Weird thing happening on Dublin Bus during rush hour

Goonerette

Lads,

This morning around 9am I got on the number 7 bus in Blackrock. It was reasonably full upstairs, but downstairs there was only me and one other person standing. When we got to the Rock Road QBC, I suddenly realised that the bus had started skipping every stop along the way unless somebody wanted to get off when he would actually pull in after the stop and not let anyone else on. Even more bizarrely, no one seemed to be hailing him anymore. When the big group of Italian students got off in Booterstown the bus became practically empty, yet it continued to pass by every stop without stopping, leaving dozens of people waiting. I was completely baffled at that stage. Anyway, when I got off in town I realised that the front of the bus had changed to PRIVATE HIRE even though it was a normal 7 heading into O'Connell St when I got on. :eek: :eek:

Does anyone know what the story is? How can the driver get away with this??

Doyler92

I really don't know the answer but my guess would be that there is a certain limit of passengers each bus is allowed to hold so maybe it's full at that stage.

Mental Mickey

Maybe it was a mistake on the driver's part? They are human.

Awesome-O

saved you loads of time, I wouldn't be complaining!! it is strange though

Goonerette

Awesome-O wrote: »

saved you loads of time, I wouldn't be complaining!! it is strange though

Hehe, true. I was savagely late for work anyway! Still though, it made no sense as the bus was nowhere near full.

robbie_998

good for you - you get where you need to go faster

people at bus stop just think private hire... clearly not my bus

everybody happy


i'd say most likely the driver didn't want to allow only half of people at the bus stop on and leave others behind and cause a fuss or something to that extent

Awesome-O

He was probably bursting to go to the toilet and this was the best way to get back to the depot asap!

mikemac

Maybe he was under instructions from the depot.

Simon201

Was it white and parked at a church when you got on?




:D

cursai

....Simple. He was trying to get home. It happens. People who include bus drivers have to go home and do whatever they can to get home when they finish.:D

RayM

When a bus is running late (especially on a busy route, where there is guaranteed to be another one close behind), the driver is often told to switch the display to "Special" or "Private" so he can get to the terminus on schedule. Happens all the time.

foggy_lad

This should never happen! The timetable is there for a reason and there were dozens of people put out by their bus not turning up because it had been switched to private hire or special!

RayM wrote: »

When a bus is running late (especially on a busy route, where there is guaranteed to be another one close behind), the driver is often told to switch the display to "Special" or "Private" so he can get to the terminus on schedule. Happens all the time.

bmaxi

foggy_lad wrote: »

This should never happen! The timetable is there for a reason and there were dozens of people put out by their bus not turning up because it had been switched to private hire or special!

It's for precisely this reason that buses are instructed to run special. A bus that is running seriously late will be instructed to make a partial journey or miss a journey in order to return to schedule.
Granted intending passengers on that particular journey will be inconvenienced but it's seen as the lesser of two evils.

dekbhoy

foggy_lad wrote: »

This should never happen! The timetable is there for a reason and there were dozens of people put out by their bus not turning up because it had been switched to private hire or special!

Hold your whist there pal , bus drivers have finish times also . if a bus is held up in traffic and his finish time is say 10 am he is entitled to skip stops in order to make up for lost time that was no fault of his, if Dublin bus dont want to pay overtime you can hardly expect him to work for free. any more complaints take it up with the management not the drivers

Mimikyu

This post has been deleted.

Goonerette

RayM wrote: »

When a bus is running late (especially on a busy route, where there is guaranteed to be another one close behind), the driver is often told to switch the display to "Special" or "Private" so he can get to the terminus on schedule. Happens all the time.

Thanks for that information! It makes sense to do this to bring the bus back in line with the schedule for the benefit of the majority of the passengers. I'm sure you can appreciate, though, that it's baffling for the majority of people who aren't "in the know". He was running only 10 mins behind schedule as far as I could tell, and that's not at all unusual for Dublin Bus. I hope it doesn't happen "all the time" as you say for such minor delays.

Next time I see Special or Private Hire on a rainy and windy morning I'll have my suspicions.

cson

I'd love to live in Out Of Service wherever it is; every bus that passes me seems to go there.

xper

dekbhoy wrote: »

Hold your whist there pal , bus drivers have finish times also . if a bus is held up in traffic and his finish time is say 10 am he is entitled to skip stops in order to make up for lost time that was no fault of his, if Dublin bus dont want to pay overtime you can hardly expect him to work for free. any more complaints take it up with the management not the drivers

Actually, yes, I would expect him to work the ten or twenty minutes extra for free on the odd occasion. There is such a thing as dedication to the job and service to your customers. In a previous (public sector) job, I dealt with members of the public on a front desk. Individual queries normaly took 2-3 minutes but the odd one could be much longer. People were allowed in right up to a couple of minutes before knocking off time. If you got stuck with a long one right at closing, you simply got on with it, you didn't tell the customer to feck off. No overtime, no time in lieu, just doing the job.

