I can't depend on Dublin Bus

HQvhs

Before I begin, apologies for the rant!

I've been commuting to and from Dublin city centre every day for the past year now, and I've had an awful time with Dublin Bus.
Despite the fact my front door is literally thirty seconds from a bus stop (the 16 - but Dublin Bus standards, a reasonably good route), and about five minutes from a bigger bus stop (the 16, 16a, 17 & 75), it is quicker for me to walk half an hour to the LUAS which takes 15 minutes to town (+/- <5 mins waiting), than for me to get the bus.
It's even worse on the way home because you can never tell when the bus will arrive in town, and when it does, whether or not it will be full. I could be lucky and arrive just as a bus comes, or I could be waiting upwards of half an hour. My problem isn't so much the length of the commute when I'm on the bus (around 50mins to an hour), it's the fact that I can never depend on the commute time ever being even roughly the same. Thus, I cannot depend on the bus to get me in or home on time.

What is the delay on implementing the electronic timetables that display how long until the next bus arrives? Such a simple thing would make it possible to actually plan journeys, instead of having to guess how long the bus takes to get into town from the airport.

Another thing is why do Dublin Bus not run shuttle buses to LUAS stops, or at the very least bus routes that might service LUAS stops. I know I'd use it, and judging by the amount of people I know who drive to LUAS stops or are just fed up with the bus, a lot of others would too.

They also need to change the Dublin Bus/LUAS monthly pass. Although it's currently only €7 more than the monthly Dublin Bus pass (€82 vs €75), it is non-consecutive and so far this year I have had two eaten by the old-fashioned ticket machines on the bus. It would not be particularly difficult to have a non-consecutive, modern joint pass (and I'm not even talking about integrated ticketing, which is a must!)

Anyway, I'm sorry about the rant. I'm just fed up of not being able to depend on Dublin Bus and some of they're incomprehensible and out of date practices that need to be changed.

angel01

HQvhs wrote: »

Before I begin, apologies for the rant!

I've been commuting to and from Dublin city centre every day for the past year now, and I've had an awful time with Dublin Bus.
Despite the fact my front door is literally thirty seconds from a bus stop (the 16 - but Dublin Bus standards, a reasonably good route), and about five minutes from a bigger bus stop (the 16, 16a, 17 & 75), it is quicker for me to walk half an hour to the LUAS which takes 15 minutes to town (+/- <5 mins waiting), than for me to get the bus.
It's even worse on the way home because you can never tell when the bus will arrive in town, and when it does, whether or not it will be full. I could be lucky and arrive just as a bus comes, or I could be waiting upwards of half an hour. My problem isn't so much the length of the commute when I'm on the bus (around 50mins to an hour), it's the fact that I can never depend on the commute time ever being even roughly the same. Thus, I cannot depend on the bus to get me in or home on time.

What is the delay on implementing the electronic timetables that display how long until the next bus arrives? Such a simple thing would make it possible to actually plan journeys, instead of having to guess how long the bus takes to get into town from the airport.

Another thing is why do Dublin Bus not run shuttle buses to LUAS stops, or at the very least bus routes that might service LUAS stops. I know I'd use it, and judging by the amount of people I know who drive to LUAS stops or are just fed up with the bus, a lot of others would too.

They also need to change the Dublin Bus/LUAS monthly pass. Although it's currently only €7 more than the monthly Dublin Bus pass (€82 vs €75), it is non-consecutive and so far this year I have had two eaten by the old-fashioned ticket machines on the bus. It would not be particularly difficult to have a non-consecutive, modern joint pass (and I'm not even talking about integrated ticketing, which is a must!)

Anyway, I'm sorry about the rant. I'm just fed up of not being able to depend on Dublin Bus and some of they're incomprehensible and out of date practices that need to be changed.

You can get the electronic type Monthly Bus/Luas tickets, if you buy them from Dublin Bus and ask for the new type, you can just scan them with the new reader, I get one like that each month.

I know that DB do run some routes in parallel to the luas, the 14/14A is one.

