Dublin Bus route 84 Bus Driver no show... had to pay double fare!

DubOnHoliday

I sent the following mail to Dublin bus last week ... do you think they replied?

Last Sunday (8th June) I took the 12:20 84 bus from Newcastle, myself and my son boarded in Kilcoole, where I paid the fares to Dublin
as we were going to the Dublin match in Croke park. On arrival at Bray Station, we were informed there was no driver to take the bus on to Dublin (sometimes the drivers stop shifts there).
Another driver at the time said he would drop us up to the main street in Bray to wait for a 45!!! At this point I had to leave the bus and take the DART to Dublin in order to make
the game in good time. However I had already paid the bus fares to Dublin. Is there any explanation of how that happened? Can I be refunded for those 2 fares? After all I had to pay double to
get to Dublin on time.

Traffic

I have always found Dublin bus good at replying to e-mails

Maybe there are investigating the matter before getting back to you

JC 2K3

Buses operating via Bray Dart Station have always confused me. They often seem to terminate there, despite the fact that I don't know of any bus which is actually supposed to terminate there.

KC61

Dublin Bus usually are quite good in these circumstances. I would await a response - they often issue a rambler ticket as a sign of good faith.

Driver changes on the 45 (some duties), 84 (most duties), 145, 184 and 185 all take place at Bray DART Station. It would appear that DB were caught short here - hopefully you will get something back. However, you wouldn't have been waiting too long if you took the bus, as the 145 passes through the main street in Bray as well as the 45, and would have brought you all the way to Mountjoy Square!

DubOnHoliday

Do you realise the 84 on a sunday is every 2 hours.... so when you do get one, the last thing you want to be told is that you have to get off and wait for another bus in bray.

Anyway, a good end to the story.... received today a 5 day rambler pack and a written explanation. Fair play to Dublin Bus.

KC61

DubOnHoliday wrote: »

Do you realise the 84 on a sunday is every 2 hours.... so when you do get one, the last thing you want to be told is that you have to get off and wait for another bus in bray.

Anyway, a good end to the story.... received today a 5 day rambler pack and a written explanation. Fair play to Dublin Bus.

Absolutely...it shouldn't happen, and I understand your frustration, but in fairness, they have been very reasonable in compensating you and at the time a driver did offer to drop you to a stop where you probably would have had to wait only a short time for a direct bus to Croke Park!

RayM

That exact thing happened to me a couple of times on the 84. On one of those occasions, around 30 passengers were left sitting on the bus (doors closed) waiting like gobshites for half an hour until an inspector eventually turned up and bemusedly asked us where the driver was. A quick phonecall later, it turned out that the driver had in fact turned up, but accidentally took the wrong parked bus. In fairness to the inspector, he was very apologetic and drove the bus out to Newcastle himself... very fast and displaying 'As Seirbhis'.

DubOnHoliday

KC61 wrote: »

Absolutely...it shouldn't happen, and I understand your frustration, but in fairness, they have been very reasonable in compensating you and at the time a driver did offer to drop you to a stop where you probably would have had to wait only a short time for a direct bus to Croke Park!

The 12:20 84 bus is due in Dublin at 2pm, which was the time I'd made arrangements for. As it had been running already late, we didn't arrive in Bray until 13:20 (20 mins late). At best 45's and 145's are every 20/30 minutes on a Sunday from Bray. There was a dart beside us going to Dublin, most people will see why I took the train at that point, and from their nice letter and free tickets, Dublin bus have agreed with me.

KC61

I'm not disagreeing at all...I'm saying that unlike in other circumstances where pax have been left completely stranded, the company did actually offer a reasonable alternative, and have now also compensated you.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that they tried to remedy the situation, which is a positive.

45 is every 30 mins as you say, and 145 every 20 on Sunday.

HydeRoad

Is this not an example of a major failing in the practice of changing crew in the middle of a scheduled journey?

CIE did it for years, on the 18s, 46As, all the cross city routes. Indeed, city crew changes were the cause of the last big dispute in Dublin Bus, over drivers travelling in and out from Harristown. Passengers do not pay for the unreliability of sitting in a driverless bus hoping for a driver to arrive, nor even for the inconvenience of waiting just ten minutes for one.

The only way to provide a decent bus service to places like Kilcoole and Newcastle, is to have a regular hourly, or even half hourly service if the business is there, between Newcastle, Kilcoole, Greystones and Bray only, serving all the gaps in the hedge along the way. Being only scheduled to Bray negates problems as described earlier. Through ticketing should then be available for other buses, or whatever.

Passengers in Newcastle and Kilcoole should also be offered an express through service, serving Newcastle, Kilcoole, but NOT Greystones or Bray, limited stop from Kilcoole to Loughlinstown Hospital, then a stop at Whites Cross, a stop at Stillorgan on the main road, a stop at Donnybrook Garage, and a terminus in the city wherever, preferably around Stephens Green for better reliability. NO more stops than that. Again, interchange tickets should be available from those four intermediate points to any other bus route. Such a route should be possible to do in an hour, given the QBC and lack of stops. Greystones similarly should have it's own separate express service, perhaps via Delgany, NOT serving Bray. Premium price for the express service, perhaps with faster single deck vehicles, to make more time on the motorway.