There may be genuine, even good, reasons for this occasional phenomenon of scheduled buses switching to "Private Hire" or "Special" but "ah jaysus, I'm not going to be paid for the last two miles if I don't skip a few punters" is not one of them.

Not that we know this was the thinking in the OP's case.

corktina

its called Regulation I think. To maintain the service headways in a busy city sometimes you have to do this sort of thing especially if the buses are late and bunching up. Id say the OP is lucky the service wasnt terminated and him made to transfer to the following service.

As for working 10 to 20 minutes extra free, you have to realise that sometimes (due to the regualtions that govern PSV Drivers etc) this just isnt possible without breaking the law.

woysworld

cson wrote: »

I'd love to live in Out Of Service wherever it is; every bus that passes me seems to go there.

Brilliant!!! LOL!!!...

Bazzer2

woysworld wrote: »

Brilliant!!! LOL!!!...

But what about on the way back?!

RayM

xper wrote: »

There may be genuine, even good, reasons for this occasional phenomenon of scheduled buses switching to "Private Hire" or "Special" but "ah jaysus, I'm not going to be paid for the last two miles if I don't skip a few punters" is not one of them.

As far as I know, the main reasons for switching the display to "Private Hire" are that it allows a bus to catch up with its timetable, and helps avoid the extremely irritating phenomenon, whereby you wait for ages, only for two buses to eventually arrive together.

Vic_08

foggy_lad wrote: »

This should never happen! The timetable is there for a reason and there were dozens of people put out by their bus not turning up because it had been switched to private hire or special!

It is done to get the bus back on schedule, the people waiting in the city for it's return journey would be put out by it not being there in time to operate that trip.

In reality chances are nobody was put out by this, that section is well served by other shorter routes. If that bus had stopped at every stop I would bet that it would have been caught up by an empty 4 or 4A before it got to the city centre, instead it caught up some of it's lost time and the bus following it took the passengers.

IMO this is how routes like the 7 should operate all the time, as semi-expresses on the inner sections already served by frequent shorter routes. Make the journey times to/from the city faster and better serve the people in the areas only served by the longer route.

As for the predictable anti-driver moans over going OOS to suit themselves, this is crap. If they are late due to traffic they will get overtime and only in a case of a driver going over his legal driving hours would a bus be sent OOS or special to suit the driver. Any driver that did this without authorisation would be a fool and if caught would be soon getting a p45.

AlekSmart

As another poster replied,this process is called "Regulation",or rather one of a couple of elements available to a controller to... erm.....regulate the service.

However there`s nothing exotic or uniquely Dublin Bus about it and you`ll find it practiced on most,if not all public transport services.

I have experienced it quite regularly on London Buses,which unless one had taken note of the lower front "Final Destination" display on Routemaster type buses could result in one feeling quite piqued when the conductor would give the "All Change Please,All Change thanguberrymuch"as one sat alone upstairs.

Additionally one will sometimes find London Bus services "loitering" at Busstops along the route as the TfL CentreComm controllers put order on the headway of a particular route.

Incidentally this "Loitering" practice will shortly be appearing on the Dublin Bus radar as the AVLS system is rolled out.
All routes will have designated locations where an individual driver may be instructed to wait up to 2 minutes in order to regulate the headway.

The net effect will be to give a more reliable and definitely spaced service although,as other recent Bus related threads on C&T demonstrate,that 2 minute wait can mean the difference between satisfaction and utter vehement anger to many folks.

In Paris the RATP vehicles carry a "Service Partiel" destination display or occasionally a wooden window board with diagonal line drawn through it to indicate a truncated or otherwise regulated service.

Perhaps the most surprising example I have experienced was in Berlin ( :eek: ) where a journey on the S Bahn back to Schoenefeld suddenly became non-stop only for it then to be truncated at an outlying station where we were roared at to transfer to buses,schnell as you like there please....Incredibly several of the connecting Buses drove away empty from the Bus Stop whilse significant numbers of passengers were quite clearly walking towards them...with luggage etc...

Mind you,there were notices posted in the Train,rather typically, long detailed and in VERY small font on dirty grey recycled paper...
A German fellow traveller translated it for me and it did indeed advise that Bus connections would operate at set-departure times which would be adhered to in order to...wait- for-it...."Regulate" the service efficiently !

