finishes in the garage.
we do NOT get paid for driving home from work. we like most people are covered under the social welfare end of things should we be injured while travelling to/from work.

the only people that know exactly how much time is allocated if any for getting to harristown travelling on a bus in service are dublin bus management and the unions. if there are neither posting here or unless you have it in writing (as plenty of posts here have stated if it's not in writing it's not worth the paper it's written on) then can i suggest people stop surmising as to how many minutes drivers have to get back to harristown.
i'm a bus driver as you all well know and even i dont have that information.

Cionád

meanmachine3 wrote: »

...if it's not in writing it's not worth the paper it's written on)...

this made me chuckle

MiniD

meanmachine3 wrote: »

the only people that know exactly how much time is allocated if any for getting to harristown travelling on a bus in service are dublin bus management and the unions. if there are neither posting here or unless you have it in writing (as plenty of posts here have stated if it's not in writing it's not worth the paper it's written on) then can i suggest people stop surmising as to how many minutes drivers have to get back to harristown.
i'm a bus driver as you all well know and even i dont have that information.

From Dublin Bus Timetable:

Route 13/13A:
Journey time From O'Connell Street to Harristown - 35 Minutes

http://www.dublinbus.ie/your_journey/viewer.asp?route=13


Route 4/4A:
Journey time from O'Connell Street to Harristown - 45 Minutes

http://www.dublinbus.ie/your_journey/viewer.asp?route=4

markpb

MiniD wrote: »

From Dublin Bus Timetable:

You might be the only person in Dublin who believes those times Even DB don't - if you read the comment you'll see they are off-peak estimes only. Even late at night the 13A would be lucky do make it from the city centre to Harristown in 35 minutes. The 4 is slightly more believable.

MiniD

markpb wrote: »

You might be the only person in Dublin who believes those times Even DB don't - if you read the comment you'll see they are off-peak estimes only. Even late at night the 13A would be lucky do make it from the city centre to Harristown in 35 minutes. The 4 is slightly more believable.

I wasn't suggesting they were accurate. The above poster stated there was no written details for in-service journey times to Harristown, I just provided the links. However, considering most driver journeies to the garage would be off-peak anyway, I reckon this would be a good guide.

Shamanic

whats really pissing me off about all this is that if it wasnt a unionised company this wouldnt be a problem.
For anybody out there who works in the private sector, if you were told the hours you were to work were to be prolonged by 45minutes PAID work time you could not turn around and say no.
If the bus drivers were working in a private sector they would all do what everybody else has to do and just swallow their issues be thankful of the extra monies and get on with the job.
If the union had said there was no case for them this is exactly what they would do, but the union said otherwise so now they're all getting rallyed together for something that in the first place probably kinda pissed them off but they could deal with it.

meanmachine3

they are the approx times it takes for a bus to get to harristown.my point is that bus drivers would not necessarily be given those times. they could be more but most likely they would be less.
so again i say either someone from dublin bus or the unions would only know how much time a driver is given to get back to harristown.
again we seem to be going of the point

January

The journey time for the 13/13A from the City Centre to Harristown is nowhere near what it states on the Dublin Bus website. Take a trip on it at 5.00pm and you'll see that. I get on my bus at 5.10pm (usually the 13), I live in Santry Cross and and I don't arrive at my stop untill 6.10pm most days. Then the bus has to travel the extra time to Harristown (I know it's only five minutes up the road, but it makes a difference.). If the bus drivers are only getting paid for 46 minutes of travel time, then they are being put out by the changeovers in the city.

meanmachine3

yeah and if we were privatised you'd all be screaming for dublin bus to be back as a semi state body.
no body is going to operate a loss making route or have buses running at night with only a handful of passengers. would you?
so go on scream for privatisation all you want. because at the end of it all it will be far worse than what you have now.:p

Easy Rider

MOH wrote: »

I used to use the 27B regularly from fairly near Harristown. I certainly never found it reliable - often ended up getting taxi instead.

Not to mention the 4....so many times it just does not turn up in Ballymun, coming home from the city at peak times you can be waiting for a 4 but what do you get?....You get a two 4C's at rush hour....so you can't get on as the driver says that it is only stopping in the city, oblivious to the fact that you have been waiting for an hour on the two 4's that are meant to be every 15 -20 minutes to bring you to Ballymun....you could continue to wait for the next 4, but you never know what you are going to get..so you get a taxi..the only 4C on the timetable is at 11.20pm...ask for an explanation you don't get one....

Dub13

shoegirl wrote: »

Scratch that. I've an old 41 timetable from circa the late 1980s and the service hasn't changed much since then. I think there's been a net increase of about 7 buses per day.

Thats about 1 extra bus per day for every 2000 people that moved into the area between 1987 and 2002. Thank you DB, for your years of contempt. No bloody wonder everybody living out there has a car now.

This is not true,while doing your comparison did you add in the brand new 41c route which covers maybe 90% of the same catchment area as the 41...?

[edit] to add....

Also add in the extra 41x buses,Swords has got a massive amount of new departures over the last 2 years.Don't get me wrong it probably needs more but its not true to say the timetable has not changed,I remember the old 41 timetable and I agree it was crap.But its changed a lot.

Jamar

Privatising DB would be a big change, but some of today's routes are brutal. They are a social service, and not really suited for getting to work. It can take over an hour for me to get home from the city center (not the start of my journey) with bus routes that were established hundreds of years ago and meticulously avoid the near empty bus-lanes.

