Reduced service on Dublin Bus

RobBrn

So Dublin Bus will reduce it's service.

Why not cut out the "As Serbhis" buses driving around the city in their dozens at all times of the day, and see what effect that might have first

oscarBravo

Moved from Politics.

Cookie_Monster

I agree. The level of out of service busses is astounding.

I realise that there has to be some level of it. Busses have to get to/from terminus's to begin routes and so forth but the practice of one bus reaching terminus and driving back to the depot OOS while another drives out to the same terminous to begin the next scheduled run is silly.

Better shift planning and changeover patterns are required to solve/ reduce this

rx8

Better shift planning and changeover patterns are required to solve/ reduce this

Better running times that realistically give the bus a chance of reaching the terminus is what is required.
Dublin Bus carry out surveys all over the city all year round,so they are well aware of the time taken for a particular bus to get from A to B, but when the schedules officer produces running times to reflect this the Divisional Manager sends it back as he thinks it gives too much running time. So buses will continue to travel around OOS until this changes.

Heroditas

The 25A is particularly bad for this, especially in the evenings.
I've often been waiting anywhere up to 50mins for one heading into town in the evening. It's even got to the stage where I've seen them head down the outer ring road, taken a note of the reg and then watched the bus fly past heading back into town about 20mins later .... with the Out of Service sign up
What annoys me most is that the buses are scheduled to arrive approximately every 15-20mins at that time in the evening. That is most certainly not the case.

markpb

The Deloitte report released last week gave the percentage working time for several routes and said DB weren't too bad. Can't remember the routes mentioned but I think they varied from 78% (on the 40s) to 85% (on the 4s).

KC61

Out of service running has to happen if a full bus service is to be maintained, although best practice is to keep it to a minimum.

The buses that many people complain about are (in general) what are known as "EURO" duties, which were introduced in 1999/2000.

These generally will operate out of service from the depot in the morning to the outer terminus of a route, then operate inbound to the city, and then do another return trip from/to the city before returning to the depot. They then restart mid-afternoon and will do a full return trip to/from the city and then finally an outbound trip from the city in the evening peak before returning out of service to the depot from the outer terminus.

Why the two out of service trips? Basically, the drivers' hours are restricted to a 12-hour spread (in other words the driver must finish his days work within 12 hours or starting it). The bus is scheduled to operate on those journeys that maximise loadings (inbound in the morning and outbound in the evening).

Most other buses operate in service all day. However, buses do start returning to the depots from about 6pm onwards as they finish their day's work and that's when a lot of people may see them, or indeed between the relevant depot and the city centre when EURO duties are starting/finishing.

The problems really arise when adverse traffic conditions cause problems for the schedules, with buses arriving late at the outer terminus. Then in some cases controllers will have to get buses back to the other end of the route to let the driver have his break or to get the schedule back into line. However, this then means that people at the outer end of the route can suffer serious delays as buses have to be repositioned to get the schedule back into line. A good controller should be able to do this while keeping some sort of normal schedule in operation, but this is not always easy.

RadioCity

Slightly off topic that 12 hour limit is a bit odd and can only be a Dublin Bus interpretation.

Under the tightest interpretation of driving rules (referred to as "EU Rules") the maximum spreadover can be 13 hours, extended to 15 hours on 3 days per week. A regular (scheduled) journey of 50km or over automatically comes under these regulations as do all non-regular journeys, for example Private Hire.

shltter

RadioCity wrote: »

Slightly off topic that 12 hour limit is a bit odd and can only be a Dublin Bus interpretation.

Under the tightest interpretation of driving rules (referred to as "EU Rules") the maximum spreadover can be 13 hours, extended to 15 hours on 3 days per week. A regular (scheduled) journey of 50km or over automatically comes under these regulations as do all non-regular journeys, for example Private Hire.

The company actually want to extend the limit to 13 hours but they also want to remove the current shift pay paid to these drivers as in the eyes of the company working a 13 hour spread over is not working shifts

There is also another problem if you move the spread to 13 hours it leaves you no leeway in relation to rest time any delay in finishing due to traffic, breakdowns, weather, accidents etc etc would mean the driver could not start work the next day on time.