My (By now fuming) German fellow traveller told me that because of Track works this sort of nonsense was becoming quite commonplace at week-ends,adding that all the fcuxkking Busdrivers are all absolute baxterds whop never lost an opportunity to leave passengers behind.......Discertion took the place of valour on my part and I remained discreetly silent as to my own chosen path of employment

Thankfully the OP,Goonerette,appears "cool" with the clarifications offered...

Thanks for that information! It makes sense to do this to bring the bus back in line with the schedule for the benefit of the majority of the passengers. I'm sure you can appreciate, though, that it's baffling for the majority of people who aren't "in the know". He was running only 10 mins behind schedule as far as I could tell, and that's not at all unusual for Dublin Bus. I hope it doesn't happen "all the time" as you say for such minor delays.

Its worth noting that if the 7 was running 10 mins late in Blackrock it`s highly likely that the situation would have deteriorated by the time the journey finished in An Lár...so in this case "Blank her out in Blackrock" would have been probably the only realistic option open to the controller.

Another element worthy of note is the fact that the actual Bus and Driver are seperate entities which do not actually spend their working day wedded together.

A particular driver running late,will hand over the Bus to the relief driver who is then immediately running late as a result...the original Driver then has a statutory minimum break which in certain circumstances can be voluntarily truncated if it still remains within the legal limit.

So,if the original Driver has to take the statutory period he/she then resumes their shift still late,even though the peak may be well past...this is the domesday scenario which Service Controllers universally dread and therefore they try to regulate as early as possible in the late-running scenario.

Actually, yes, I would expect him to work the ten or twenty minutes extra for free on the odd occasion.

I suppose that,with the recession,the expectation that "unpaid labour" arrangements will allow "Ireland Teo" once again take it`s place among the nations of the world is bound to sound attractive,in a vague "we have to do something" kinda way.

Human Nature being as it is however,we can immediately see the problems over the definition of "expect" and/or "the odd occasion".
Perhaps different cultures,North Korea,China or the more mercenary elements of the USA may well operate such elements to the benefit of their systems but it`s not a lasting solution to our own "Irish" problem.


Exper can,however,rest assured that this "free work" situation has been catered for on the Bus Atha Cliath network for several years now ( up to 15 minutes) as part of several alterations to working agreements,therefore the suspicion he/she has that.....

"ah jaysus, I'm not going to be paid for the last two miles if I don't skip a few punters"

is quite unfounded.

It`s also worth highlighting Vic_08`s factual post....

Any driver that did this without authorisation would be a fool and if caught would be soon getting a p45.

Hopefully Goonerette won`t feel as "Weird" should she encounter a bit of Regulation in the future.

GTE

It doesnt seem unreasonable.

From what Ive read and understand if the driver has been instructed to do this then chances are there is another bus very close behind him/her.

Since the people waiting have been waiting a while for the late bus then a couple of minutes more isn't the end of the world. At least the start of the next service will be on or close to on time and then ready to get delayed all over again.

It seems to me its taking the snowball effect out of the equation.

I agree with the point and sincerely hope that it does only happen on the routes that are very frequent.

Something that essentially the same thing would be some 78a's skipping the first part of the route at Liffey Valley.

I know BE skip parts of their routes when no one is on the bus wanting to get off. An example would be the hoards of buses from Sligo, Ballina and Galway (ok 3 ) that seem to converge on the old N4 at the same time every hour or two. It can happen more when the commuter bus is close to them also. Some drivers let you off at Liffey Valley but others, when a commuter is close by, say no. They do zip past stops knowing there is another one just behind. It doesnt bother me much because they is usually just minutes between them.

Terrontress

Good post Alek. You should read The Maintenance of Headway by Magnus Mills which I mention in another post. It covers several of your points.

AlekSmart

Thanks Teronteress,I am indeed aware of Mill`s book.

Did you get yours in Dublin ?

I understand it`s quite widely discussed in Transport Enthusiast circles over a nice steamy cup of horlicks or two and has even led to splits in camps by all accounts ...

xper

AlekSmart wrote: »

Exper can,however,rest assured that this "free work" situation has been catered for on the Bus Atha Cliath network for several years now ( up to 15 minutes) as part of several alterations to working agreements,therefore the suspicion he/she has that.....

"ah jaysus, I'm not going to be paid for the last two miles if I don't skip a few punters"

is quite unfounded.