If the business is not there for such an express service all day, then at least a few in the peak hour should be provided, but these kind of routes will generate their own business if they are run reliably and speedily.

Alas, splitting a route was tried in Swords a good few years ago, and it failed miserably, because passengers from Balbriggan and Portrane were shuffled onto the then notoriously unreliable 41, via the Airport, with all it's bells and whistles. It failed, and deserved to do so. These initiatives need a bit more imagination than that, something big corporations generally lack.

KC61

HydeRoad wrote: »

Is this not an example of a major failing in the practice of changing crew in the middle of a scheduled journey?

CIE did it for years, on the 18s, 46As, all the cross city routes. Indeed, city crew changes were the cause of the last big dispute in Dublin Bus, over drivers travelling in and out from Harristown. Passengers do not pay for the unreliability of sitting in a driverless bus hoping for a driver to arrive, nor even for the inconvenience of waiting just ten minutes for one.

The only way to provide a decent bus service to places like Kilcoole and Newcastle, is to have a regular hourly, or even half hourly service if the business is there, between Newcastle, Kilcoole, Greystones and Bray only, serving all the gaps in the hedge along the way. Being only scheduled to Bray negates problems as described earlier. Through ticketing should then be available for other buses, or whatever.

Passengers in Newcastle and Kilcoole should also be offered an express through service, serving Newcastle, Kilcoole, but NOT Greystones or Bray, limited stop from Kilcoole to Loughlinstown Hospital, then a stop at Whites Cross, a stop at Stillorgan on the main road, a stop at Donnybrook Garage, and a terminus in the city wherever, preferably around Stephens Green for better reliability. NO more stops than that. Again, interchange tickets should be available from those four intermediate points to any other bus route. Such a route should be possible to do in an hour, given the QBC and lack of stops. Greystones similarly should have it's own separate express service, perhaps via Delgany, NOT serving Bray. Premium price for the express service, perhaps with faster single deck vehicles, to make more time on the motorway.

If the business is not there for such an express service all day, then at least a few in the peak hour should be provided, but these kind of routes will generate their own business if they are run reliably and speedily.

Alas, splitting a route was tried in Swords a good few years ago, and it failed miserably, because passengers from Balbriggan and Portrane were shuffled onto the then notoriously unreliable 41, via the Airport, with all it's bells and whistles. It failed, and deserved to do so. These initiatives need a bit more imagination than that, something big corporations generally lack.

Newcastle, Kilcoole and Greystones do already have an express service - the 84X - that bypasses Bray. It operates Monday/Friday, mainly at peak hour.

The 184 is a local service that links Newtownmountkennedy, Kilpedder, Delgany, Greystones and Bray.

The 84 is operated mainly from Bray depot, with a few Donnybrook based duties, hence the driver changes at Bray Station on some journeys. If the driver change didn't take place at the station, or in Bray, you would end up with buses travelling empty from Newcastle/Kilcoole back to Bray for a driver change and then empty back to the outer terminus to resume working.

The problems with the 33 and 33A were nothing to do with the 41. The problem was that the schedule as designed originally for the 33A was impossible to achieve, with only 45 minutes running time Swords-Balbriggan. Buses lost time on every journey, and ended up having to run empty from Balbriggan to Swords and v.v. along the main road in order to catch up on time. Poor scheduling was the fundamental problem there.

The concept could still work - with interlaced 33 and 33A services provided realistic running times were used. In fact it ultimately would be the way to go, with the 33A operating from Dublin Airport via Swords to Balbriggan via Rush and Skerries, with the 33 operating from Eden Quay but by-passing Swords.

HydeRoad

I think the point I was trying to make is that the 84 route is an anachronism. I'm sure it suits a good few existing passengers somewhere, but it is not attractive to new business. I would get rid of it, and beef up the other services. It's an inefficient route, and in cases as described it is not very customer friendly either.

loyatemu

HydeRoad wrote: »

I think the point I was trying to make is that the 84 route is an anachronism. I'm sure it suits a good few existing passengers somewhere, but it is not attractive to new business. I would get rid of it, and beef up the other services. It's an inefficient route, and in cases as described it is not very customer friendly either.

you've hit the nail on the head here - the 84 is a useless service, its incredibly slow and infrequent. With the DART extended to Greystones and the 84X running at peak times it is almost pointless. North wicklow local services should be revamped to better serve Kilcoole, and the 84 scrapped.

RayM

HydeRoad wrote: »

I think the point I was trying to make is that the 84 route is an anachronism. I'm sure it suits a good few existing passengers somewhere, but it is not attractive to new business. I would get rid of it, and beef up the other services. It's an inefficient route, and in cases as described it is not very customer friendly either.

It's a public service. It doesn't need to be commercially 'attractive to new business'. As you say, it suits a good few existing passengers somewhere. That alone is enough to justify its existence.

And to be honest, I wouldn't be that surprised if it's actually a profit-making route.

SickCert

We suggested in our suggestion box all week X's and a shuttle bus running between Bray and Newcastle. But never heard anything back.

Our man in Havana

Fair play to you for suggesting it to management.