Cookie_Monster

Learn to cycle.

healthier, nearly always quicker and much more enjoyable

Run_to_da_hills

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

Learn to cycle.

healthier, nearly always quicker and much more enjoyable

The horrible weather dosen't help. :mad:

KC61

HQvhs wrote: »

Before I begin, apologies for the rant!

I've been commuting to and from Dublin city centre every day for the past year now, and I've had an awful time with Dublin Bus.
Despite the fact my front door is literally thirty seconds from a bus stop (the 16 - but Dublin Bus standards, a reasonably good route), and about five minutes from a bigger bus stop (the 16, 16a, 17 & 75), it is quicker for me to walk half an hour to the LUAS which takes 15 minutes to town (+/- <5 mins waiting), than for me to get the bus.
It's even worse on the way home because you can never tell when the bus will arrive in town, and when it does, whether or not it will be full. I could be lucky and arrive just as a bus comes, or I could be waiting upwards of half an hour. My problem isn't so much the length of the commute when I'm on the bus (around 50mins to an hour), it's the fact that I can never depend on the commute time ever being even roughly the same. Thus, I cannot depend on the bus to get me in or home on time.

What is the delay on implementing the electronic timetables that display how long until the next bus arrives? Such a simple thing would make it possible to actually plan journeys, instead of having to guess how long the bus takes to get into town from the airport.

Another thing is why do Dublin Bus not run shuttle buses to LUAS stops, or at the very least bus routes that might service LUAS stops. I know I'd use it, and judging by the amount of people I know who drive to LUAS stops or are just fed up with the bus, a lot of others would too.

They also need to change the Dublin Bus/LUAS monthly pass. Although it's currently only €7 more than the monthly Dublin Bus pass (€82 vs €75), it is non-consecutive and so far this year I have had two eaten by the old-fashioned ticket machines on the bus. It would not be particularly difficult to have a non-consecutive, modern joint pass (and I'm not even talking about integrated ticketing, which is a must!)

Anyway, I'm sorry about the rant. I'm just fed up of not being able to depend on Dublin Bus and some of they're incomprehensible and out of date practices that need to be changed.

The first part of your piece appears to be complaining about the length of time the 16 takes to get into town rather than reliability? There's not much Dublin Bus can do about that - there is bus priority inbound along the Rathfarnham QBC, but buses do get stuck at several pinchpoints, and particularly along the South Circular Road approaching Kelly's Corner where the junction is not wide enough for a bus and a car to turn off the SCR simultaneously.

It depends on what time you are going in to town at. Buses leaving Ballinteer before 0730 can take about 35/40 minutes to get to the city, between 0735 and 0800 they can take up to 50 minutes when the schools are on, but 40 minutes when they are off. After that they are 50 minutes to 1 hour from Ballinteer.

Outbound in the evenings there is an issue with the timetable as it is weighted more towards the 16a than the 16. The 16 and 16a do also get snarled up in traffic due to the fact that for much of the route there is insufficient roadspace to fit both outbound and inbound bus lanes. This obviously does not help reliability. However, as a rule of thumb, the 16 tends to take 25 minutes off-peak to get to O'Connell Street from the departure time at Santry and 35/40 minutes during the peak, while the 16a takes 35/40 minutes off-peak and 45/50 minutes in the peak from the Airport.

The delay in electronic timetables is down to the government withdrawing funding for the project some years ago. The good news is that funding is now (at last) being provided for the project, and either later this year or early next year we should start to see the full rollout of real time information online, on mobiles, and on street as the buses are kitted out with GPS equipment. This is currently taking place, but with 1,000 buses (approximately) it is taking a while.

As for the ticketing - due to non-compatible smartcard ticketing equipment between the companies at present, non-consecutive period passes for LUAS and Dublin Bus will have to wait until the integrated smartcard appears.

robbie_998

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

The horrible weather dosen't help. :mad:

ah your never happy.

buy a car.

no ?.... ok

buy a wheel chair....

does the same thing but with no traffic or tax, insurance and petrol.

Run_to_da_hills

robbie_998 wrote: »

ah your never happy.

buy a car.

no ?.... ok

buy a wheel chair....

does the same thing but with no traffic or tax, insurance and petrol.