The suspicion or suggested reasoning was that of another poster. I was actually disagreeing, by way of example, with the presumption that such an attitude was justified and would prevail. Thankfully, that attitude is not my experience with most individuals providing services to the public.


I am aware that active 'regulation' takes place and it makes perfect sense on frequent routes. On the practice of 'loitering' - I first came across it many years ago in that bastion of public transport, the US of A (ever see the Bill Murray movie Quick Change, some of the bus drivers over there are really like that!). I don't envy the task of DB drivers explaining the practice to confused passengers (who've just had to change bus :P ) as AVSL plays a more prominent role in the coming months. I note that Aircoach do it.

Terrontress

AlekSmart wrote: »

Thanks Teronteress,I am indeed aware of Mill`s book.

Did you get yours in Dublin ?

I understand it`s quite widely discussed in Transport Enthusiast circles over a nice steamy cup of horlicks or two and has even led to splits in camps by all accounts ...

I've read and enjoyed all of his books so far. I got it off amazon but have bought other titles of his up the Rathmines Road.

Gist of the book is that passengers don't like buses being late, the transport company doesn't like buses being early and it is nearly impossible for a bus to always be on time.

corktina

Terrontress wrote: »

I've read and enjoyed all of his books so far. I got it off amazon but have bought other titles of his up the Rathmines Road.

Gist of the book is that passengers don't like buses being late, the transport company doesn't like buses being early and it is nearly impossible for a bus to always be on time.

ah well that will save me buying it...does it touch on Passengers not liking Drivers and noone liking passengers?

AlekSmart

I don't envy the task of DB drivers explaining the practice to confused passengers (who've just had to change bus )

Xpers,I`m not sure envy would be enough to describe the feelings a DB driver will need to wallow in if the first experiences are anything to go by.

The first shots have already been discharged and by all accounts it is a somewhat messy business,particularly when the same group of passengers has to change buses twice within a single journey :eek:

Perhaps the most important thing to come out of it is the rather pressing need for DB to offer some form of Sales Technique training to it`s drivers.

This would allow them to sell stuff to people who don`t want it,did`nt order it an, in fact,want something else completely.

Im suggesting that each bus have a live feed directly to the appropriate controller,who can then,just like the Pope for Urbi et Orbi,come on the screeen and anounce to the faithful that he is delaying their bus by xx minutes to ensure averything is kept tickety-boo...

This would at least allow the driver quality-time to peruse his/her copy of the Guardian for job vacancies in the Financial Services Sector......:)

904473

dekbhoy wrote: »

Hold your whist there pal , bus drivers have finish times also . if a bus is held up in traffic and his finish time is say 10 am he is entitled to skip stops in order to make up for lost time that was no fault of his, if Dublin bus dont want to pay overtime you can hardly expect him to work for free. any more complaints take it up with the management not the drivers

Bus Drivers are not "Entitled" to skip stops if they are late unless given express instructions from their controller. In order to maintain the service as close as possible to the published timetable, it is sometimes necessary for a supervisor to instruct a driver to put his bus out of service for part of a journey. This section of the journey is noted in the control room as "lost milage" with a reason for this also noted, as the National Transport Authority expect to know why a bus is taken out of service.

On another point, Dublin Bus does pay overtime and at a very generous rate too. Any driver who is late breaking or late finishing will be offered the overtime payment. Fact.

Mr. Presentable

cson wrote: »

I'd love to live in Out Of Service wherever it is; every bus that passes me seems to go there.

So, do you live at Broadstone or Ringsend?

Goonerette

AlekSmart wrote: »

As another poster replied,this process is called "Regulation",or rather one of a couple of elements available to a controller to... erm.....regulate the service.

Thanks for the very informative post, Alek. You're right, there's a lot of "Regulation" going on in London (and elsewhere) also; I experienced it several times in the space of a week recently. The only difference was that in London the changes were announced and explained to the passengers who don't necessarily know what Regulation is.

BTW, my OP was NOT meant as an anti-driver rant. As a regular reader of the C&T forum and a bus enthusiast, I figured someone would be able to clarify this for me as the place is always teeming with knowledgeable people.

monument

According to Dublin Bus' service contract with the National Transport Authority services cannot be changed without notice, running active buses as "private hire" etc and other practices like this seem to be a clear breach of that contract. Running buses on any route other than the licensed route could also be seen as a breach of the route licence.

It's also unclear how these apparently widespread practices could ever compatible with the claimed 99.7% vehicles in service at peak times.

