Bus stop distances

loyatemu

does Dublin Bus have any guidelines for the distances between stops?

Since they started painting the poles yellow, the stops have become a lot more visible and I've started noticing how ridiculously close together some of them are.

Driving up Putland Rd in Bray the other day I noticed there are 4 stops on that road alone (according to google maps the distance is less than 800m). Similarly in Greystones there are 3 stops within 500m of each other on Mill road. Having stops this close together surely adversly affects the efficiency of an already very slow service...

paulm17781

I've always thought this too. I would say there are a lot of bus stops that could easily be removed or remove one and move another (more central) it would make the stops further away but would surely increase bus running times.

AlekSmart

+1 on this topic.

The entire methodology surrounding Bus Stop location is in need of complete overhaul.

For a start virtually all current Bus Stops and their associated Bays are directly descended from an era when the Maximum length of a bus was 30` (Imperial)

The real impact of this was demonstrated most effectively when Dublin Bus introduced the Articulated Volvo AW Class on the Number 10 route some years ago.

The sheer impossibility of fitting a hinged 18 Mtr Long vehicle into a 10.8 Mtr long space took a while to be accepted by the Proffessionals who devise and plan our infrastructure.

However after a short while attempting Quart into Pint Pot tricks the Company gave up and stashed the Artics out of sight for a while until a new route was found to utilize them on.

Similarly the tri-axle VT class are BIIG LONNNG vehicles which demand special consideration when Bus Stops and associated space is being allocated,something which is totally absent from Dublins planning scene.

A reduction in the numbers of Bus Stops,conincident with far larger Bays with better passenger information is the way forward BUT....Not without ditching the current Fare Stage system.......NO progress will occur until the Bus Service progresses to a FLAT-FARE system with no delays at the front door...anything else is merely retaining a system which requires Two Person Operation to fulfill its needs.....

OOps I forgot that could still be an option......bring back Conductors.. :eek:

Steviemak

Agreed - Also Front doors used for passengers getting on and middle doors used for passengers getting off. However, this is unlikely to be adopted as all new buses seem to lack middle doors!!

markpb

AlekSmart wrote: »

The sheer impossibility of fitting a hinged 18 Mtr Long vehicle into a 10.8 Mtr long space took a while to be accepted by the Proffessionals who devise and plan our infrastructure.

I'm sure there are good people working in the LAs and QBN Office but they aren't designing bus lanes or bus stops. The city is full of bus stops that are shorter than buses and bounded on either side by parking, bus lanes that are narrower than buses or, when they're wide enough - are beside leaning trees so the buses can't stay in lane anyway. Right outside my house they ripped out the footpath and grassed areas to make a custom-built bus lane and even then they manage to alternate the width of the footpath so buses will have to swerve left and right for the sake for 10 inches of grass in the footpath.

dogmatix

Agreed - on the Ballinteer ave there is one stop near the Caoch house, another about 150m later outside the Spar shop and then another about 150m oppisite the Maxol station. So if your getting a 14/14A into town you could be stopped three times in under 500m.

Why not have a base standard of no bus stop being within a quater mile of another? At least with that sort of guideline you would never be more then a 5-10 minute walk from public transport and they could lavish a bit more attention on the reduced number of stops.

wayne2107

We are getting a very lazy nation indeed. Bus stops further apart , the extra 3-4 mins walk will do good for your health but the whole wheel chair issue will come in to play...

wayne2107

wayne2107 wrote: »

We are getting a very lazy nation indeed. Bus stops further apart , the extra 3-4 ins walk will do good for your health but the whole wheel chair issue will come in to play...

Just a little thought, perhaps long haul routes like routes 33, 46A, 70 could skip every second stop on roads where there is more than lets say 3 routes going to An Lar??

wayne2107

So on the Swords Road Route 33 will call at every second stop
On the Stillorgan Rd route 46A will do the same

and so on..

Run_to_da_hills

Steviemak wrote: »

Agreed - Also Front doors used for passengers getting on and middle doors used for passengers getting off. However, this is unlikely to be adopted as all new buses seem to lack middle doors!!

