Cancellation of 142 and 41x (Port Tunnel) buses

mathie

Hi
Dublin Bus is cancelling the 142 and 41X buses that travel through the port tunnel.
But AFAIK it's only cancelling the 142 in the evening (there are three buses into town in the morning and three home in the evening)

So the area surrounding Holywell - a new development - is now without public transportation.

Is this the ultimate kick in the teeth?
And timed to perfection just after the annual bus tickets were issued.

Any idea who to complain to?
And is it worth my while?

M

markpb

Where did you hear that? Jebus, it's like they want people to buy cars!

mathie

markpb wrote: »

Where did you hear that? Jebus, it's like they want people to buy cars!

"They" (i.e. the bus driver) announced it on the bus yesterday.

The bus driver was very sympathetic.
He knows it's a jammed route.
Yesterday - as most days - the first of three buses was full.

mickoneill30

mathie wrote: »

Any idea who to complain to?
And is it worth my while?

M

Is it a protest or is it a company policy? How could they not be making money with those buses? There's no mention of it on the DB website.

Get on to the local TDs. This is the kind of thing they like to look like they're interested in.
Darragh O Brien
Michael Kennedy
Trevor Sargent
James Reilly

Am I missing anybody?

mathie

mickoneill30 wrote: »

Is it a protest or is it a company policy? How could they not be making money with those buses? There's no mention of it on the DB website.

Get on to the local TDs. This is the kind of thing they like to look like they're interested in.
Darragh O Brien
Michael Kennedy
Trevor Sargent
James Reilly

Am I missing anybody?

Thanks I've emailled them all.
I'll let you know if I get a response

mickoneill30

mathie wrote: »

Thanks I've emailled them all.
I'll let you know if I get a response

Good stuff. Not just you though. I'm sending them emails too and anybody that gets a 41X should be doing it too. They do actually read their emails as I've done it before.

mathie

A very prompt response from Michael Kennedy TD

...

Thank you but I believe the driver has given out wrong information.Last week I met with Dublin Bus and they confirmed that there would be no reduction in the peak times services for routes 142 and 41 X.

I hope this clarifies matters

Regards

Michael Kennedy TD

mickoneill30

Hmmmm. Maybe the driver was trying to get sympathy for the drivers that were let go and some support for the strikes.

I hope Michael Kennedys right.

dub_commuter

Fair play to the driver if he was telling the truth, his employers don't give two hoots about the public, as else they would not leave it so close to the operative date to inform people.

If the services they are cutting are packed, and will result in people left behind, it suggests that someone, somewhere does not know what they are doing and are just cutting services they see fit, rather than what is inefficent.

Tracybal

mickoneill30 wrote: »

Hmmmm. Maybe the driver was trying to get sympathy for the drivers that were let go and some support for the strikes.

I hope Michael Kennedys right.

Last week I was on 41x home and there were leaflets on the bus saying which buses were been cut and it had 2 peak services for 41x route and 3 evening services for 142, so not sure what is happening. I did email Dublin bus and got a reply saying they were finalising details and we would know by Thursday.

dub_commuter

No offence, but giving 3 days notice is a disgrace, and shows what a sham Dublin Bus are when it comes to new timetables, in the UK 40 days notice must be given.

KC61

mathie wrote: »

A very prompt response from Michael Kennedy TD

...

Thank you but I believe the driver has given out wrong information.Last week I met with Dublin Bus and they confirmed that there would be no reduction in the peak times services for routes 142 and 41 X.

I hope this clarifies matters

Regards

Michael Kennedy TD

That does not specify which peak services.

I would think that the morning peak may still operate, but I would get him to query the evening services. The loads on the 142 were heavily weighted in favour of the mornings rather than the evenings.

mathie

Just got an email from Michael Kennedy that he received from Dublin Bus...

---

Original Message

---

From: Doherty Paddy (O'Connell St) [mailto:XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX@dublinbus.ie]
Sent: 24 February 2009 09:07
Subject: RE: 142 bus


I refer to your email from last night.

I regret that you have been given wrong information.

I would like to confirm that there will be no change to the timetables or routing for either routes 142 or 43.

Details of timetable adjustments on other routes will be publicised during this week in national media and on our website.

Regards

Paddy Doherty

dub_commuter

From what I have heard they will be inter-worked on other duties rather than their own specific one.

trellheim

Not sure you should be posting email addresses on the board.

But didn't the OP ask about the 41x and not the 43 ?

AlekSmart

Remember John Brutons rationalization of his behaviour regarding the Hep B scandals in the Dàil....you will not get any pertinent fact unless you ask the specific question.