I've also been told of stories like buses from Swords which were due to serve the airport, bypassing it flying along and dumping passengers without warning or reasons off the top of O'Connell Street.

bmaxi wrote: »

It's for precisely this reason that buses are instructed to run special. A bus that is running seriously late will be instructed to make a partial journey or miss a journey in order to return to schedule.
Granted intending passengers on that particular journey will be inconvenienced but it's seen as the lesser of two evils.

First, what gives drivers or controllers the right to decide this given the company is bound by the contract with the NTA and the route licence?

As for the "lesser of two evils"... how exactly are you calculating this? By bypassing bus stops or sections of routes loads of passengers could be put out... is this amount of passengers put out always less than those who will be helped by speeding up?

AlekSmart

First, what gives drivers or controllers the right to decide this given the company is bound by the contract with the NTA and the route licence?

I suspect Monument,that buried deep within the smaller smallest print of the contract will be a term reading something like this...."subject to the exegiencies of service" or "subject to the conditions pertaining at the time".

Contracts of any type,commercial or not are governed by the presumption of "The reasonable actions of a reasonable man" and if the decision of a controller appear that then it`s game on I suppose.

It`s all early days as yet,but as Goonerette points out the business of "Regulation" is`nt confined to Dublin.

KC61

monument wrote: »

According to Dublin Bus' service contract with the National Transport Authority services cannot be changed without notice, running active buses as "private hire" etc and other practices like this seem to be a clear breach of that contract. Running buses on any route other than the licensed route could also be seen as a breach of the route licence.

It's also unclear how these apparently widespread practices could ever compatible with the claimed 99.7% vehicles in service at peak times.

First, what gives drivers or controllers the right to decide this given the company is bound by the contract with the NTA and the route licence?

As for the "lesser of two evils"... how exactly are you calculating this? By bypassing bus stops or sections of routes loads of passengers could be put out... is this amount of passengers put out always less than those who will be helped by speeding up?

I think that you're taking things just a little bit too far. Every operator has to have a bit of wriggle room to maintain services if there is disruption caused that is beyond its control. For example, DB and other operators have to reroute services when the marathon is on, or indeed where buses are delayed by unforeseen circumstances such as excessive traffic they may need to operate a bus "special" (i.e. out of service) for all or part of the route in order to get both the bus and the driver back to where they are supposed to be.

Running buses "special" where a bus is late due to traffic conditions en route is not quite "widespread" as you suggest. It does happen, but certainly not all the time. Most routes these days do have sufficient running time built into their schedules.

The key is that it happens only on sections of routes where there is not going to be a serious impact on passengers - i.e. where there remains a sufficient range of alternative services (e.g. between Blackrock and the city on the 7 or similar), and that those people who only have that bus to choose from are not discommoded (in the above example between Cherrywood and Blackrock).

To suggest that the company or other operators could have no flexibility in managing their operations is plain daft. You have to have some ability to adjust the service if a bus is running significantly late.

monument wrote: »

I've also been told of stories like buses from Swords which were due to serve the airport, bypassing it flying along and dumping passengers without warning or reasons off the top of O'Connell Street.

That of course should not happen - people already on the bus should not be put out - the bus should operate along the route. Whatever about the occasional need to operate a bus "special" along some of the route to regain lost time, I can't believe that route 41 services actively do not serve the Airport without warning leaving passengers to walk into the Airport complex. That would not be acceptable.

AlekSmart

I've also been told of stories like buses from Swords which were due to serve the airport, bypassing it flying along and dumping passengers without warning or reasons off the top of O'Connell Street.

Crikey,and just to clarify,....I hope those stories were`nt suggesting that an Airport bound passenger was brought into O Connell St ?

For many years the 41 group had a quite sensible routing into the City Centre via Gardiner St,Mountjoy Square,Talbot Street.

However,in keeping with the O Connell St fixation, the route now has joined the already burgeoning list of those that really have little business there at all.

Dublin City centre does have alternative routings but little enthusiasm for exploring or facilitating their use...:rolleyes:

foggy_lad

The key is that it happens only on sections of routes where there is not going to be a serious impact on passengers - i.e. where there remains a sufficient range of alternative services (e.g. between Blackrock and the city on the 7 or similar), and that those people who only have that bus to choose from are not discommoded (in the above example between Cherrywood and Blackrock).

i have found the services from cherrywood are sporadic at best with several busses disappearing to the terminus or to loughlinstown and then coming back "out of service" so instead of a ten minute service people are left waiting up to 45minutes for a bus into town.

this has happened at the start of the journey where there was no alternative service at the particular stop and local people seemed to just take it in their stride saying "that shower are useless" and "they can do what they bloody like" i am not sure if their anger was directed at drivers or the company but they were not happy having to wait 45minutes for a bus that is due every 15minutes!

monument

KC61 wrote: »

I think that you're taking things just a little bit too far. Every operator has to have a bit of wriggle room to maintain services if there is disruption caused that is beyond its control. For example, DB and other operators have to reroute services when the marathon is on...