In London the driver will give you a dirty look if he sees you trying to leave the bus up front, one is told to exit at the mid door. We have been brought up in this country to enter and leave the bus up front and I dont think it will change. The mid door is a waste of space unless you need to evacuate a bus in a hurry :eek: As far as distances are concerned between stops people have to think of the elderly.

Polar101

I used to live in a town where the bus stops were about 400m apart, and all buses had middle (and rear) doors for passenger exits. But there were no double-decker buses. The other major difference to Dublin was that most passengers used prepaid tickets.

If Dublin bus stops were further apart, more people would use each stop. As the more crowded stops are already chaotic with the people getting on first blocking disembarking passengers, and then waiting for people to pay with cash - I wonder if it would actually speed up the service at all.

Also, I think having bus stops at regular intervals kind of works for Dublin, as it's not a very densely populated city - it helps to provide a better local service. On larger roads I think the stops aren't as close together as on local roads.

So, I'd first introduce a working prepaid ticketing scheme, and only then started looking at bus stops..

johnglen

The bus stops in Ashbourne are anything less than 300m apart in the town itself but there's only 4 in the town altogether, surely this isn't right?!

Trying to convince them to erect a bus stop 500m from another one is a losing battle, so our bus travels (often at a snail's pace) half a kilometre past our estate, lets half a dozen people off and we all walk back up to our homes. 150m apart is overkill, but surely in a heavily-populated area, 500m isn't too much to ask??

steve-o

How low can we go...? Aungier street inbound has 2 stops about 100m apart. And I think the #10 route at Waterloo Road/Baggot St inbound probably comes close to that too.

Colm R

To be honest, getting rid of cash fares would speed things up dramatically.

Perhaps, a system were some bus stops only come into operation outside of rush hour. Combine the two, and you have a faster system.

Lots of simple things could be done to speed bus times. I think one of the main problems is bus lane width. Most people would say that there just isn't enough room for a wider lane on most roads. But a narrow lane is pointless as buses just crawl.

AlekSmart

Colm R has a very valid point here.
Presently anybody working in the Public Transport area faces a big problem when it comes to making suggestions re improvments to these services,particularly in the Bus sector.

My contention is that the REAL improvements are to be found in fine-tuning what we already have.
This thread alone is prompting a wee bit of Brainstorming on a core issue relevant to ALL Bus Services.

However,if we take an overview of Dublins City Centre we see absolutely no evidence that anybody sat down to consider the knee bone-thigh bone relationships between routes and routeing and of the vehicles or load patterns for those locations.

O Connell St itslef is a prime example of this with a current simmering problem re the 3,11,121,122,123 Stop adjacent to Abbey St.
The situaton has now reached the stage where members of the SIPTU union have decided to cease using the stop on sfatey grounds.

These concerns relate to a serious overloading of the restricted space available between Sackville Place and Abbey St which,when allied to the abrupt manouvering required to access and leave the Stop is enough to raise serious safety related concerns.

The practice of a private City Tour operator of parking a static ticket sales Bus directly on the Sackville Place/O Connell St junction is not assisting matters either as this alone causes major confrontation between service routes and Taxi`s emerging from the Sackville Place rank.

The other ingredients here are the conflict bewteen vehicles turning Left into Abbey St to access Busaras and other provincial termini which require clear space of their own rather than have to deal with fully laden city service routes attempting to leave this stop.

The real incredulity about this is the reluctance of either Bus Atha Cliath Management or the City Council or the Gardai to accept that there is a DANGEROUS situation being allowed to worsen by the day.

Suggestions to move the routes 41,
747 set down stops (ON) to this location recognising these routes need to turn left into Abbey St anyway have been greeted with bemused silence.
This could allow the 3,11 and perhaps 123 to move to the ON Stop thus releasing the OM stop for another route grouping.

The only response from the company has been "Oh but that means the 11 will only have one stop on the street".......what can one say...The 11 route remains the ONLY route which has 2 stops along O Connell St a throwback to an era when the street had far fewer Bus routes and movements through it`s then far wider traffic lanes...."Changing with the City"...hardly.

The core issue here is yet again the lip-service attitude to safe operation which is peddled by sections of the company and the entire City Administration.
Everything is deemed safe until a serious accident occurs whereupon it immediately becomes a DRIVER issue as to why the accident was allowed to occur.