Plausible deniability rules !

I suspect the 41X driver was operating with only part of the story due to the manner in which these MAJOR service alterations are being handled Internally.

Scraps of A4,and smaller sheets,stuck-up with sellotape in dark corners of Depot`s.
What information that is up is often quite obviously incorrect and full of ambiguities and contradictions.
No full Drivers rota`s for the Massive restructuring and in my own location a bare note advising of 28 Drivers transfering from one garage to another.
The Depot Inspectors have no idea which Drivers and have to refer questions to middle management who are understanably away "at meetins".

If Mssrs Deloitte wished to write a meaningful report on the level of chaos inspired by the Minister for Transport`s actions within his own company then they should return post haste-In fact if I was the ICTU I would PAY Deloitte to return NOW for a flying visit and add an addendum to their missive.

For any major Public Transport entity to even consider a restructuring of its services on this scale should have meant a backroom project BEGINNING with the dissemination of the new Information TO ITS CUSTOMERS.

However such is the level of blind funk and aggressive anti-union,anti-passenger,anti-everybody focus now coming from An Làr that the lack of reality that Busdrivers have been accused of can be seen to have permeated DOWN.

The manner in which a HUGE swathe of Public Transport users who will be directly affected by Major Service Revisions/Cancellations from Sunday Next are being treated today (24th Feb) beggars belief and sure as hell can be costed at a level FAR beyond a reduction of 10% in ones BONUS !

Once again I can only refer posters to the Publically owned Lothian Buses in Edinburgh who had FULL lists of major service cuts/alterations available on-line for WEEKS in advance of their changes on Feburary 18th.

In addition that company posted a full and frank explanation from their MD outlining the reasons and the alternatives which were being put in place.

What we are being presented with resembles little more than a one armed man with a stick of chalk attempting to transcribe the Koran in Latin onto the back of a Stamp !

THIS Steaming pile of Crap needs to be wrapped up in some newspaper and dropped with a resounding plop outside Noel Dempsey`s Office Door TODAY or is this Goon simply another Politician who is to be allowed shuffle away with thousands of our € Notes sticking out of his waistband,while the ordinary punter is laughed and jeered at from the safety of the Dàil Bar ??? :mad:

dub_commuter

AlekSmart wrote: »

For any major Public Transport entity to even consider a restructuring of its services on this scale should have meant a backroom project BEGINNING with the dissemination of the new Information TO ITS CUSTOMERS.

However such is the level of blind funk and aggressive anti-union,anti-passenger,anti-everybody focus now coming from An Làr that the lack of reality that Busdrivers have been accused of can be seen to have permeated DOWN.

The manner in which a HUGE swathe of Public Transport users who will be directly affected by Major Service Revisions/Cancellations from Sunday Next are being treated today (24th Feb) beggars belief and sure as hell can be costed at a level FAR beyond a reduction of 10% in ones BONUS !

Once again I can only refer posters to the Publically owned Lothian Buses in Edinburgh who had FULL lists of major service cuts/alterations available on-line for WEEKS in advance of their changes on Feburary 18th.

In addition that company posted a full and frank explanation from their MD outlining the reasons and the alternatives which were being put in place

I agree, the public have not been given any information and it's a disgrace. that they will be given just a few days notice. This is obviously caused by bad management from the company who clearly are not as customer focused as a company needs to be and this has always been one of the big failings of DUblin Bus throughout the years.

I mean even when they have changed timetables in the past, they may give a weeks notice that the timetable is changing, but may say on the Tuesday that the new timetable will be uploaded by the Friday, which takes effect on Monday, why can they not upload it exactly on the Tuesday? Why wait until the Friday, they claim their website cannot handle both previous and new timetables. WELL DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

It's not just Lothian who do this, even the private companies in the UK are very good at this, whilst First have their failures, they have a DEDICATED FORTHCOMING TIMETABLES SECTION on their website that tends to list all changes, and the full timetables up to a couple of months in advance before they actually take effect.

However for a long while now the sales, and marketing and customer communication of Dublin Bus has been lacking and they simply have done very little, or nothing in some cases for a very long time, it's time that someone in management actually woke up, and realise to keep and retain customers and attract new ones they actually need to actually put some effort in, and do something to achieve just that.

However in the UK I believe it is required by Law for them to give 40 days notice. Something that should be brought in right here in this country. Mr Dempsey? Are you listening?

serfboard

What they should do is to bring in outside consultants and pay them vast sums of money to advise them on how to handle the PR for forthcoming changes.