That's fine if there's a marathon, march, protest, riot , parade etc on. That's not what we're talking about here

KC61 wrote: »

to get both the bus and the driver back to where they are supposed to be.

What about those passengers who were waiting for the bus at stops with no information whatsoever?

KC61 wrote: »

Running buses "special" where a bus is late due to traffic conditions en route is not quite "widespread" as you suggest. It does happen, but certainly not all the time. Most routes these days do have sufficient running time built into their schedules.

I'm not just talking about buses catching up (although as above, I don't think that practice is always of benefit of passenger). But how are we sure or how widespread it is?

KC61 wrote: »

That of course should not happen - people already on the bus should not be put out - the bus should operate along the route. Whatever about the occasional need to operate a bus "special" along some of the route to regain lost time, I can't believe that route 41 services actively do not serve the Airport without warning leaving passengers to walk into the Airport complex. That would not be acceptable.

AlekSmart wrote: »

Crikey,and just to clarify,....I hope those stories were`nt suggesting that an Airport bound passenger was brought into O Connell St ?

What I was told is that the passengers were not warned that the airport was to be skipped, although none were apparently going to the airport, and they were not told why they were being kick off the bus in the wrong place too.

Important here is what about passengers who were waiting at stops in and around the airport?

KC61

monument wrote: »

That's fine if there's a marathon, march, protest, riot , parade etc on. That's not what we're talking about here

If the bus service is disrupted due to heavy traffic or unforeseen circumstances there have to be methods of getting buses/drivers back to where they ought to be. You could not have a situation where you have total inflexibility. What we are discussing is a bus arriving sufficiently late at a terminus (due to traffic issues) to mean that multiple subsequent departures will be disrupted. In those circumstances I would suggest that the practice is permissable, subject to the stipulation that passengers who only have that service to chose from are not left behind.

monument wrote: »

What about those passengers who were waiting for the bus at stops with no information whatsoever?

As I said above, provided there are alternative bus services available that are serving those stops and that can cope with the loadings I don't see the problem.

monument wrote: »

I'm not just talking about buses catching up (although as above, I don't think that practice is always of benefit of passenger). But how are we sure or how widespread it is?

If it was that widespread believe me we would be hearing about it here frequently. To my memory I've only seen one thread on this topic before here.

monument wrote: »

What I was told is that the passengers were not warned that the airport was to be skipped, although none were apparently going to the airport, and they were not told why they were being kick off the bus in the wrong place too.

Important here is what about passengers who were waiting at stops in and around the airport?

As I said above I don't think that it is in any way acceptable to diverge from the route without informing passengers beforehand.

I would imagine that most people in the airport would get on the first bus that comes, be it a 16a, 41 or 746.

monument

KC61 wrote: »

If the bus service is disrupted due to heavy traffic or unforeseen circumstances there have to be methods of getting buses/drivers back to where they ought to be. You could not have a situation where you have total inflexibility. What we are discussing is a bus arriving sufficiently late at a terminus (due to traffic issues)

It has been suggested that traffic issues is just one of many reasons, bus drivers wanting to get home fast seems to be another one.

KC61 wrote: »

As I said above, provided there are alternative bus services available that are serving those stops and that can cope with the loadings I don't see the problem.

There's very little collected detail of how bad routes are from a passenger point of view.

And foggy_lad already replied to your last post, he said:

i have found the services from cherrywood are sporadic at best with several busses disappearing to the terminus or to loughlinstown and then coming back "out of service" so instead of a ten minute service people are left waiting up to 45minutes for a bus into town...

KC61 wrote: »

If it was that widespread believe me we would be hearing about it here frequently. To my memory I've only seen one thread on this topic before here.

It was only after the OP got off the bus that he noticed it said "private hire."

How were any of the people at stops to know this was happening? Or how is any passenger to know when this happens given the amount of buses which run "out of service" etc.

And the exact running of buses does not seem to be currently reported to the NTA (the first report to the NTA is notable for it's lack of detail), even if it was the NTA hardly has the staff to even do samples to confirm what actually happens on the ground.

KC61

monument wrote: »

It has been suggested that traffic issues is just one of many reasons, bus drivers wanting to get home fast seems to be another one.