This and other such problems usually develop into confrontational situations which require hours of outside mediation to solve when the actual problem solving could be achieved by those who are familiar with the locations on a daily basis.

Take also,the Westmoreland St situation where a VERY simple Bus Stop Swap would achieve great safety gains for both Aircoach and Dublin Bus.
Currently Aircoach has the first stop on the street where its vehicles have to lay over and dwell whilst the baggage etc is loaded....meantime several busy Dublin Bus routes then have to pull around in front or alongside to disgorge/embark their passengers.

SWAP the shagging stops around !!!....allow Aircoach to pull right up to the SECOND stop closest the junction with Fleet St...then the Dublin Bus routes simply pull in BEHIND Aircoach and do their business AT THE KERB rather than midway out on a four lane street as presently occurs.....Rocket Science...you bet,cos any such suggestions are not coming from expensive,sharp-suited consultants and therefore cannot be considered as having any merit :mad:

The entire NDP and T21 mullarkey has left this countrys Transport Planners convinced that no improvements can be made unless there are BILLIONS of € involved and a big long gravy train of relations,friends and assorted hangers-on to stick their noses in the trough....As I see it we are wasting vast quantities of money which will never again be available as we construct "Grand Central Stations" beneath Stephens Green whilst not a single Bus Shelter can be seen along O Connell St.......Get a grip lads before the entire edifice collapses on top of us all !!

shltter

AlekSmart wrote: »

Colm R has a very valid point here.
Presently anybody working in the Public Transport area faces a big problem when it comes to making suggestions re improvments to these services,particularly in the Bus sector.

My contention is that the REAL improvements are to be found in fine-tuning what we already have.
This thread alone is prompting a wee bit of Brainstorming on a core issue relevant to ALL Bus Services.

However,if we take an overview of Dublins City Centre we see absolutely no evidence that anybody sat down to consider the knee bone-thigh bone relationships between routes and routeing and of the vehicles or load patterns for those locations.

O Connell St itslef is a prime example of this with a current simmering problem re the 3,11,121,122,123 Stop adjacent to Abbey St.
The situaton has now reached the stage where members of the SIPTU union have decided to cease using the stop on sfatey grounds.

These concerns relate to a serious overloading of the restricted space available between Sackville Place and Abbey St which,when allied to the abrupt manouvering required to access and leave the Stop is enough to raise serious safety related concerns.

The practice of a private City Tour operator of parking a static ticket sales Bus directly on the Sackville Place/O Connell St junction is not assisting matters either as this alone causes major confrontation between service routes and Taxi`s emerging from the Sackville Place rank.

The other ingredients here are the conflict bewteen vehicles turning Left into Abbey St to access Busaras and other provincial termini which require clear space of their own rather than have to deal with fully laden city service routes attempting to leave this stop.

The real incredulity about this is the reluctance of either Bus Atha Cliath Management or the City Council or the Gardai to accept that there is a DANGEROUS situation being allowed to worsen by the day.

Suggestions to move the routes 41,
747 set down stops (ON) to this location recognising these routes need to turn left into Abbey St anyway have been greeted with bemused silence.
This could allow the 3,11 and perhaps 123 to move to the ON Stop thus releasing the OM stop for another route grouping.

The only response from the company has been "Oh but that means the 11 will only have one stop on the street".......what can one say...The 11 route remains the ONLY route which has 2 stops along O Connell St a throwback to an era when the street had far fewer Bus routes and movements through it`s then far wider traffic lanes...."Changing with the City"...hardly.

The core issue here is yet again the lip-service attitude to safe operation which is peddled by sections of the company and the entire City Administration.
Everything is deemed safe until a serious accident occurs whereupon it immediately becomes a DRIVER issue as to why the accident was allowed to occur.

This and other such problems usually develop into confrontational situations which require hours of outside mediation to solve when the actual problem solving could be achieved by those who are familiar with the locations on a daily basis.