I ride a motorbike.

dfx-

The 16 is a cross-city route that I use frequently in the evenings south from the city. It is chronically overfull and delayed even when there has been recent 16A in the same direction.

You've just got yourself a 'bad' route, OP. It's popular..

Zoney

In fairness the route information system for Dublin Bus should long have been installed and operational (even without the displays at bus shelters). Bus Éireann even already have whensmybus.ie although it seems one can only be assured of real-time info for intercity and city services (some regional/commuter services seem to be timetable only).

foggy_lad

Zoney wrote: »

In fairness the route information system for Dublin Bus should long have been installed and operational (even without the displays at bus shelters). Bus Éireann even already have whensmybus.ie although it seems one can only be assured of real-time info for intercity and city services (some regional/commuter services seem to be timetable only).

have drivers agreed to the route information system yet? honestly i cant see dublin bus drivers agreeing to this as they will have to stick to timetables and wont have anymore long breaks at the terminus.

KC61

foggy_lad wrote: »

have drivers agreed to the route information system yet? honestly i cant see dublin bus drivers agreeing to this as they will have to stick to timetables and wont have anymore long breaks at the terminus.

Yes ths was agreed to several years back. Despite what you seem to think there are already in place agreements that allow for all of the new technology, 24 hour working and other flexible working arrangements.

HQvhs

KC61 wrote: »

The first part of your piece appears to be complaining about the length of time the 16 takes to get into town rather than reliability? There's not much Dublin Bus can do about that - there is bus priority inbound along the Rathfarnham QBC, but buses do get stuck at several pinchpoints, and particularly along the South Circular Road approaching Kelly's Corner where the junction is not wide enough for a bus and a car to turn off the SCR simultaneously.

It isn't just the length of time it takes to get into town - it's more that I can never tell just how long it will take to get into town. Some days the bus will arrive on time, some days it could take 10 minutes.

It depends on what time you are going in to town at. Buses leaving Ballinteer before 0730 can take about 35/40 minutes to get to the city, between 0735 and 0800 they can take up to 50 minutes when the schools are on, but 40 minutes when they are off. After that they are 50 minutes to 1 hour from Ballinteer.

That's the thing, that's never really accurate because the buses don't seem to leave the terminus on time at Ballinteer or Nutgrove. The important thing isn't how long it takes once I'm on the bus, it's how long it takes from leaving the house.

Outbound in the evenings there is an issue with the timetable as it is weighted more towards the 16a than the 16. The 16 and 16a do also get snarled up in traffic due to the fact that for much of the route there is insufficient roadspace to fit both outbound and inbound bus lanes. This obviously does not help reliability. However, as a rule of thumb, the 16 tends to take 25 minutes off-peak to get to O'Connell Street from the departure time at Santry and 35/40 minutes during the peak, while the 16a takes 35/40 minutes off-peak and 45/50 minutes in the peak from the Airport.

It's still too difficult to tell what time to be at the bus stop in town for. A cross city route like that is impossible to predict. And because there are no electronic timetables, if a 16a comes, you can never tell whether or not to chance hanging on for a 16 or not. (Which leads to another point, in Rathfarnham, why do the 16 and 16a always seem to run at the same time so there are two buses within 2 minutes of each other, then a 20-30 minute wait. Would it not make more sense to timetable it so that the buses arrive at staggered times, especially as they serve mainly the same route?)

The delay in electronic timetables is down to the government withdrawing funding for the project some years ago. The good news is that funding is now (at last) being provided for the project, and either later this year or early next year we should start to see the full rollout of real time information online, on mobiles, and on street as the buses are kitted out with GPS equipment. This is currently taking place, but with 1,000 buses (approximately) it is taking a while.

I'm not holding my breath. Hopefully it will come online soon though, as it is sorely needed.

As for the ticketing - due to non-compatible smartcard ticketing equipment between the companies at present, non-consecutive period passes for LUAS and Dublin Bus will have to wait until the integrated smartcard appears.