That is not acceptable. In fact it would be a sackable offence.

The only circumstances where a driver can switch a bus to being out of service / operate special is if the controller permits him, which is usually only if the bus is running sufficiently late to completely mess up the schedule.

He certainly would not do it if "the driver wants to get home fast". I really think that's going too far!

monument wrote: »

There's very little collected detail of how bad routes are from a passenger point of view.

And foggy_lad already replied to your last post, he said:

i have found the services from cherrywood are sporadic at best with several busses disappearing to the terminus or to loughlinstown and then coming back "out of service" so instead of a ten minute service people are left waiting up to 45minutes for a bus into town...

I've already said that is not acceptable either without a controller authorising it. No controller is going to deliberately leave people without a bus.

monument wrote: »

It was only after the OP got off the bus that he noticed it said "private hire."

How were any of the people at stops to know this was happening? Or how is any passenger to know when this happens given the amount of buses which run "out of service" etc.

And the exact running of buses does not seem to be currently reported to the NTA (the first report to the NTA is notable for it's lack of detail), even if it was the NTA hardly has the staff to even do samples to confirm what actually happens on the ground.

As someone who takes a minimum of four buses a day most days I really don't think that it's that widespread. There are incidents of buses being regulated, but to suggest that it is happening unauthorised is extremely disengenuous.

If buses were going missing all across the network I would certainly think that we would get to hear about it. Most people have some idea of the expected frequency of the service. If it is a high frequency route they probably won't miss the fact that the bus did not show at their stop, but they certainly would if it were a lower frequency service.

monument

KC61 wrote: »

I've already said that is not acceptable either without a controller authorising it. No controller is going to deliberately leave people without a bus.

If a controller instructs a bus to skip stops I'm very much so unclear how the bus would not be leaving people at stops.

KC61 wrote: »

As someone who takes a minimum of four buses a day most days I really don't think that it's that widespread. There are incidents of buses being regulated, but to suggest that it is happening unauthorised is extremely disengenuous.

Never said it was "unauthorised". There's a lack of information to know what exactly is going on, and when something does happen on a bus one of the recurring features is that passengers are not told what is happening.

Also, taking four buses a day means little given the size and differences in the network. As a good example in the thread on the Luas red line shows, peak time passages are less likely to have problems with that services, while security problems are far more common off peak -- just because you experience is X does not mean others is the same.

KC61 wrote: »

If buses were going missing all across the network I would certainly think that we would get to hear about it.

Nowhere am I suggesting that buses are going missing all across the network. Buses going missing is quite a step up from what we're talking about -- buses skipping sections of routes or skipping stops. (Again, I'm not laying blame here!)

I only heard about the story about the airport because the passengers were also kicked off in the wrong place away from the normal stop. Passengers on buses will only complain if they are inconvenienced, but skipping stops and sections they are not getting off at is a good thing for these passengers. Meanwhile passengers at stops are left clueless as to why the bus has passed them by.

KC61 wrote: »

Most people have some idea of the expected frequency of the service. If it is a high frequency route they probably won't miss the fact that the bus did not show at their stop, but they certainly would if it were a lower frequency service.

I know there are various reasons for this, but common complain for people say about Dublin Bus is that the bus never turned up, or that the bus is early or late. It does not even have to be that widespread, this is the kind of rubbish service happening a few times is the kind of thing that puts people off using the bus.

KC61

monument wrote: »

If a controller instructs a bus to skip stops I'm very much so unclear how the bus would not be leaving people at stops.

Look we are going around in circles here. As I've said above the bus will generally only skip stops where there are sufficient alternative services so that passengers are not left behind.

monument wrote: »

Never said it was "unauthorised". There's a lack of information to know what exactly is going on, and when something does happen on a bus one of the recurring features is that passengers are not told what is happening.

If something is affecting a bus service, then the passengers on board should be informed and by and large in my experience the drivers do tell them.

As for the people "skipped", how exactly do you propose that they tell them?

It's a bit difficult in the absence of any real time passenger information systems for which funding was withheld by government. But again, in the vast majority of cases they probably won't know as an alternative will present itself. The rollout of AVLC should solve that problem.

I've already said that the circumstances you outlined regarding the Airport are not acceptable.

monument wrote: »

Also, taking four buses a day means little given the size and differences in the network. As a good example in the thread on the Luas red line shows, peak time passages are less likely to have problems with that services, while security problems are far more common off peak -- just because you experience is X does not mean others is the same.