Take also,the Westmoreland St situation where a VERY simple Bus Stop Swap would achieve great safety gains for both Aircoach and Dublin Bus.
Currently Aircoach has the first stop on the street where its vehicles have to lay over and dwell whilst the baggage etc is loaded....meantime several busy Dublin Bus routes then have to pull around in front or alongside to disgorge/embark their passengers.

SWAP the shagging stops around !!!....allow Aircoach to pull right up to the SECOND stop closest the junction with Fleet St...then the Dublin Bus routes simply pull in BEHIND Aircoach and do their business AT THE KERB rather than midway out on a four lane street as presently occurs.....Rocket Science...you bet,cos any such suggestions are not coming from expensive,sharp-suited consultants and therefore cannot be considered as having any merit :mad:

The entire NDP and T21 mullarkey has left this countrys Transport Planners convinced that no improvements can be made unless there are BILLIONS of € involved and a big long gravy train of relations,friends and assorted hangers-on to stick their noses in the trough....As I see it we are wasting vast quantities of money which will never again be available as we construct "Grand Central Stations" beneath Stephens Green whilst not a single Bus Shelter can be seen along O Connell St.......Get a grip lads before the entire edifice collapses on top of us all !!

+1

IMO nothing will change as long as drivers facilitate the bus stop nonsense. Until drivers start to take action as SIPTU are doing in relation to O'Connell St there is absolutely no incentive or desire on behalf of the powers that be to do anything about it.
The articulated buses are still operating form harristown with the same standard stops with a bus almost twice as long. By law it is illegal to stop at a stop unless you can get within 18" and parallel to the stop. as such the 4 should not leave the garage with an artic as there is nowhere for it to legally stop.
The same with cars/vans/trucks parked at bus stops as long as Drivers continue to double park and load and unload there is no impetus on anyone to address the parking issue.
Until drivers start obeying the law and driving past stops that have cars parked in them nothing will be done. Unfortunately the public will have to be seriously discommoded before the Gardai/clampers/traffic wardens get off their ass and do something about it.

dRNk SAnTA

To echo what others have said, it seems all the attention is placed on big expensive infrastructure projects when simple changes could bring quick improvements.

Most bus routes could easily lose 1/3 of the stops. In Vancouver they had express bus lines with about 1 stop every 4 blocks or so at the major intersections. I think the 46a (for instance) could do with something like that, especially once it leaves the dual carriageway

Ham'nd'egger

Alec, just to add credence to your point; getting a taxi out of Sackville Place can often take 5 minutes to go from the rank top to the turn out due mainly to punters on foot not letting you out.

The raised footpath gives the very dangerous impression that it is public footpath and not a road. Once a car crawls to the meeting of the two roadways, it is very hard to see past the buses stopped both left and right, not to mention more pedestrians crossing in front of you. I have more grip and control over a car, God bless any bus driver for having to deal with it on a daily basis. The situation on O'Connell Street would be well served with 3 lanes towards the bridge where the extra lane can make a massive difference to put another badly needed bus stop or two. Then again, proper policing the no car ban on the street would work wonders for traffic as well.

On the 121, it has no stop from Londis on College Green to O'Connell Street at the Royal Dublin Hotel northbound. Other routes with better services have better stop levels either way in and out of town.

bazzer

Hamndegger wrote: »

On the 121, it has no stop from Londis on College Green to O'Connell Street at the Royal Dublin Hotel northbound. Other routes with better services have better stop levels either way in and out of town.

The 121 also stops at Eason's on O'Connell Street (the 123 stop) , but as a set-down only.

MiniD

Hamndegger wrote: »

On the 121, it has no stop from Londis on College Green to O'Connell Street at the Royal Dublin Hotel northbound. Other routes with better services have better stop levels either way in and out of town.

I think the 121/122 has a set down stop at Easons, with the 10/46A/145.

Colm R

Can't agree more. Infrastructural investment is vital, in Dublin and nationwide.

But the ball is being dropped when it comes to making the simple improvements which can bring effective bus based transport to Dublin at a reasonable cost. At that my friends would be a good return for your fares and tax payments.

But then it all comes back to the same thing, the single greatest problem in this country.

"Ah but shur, its grand, aren't we great".

Calina

I don't think it's "ah sure it's grand" I think it's more

"Sure it'll do, what do we need to spend more time on it for".