I sympathise with the bus-drivers; I know what it's like to have a very long unappreciated commute to (near) Harristown.

The strike is a big mess...like the minister, I hope that something is done about it...there were a lot of people waiting for the 83 this morning at 6.30am. I wonder if this was the 46A garage, would there be more concern...

MiniD

Dub13 wrote: »

This is not true,while doing your comparison did you add in the brand new 41c route which covers maybe 90% of the same catchment area as the 41...?

Very true, and it's probably worth mentioning the proposed 141, which Dublin Bus have been trying to launch for the last few months, but have been blocked by the Department Of Transport.

penexpers

Shamanic wrote: »

whats really pissing me off about all this is that if it wasnt a unionised company this wouldnt be a problem.
For anybody out there who works in the private sector, if you were told the hours you were to work were to be prolonged by 45minutes PAID work time you could not turn around and say no.

Actually you could. My contract states my hours of employment. If these were to change, it would need agreement between the employer and the employee.

RadioCity

gazzer wrote: »

They can head straight to the city centre from their house and bypass the garage... If this is true what the hell is the problem??

I think its to do with most duties being earlies, lates and reliefs. If a driver is on an early or late they will have to ferry the bus from or to the garage respectively, meaning they will have to take their car there, have their car there or arrange a lift home.

Meanwhile, it has been said Clontarf would be a good home for this route but wouldn't that mean turfing a route or two out of Clontarf to accomodate the 128?

spareman

Easy Rider wrote: »

Not to mention the 4....so many times it just does not turn up in Ballymun, coming home from the city at peak times you can be waiting for a 4 but what do you get?....You get a two 4C's at rush hour....so you can't get on as the driver says that it is only stopping in the city, oblivious to the fact that you have been waiting for an hour on the two 4's that are meant to be every 15 -20 minutes to bring you to Ballymun....you could continue to wait for the next 4, but you never know what you are going to get..so you get a taxi..the only 4C on the timetable is at 11.20pm...ask for an explanation you don't get one....

So you can wait an hour at peak time and no bus comes? Is that what your telling us?

spareman

From everything Ive heard and read, this seems to be more about the company forceing changes without agreement with drivers, DB could have easily moved another route out to harristown to accomadate this route at a city depot. 16/16A from summerhill maybe?

MiniD

spareman wrote: »

From everything Ive heard and read, this seems to be more about the company forceing changes without agreement with drivers, DB could have easily moved another route out to harristown to accomadate this route at a city depot. 16/16A from summerhill maybe?

That's probably the best solution, although I feel moving the 16/16A would cause just as much hassle. The fact that this issue didn't arise sooner is amazing, considering the amount of routes which pick up and change in the city.

With the new depot planned for Grange Castle, it makes you wonder if we will see further problems like this.

trellheim

Why didn't the union get the "no city starts" in writing ?

If it was that important you would have thought that it would have been done.

dub_commuter

Jamar wrote: »

The strike is a big mess...like the minister, I hope that something is done about it...there were a lot of people waiting for the 83 this morning at 6.30am. I wonder if this was the 46A garage, would there be more concern...

There are some Xpresso services that work back to the City Centre as 46A's, today instead of running these Donnybrook added extra services.

But yes, we all know that CIE care more about the south than the northside, thats not anything new.

dub_commuter

MiniD wrote: »

Very true, and it's probably worth mentioning the proposed 141, which Dublin Bus have been trying to launch for the last few months, but have been blocked by the Department Of Transport.

Yes but in the last few months there have been routes delayed for the following reasons

- Dublin Bus HQ blocks Garage from introducing needed routes that have been put forward
- DOT Blocks Dublin Bus from introducing routes due to competition issues
- Garages block Dublin Bus from introducing routes because it's not fair on the drivers.

dub_commuter

Easy Rider wrote: »

Not to mention the 4....so many times it just does not turn up in Ballymun, coming home from the city at peak times you can be waiting for a 4 but what do you get?....You get a two 4C's at rush hour....so you can't get on as the driver says that it is only stopping in the city, oblivious to the fact that you have been waiting for an hour on the two 4's that are meant to be every 15 -20 minutes to bring you to Ballymun....you could continue to wait for the next 4, but you never know what you are going to get..so you get a taxi..the only 4C on the timetable is at 11.20pm...ask for an explanation you don't get one....

To be fair thats not just something that happens on the 4, it happens pretty often on the 10 and 19 too.

Alter-Ego

So will there be buses running tomorrow?

dub_commuter

The same situation remains as today, if a member of Harristown is suspended for failing to run the new routes, a picket will form.

spareman

Alter-Ego wrote: »

So will there be buses running tomorrow?

Yes, but none from harristown.

I agree with the strike from a passenger's point of view. Just yesterday I was stranded in Parnell Square on the 16 for about 10 minutes while awaiting a driver change.

Dub13

Karsini wrote: »

I agree with the strike from a passenger's point of view. Just yesterday I was stranded in Parnell Square on the 16 for about 10 minutes while awaiting a driver change.

And thats with the new driver only having a 10 min walk....

jlang

Karsini wrote: »

I agree with the strike from a passenger's point of view. Just yesterday I was stranded in Parnell Square on the 16 for about 10 minutes while awaiting a driver change.

Not sure if I'm disagreeing with you or giving you further evidence but I estimate that about 1 in 3 driver changes at Donnybrook Church or Rugby Ground take over 5 minutes. I don't think the drivers can use the got stuck in traffic line.