With respect I don't drive, and I use the bus 7 days a week all across the network so please don't be so presumptious to assume that I don't get to see both the good and the bad. I never said that the four buses would be on the same routes. They can differ (significantly) depending on the circumstances. On a regular basis I use the services of 7 out of 9 different depots on weekdays, and the other two often at weekends, so I would like to think that gives me a good cross-section of the entire network service.

I certainly don't see this happening every day of the week. Yes there are issues with certain schedules which need addressing and I think the combination of the Network Direct changes and the implementation of AVLC will hopefully enable the controllers to deal with it more effectively.

But I really do not think that this is as big a problem as you suggest.

monument

KC61 wrote: »

If something is affecting a bus service, then the passengers on board should be informed and by and large in my experience the drivers do tell them.

As for the people "skipped", how exactly do you propose that they tell them?

It's a bit difficult in the absence of any real time passenger information systems for which funding was withheld by government. But again, in the vast majority of cases they probably won't know as an alternative will present itself. The rollout of AVLC should solve that problem.

I've already said that the circumstances you outlined regarding the Airport are not acceptable.

I'm not suggesting that the passengers skipped at stops should be told, but rather they should not be left at stops unless the need is overwhelming.

Real time info will only go so far, but should help.

KC61 wrote: »

With respect I don't drive, and I use the bus 7 days a week all across the network so please don't be so presumptious to assume that I don't get to see both the good and the bad. I never said that the four buses would be on the same routes. They can differ (significantly) depending on the circumstances. On a regular basis I use the services of 7 out of 9 different depots on weekdays, and the other two often at weekends, so I would like to think that gives me a good cross-section of the entire network service.

I certainly don't see this happening every day of the week. Yes there are issues with certain schedules which need addressing and I think the combination of the Network Direct changes and the implementation of AVLC will hopefully enable the controllers to deal with it more effectively.

But I really do not think that this is as big a problem as you suggest.

My point is not to say you do or do not do x, y, or z, but just to say even if you so such you still only see a limited section of the network on a regular bases. Even getting six buses a day would show you a limited section of the network.

foggy_lad

The only circumstances where a driver can switch a bus to being out of service / operate special is if the controller permits him, which is usually only if the bus is running sufficiently late to completely mess up the schedule.

i have often heard drivers lying about their location to the control room, saying they are up to a mile behind their actual location, this is obviously to allow themselves a longer break at the terminus when they arrive on time or even early as the control room believe them to be so far behind!

KC61

monument wrote: »

My point is not to say you do or do not do x, y, or z, but just to say even if you so such you still only see a limited section of the network on a regular bases. Even getting six buses a day would show you a limited section of the network.

I'm sorry to harp on about this but the buses that I get can take me to completely different areas - surely to God I think it's fairly obvious that if I'm using 7 depots' services on a regular basis that I am going along completely different corridors. Timings vary on a daily basis.

That would at least offer me the ability to give some form of informed comment based on my own experiences.

KC61

foggy_lad wrote: »

i have often heard drivers lying about their location to the control room, saying they are up to a mile behind their actual location, this is obviously to allow themselves a longer break at the terminus when they arrive on time or even early as the control room believe them to be so far behind!

There's not much that anyone can do about that if it were happening - short of mobile teams of inspectors everywhere. However, AVLC will stamp that out.

monument

KC61 wrote: »

There's not much that anyone can do about that if it were happening - short of mobile teams of inspectors everywhere. However, AVLC will stamp that out.

Ok lets get this straight...

The suggestion that drivers skip stops because they "want to get home fast"* is really "going too far", but some-how drivers often "lying about their location to the control room" happens and you're not questioning that it happens?

(*made in this thread by somebody else first -- I think is it possible because drivers are human and there's currently feck all info as to where buses)

KC61

monument wrote: »

Ok lets get this straight...

The suggestion that drivers skip stops because they "want to get home fast"* is really "going too far", but some-how drivers often "lying about their location to the control room" happens and you're not questioning that it happens?

(*made in this thread by somebody else first -- I think is it possible because drivers are human and there's currently feck all info as to where buses)

Eh I did question it - I said "if" it were happening.

I've never experienced that in all my travels on Dublin Bus which is an awful lot.

We could go on and on and on all night about this.

The bottom line is this. I do not believe that there is a widespread problem with buses going out of service mid-route. There are occasions where if a bus is significantly late a controller will authorise to driver to go out of service for part of that route where it has minimal impact.

I certainly do not agree with allegations that drivers are lying to controllers or are doing this sort of practice to finish early on a regular basis.

With respect I do think that the fact that my travels can take me across 7 out of 9 different depots does give me fairly substantial exposure to the operations every day.