On second thoughts, they're probably going to do that anyway.

mathie

To recap I've had assurances from

Michael Kennedy
Trevor Sargent
Darragh O'Brien

that the 142 service will not be changed.

No response from James Reilly as of yet.

So either all the politicians are lying or that bus driver is lying.
I'll say no more!

M

AlekSmart

As I have tried to outline above Mathie,the Driver may have been passing on the information that related to the Current duty HE operates.

This could mean that the current situation where the same regular driver operates BOTH inbound and outbound Expresso might be changing with that particular Driver losing his duty.
This "Survival Plan" is actually nothing of the sort,it may be about Survival but there is not a whiff of planning about it.

The "Survival Plan" taken as a whole is little more than a list of Local Depot Industrial Relations Wish-Lists going back in some cases to the 2000 wage deal.
There is not even a nod towards integration,improvement or marketing as it is totally geared towards markedly worsening current Bus Drivers terms and conditions first, with little if any commensurate improvement to the level or quality of service.

I rather suspect that Senior Dublin Bus management are beside themselves with worry at the prospect of these changes having to be implimented as "Planned" cos in information terms they will realistically require at least a Month of work before they are at a level acceptable to the customer :eek:

shltter

mathie wrote: »

To recap I've had assurances from

Michael Kennedy
Trevor Sargent
Darragh O'Brien

that the 142 service will not be changed.

No response from James Reilly as of yet.

So either all the politicians are lying or that bus driver is lying.
I'll say no more!

M

A mix up on the drivers behalf I would imagine rather than any attempt to mislead
At the moment the 41x and 142 are operated from harristown on what are called euro duties many of these are being scrapped so the driver presumed the service was being scrapped however what the company plans on doing is to operate these from summerhill as part of the regular 41 route basically they will take buses that currently operate as 41s and operate them as 41x and 142

The driver in harristown would not have seen this as the new 41 bill with the 41x would only have been displayed in summerhill hence the confusion

Tarabuses

shltter wrote: »

A mix up on the drivers behalf I would imagine rather than any attempt to mislead
At the moment the 41x and 142 are operated from harristown on what are called euro duties many of these are being scrapped so the driver presumed the service was being scrapped however what the company plans on doing is to operate these from summerhill as part of the regular 41 route basically they will take buses that currently operate as 41s and operate them as 41x and 142

The driver in harristown would not have seen this as the new 41 bill with the 41x would only have been displayed in summerhill hence the confusion

While it may not have been deliberate, making an announcement based on a presumption is certainly misleading. You don't think he was trying to show the company in a poor light?

shltter

Tarabuses wrote: »

While it may not have been deliberate, making an announcement based on a presumption is certainly misleading. You don't think he was trying to show the company in a poor light?

No all drivers losing their duties were given a letter stating that on Friday on these euros that operate xpresso services some are being replaced by taking buses from the normal route like 41 some are just being scrapped the driver in harristown would not have been told this nor would he have seen the new 41 bill.

AlekSmart

You don't think he was trying to show the company in a poor light?

Well Tarabuses,if the fellow was attempting this then he really need not have bothered as The Company appears more than capable of holding it`s own in this respect.

To describe the Management`s handling of this as a debacle is putting it mildly.

In a structured operation such as DB is there has to be methodology to allow for change and it`s implimentation.

The Company over the past 10 days has studiously dismantled most of what existed precisely to allow for smooth and well informed change in favour of some sort of Belicose Ignorance based largely upon generating fear,foreboding and loathing in equal measure.

However as of today somebody appears to have found their medication and calmed them down.....for now

HydeRoad

In business, perceived efficiency often comes down to twisting the nut on the staff ever tighter, without any wider notion of what efficiency really means.

Employers view their staff either as assets, or as liabilities. As assets, staff who are looked after properly will usually grow with the company, and take pride in their work. Treat the staff the way you wish your staff to treat the customer. Unfortunately, in an organisation that does not value the customer, the staff are usually not valued either, and treated as simply a cost to the business, to be pared to the bone.

I have seen it in the private sector too, an inability to see where the real efficiencies lie, only the usual Irish begrudging attitude to staff of 'paying them money for nothing.'

Perhaps when the worker's conditions are cut back to working 80 hour spreadover shifts for €4 an hour, such employers might take some misguided satisfaction. To hell with the resultant indifferent attitude to the customer.

Well, the taxi industry has been reduced to that, and the taxi regulator seems satisfied with her achievements, even if nobody else is!

Victor

Can we keep all speculation to one thread - I nominate this one: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055497051