Well that's an example of poor foresight and planning on both companies part. Did no one foresee that there may have been a need for compatible ticketing equipment?
I've been to a lot of European cities, and almost all have better overall public transport systems than Dublin. I'm not just talking about infrastructure such as decent underground, tram and rail systems as well as buses (which goes without saying, but at least the companies can blame that solely on a lack of investment on the governments part); but smaller things like integrated ticketing, real-time displays, well thought out routes and timetables - basically, in addition to having good infrastructure, they also seem to get the most out of the infrastructure they do have.
This does not just apply to cities like Berlin or Munich (which have brilliant systems), but also to places like Prague and Budapest where you can buy one ticket, and it is valid on all forms of a very good public transport system.

HQvhs

angel01 wrote: »

You can get the electronic type Monthly Bus/Luas tickets, if you buy them from Dublin Bus and ask for the new type, you can just scan them with the new reader, I get one like that each month.

I know that DB do run some routes in parallel to the luas, the 14/14A is one.

Thanks! Are they non-consecutive? And how much are they?
The 14/14a runs mostly parallel to the Luas, so it pretty much serves areas within a short walking distance of the Luas. They could do with routes that would run to the Luas from nearby areas just outside of walking distance.

angel01

HQvhs wrote: »

Thanks! Are they non-consecutive? And how much are they?
The 14/14a runs mostly parallel to the Luas, so it pretty much serves areas within a short walking distance of the Luas. They could do with routes that would run to the Luas from nearby areas just outside of walking distance.

Mine covers the month of the year. So my current ticket is for the whole of July

KC61

HQvhs wrote: »

It isn't just the length of time it takes to get into town - it's more that I can never tell just how long it will take to get into town. Some days the bus will arrive on time, some days it could take 10 minutes.

That's the thing, that's never really accurate because the buses don't seem to leave the terminus on time at Ballinteer or Nutgrove. The important thing isn't how long it takes once I'm on the bus, it's how long it takes from leaving the house.

Well as someone who does use the 16 quite a bit from Ballinteer I can say most times it does actually leave on time, but again the time taken to get to the junction with Nutgrove Avenue depends on the number of people stopping the bus along the route and the traffic on Grange Road. Unfortunately buses can get held up en route due to those variables. The buses can take anything from 8 to 15 minutes depending on the traffic/loadings.

HQvhs wrote: »

It's still too difficult to tell what time to be at the bus stop in town for. A cross city route like that is impossible to predict. And because there are no electronic timetables, if a 16a comes, you can never tell whether or not to chance hanging on for a 16 or not. (Which leads to another point, in Rathfarnham, why do the 16 and 16a always seem to run at the same time so there are two buses within 2 minutes of each other, then a 20-30 minute wait. Would it not make more sense to timetable it so that the buses arrive at staggered times, especially as they serve mainly the same route?)
I'm not holding my breath. Hopefully it will come online soon though, as it is sorely needed.

I do actually understand this, it is very frustrating - luckily I can take alternatives. However, the GPS equipment is currently being rolled out across the fleet. There is an issue with the scheduling of the 16 and 16a, and I'd like to think this will be addressed by the Network Direct project, as the rumour is that potentially all the buses will operate to Ballinteer when they come around to being reviewed (probably in early 2011) rather than being split in two.

There are huge changes taking place from both the network design, schedules, and the method of controlling the fleet. These *should* result in a far better service, particularly with real time information. But given the magnitude of the changes it will take time to roll out in full.

HQvhs wrote: »

Well that's an example of poor foresight and planning on both companies part. Did no one foresee that there may have been a need for compatible ticketing equipment?
I've been to a lot of European cities, and almost all have better overall public transport systems than Dublin. I'm not just talking about infrastructure such as decent underground, tram and rail systems as well as buses (which goes without saying, but at least the companies can blame that solely on a lack of investment on the governments part); but smaller things like integrated ticketing, real-time displays, well thought out routes and timetables - basically, in addition to having good infrastructure, they also seem to get the most out of the infrastructure they do have.
This does not just apply to cities like Berlin or Munich (which have brilliant systems), but also to places like Prague and Budapest where you can buy one ticket, and it is valid on all forms of a very good public transport system.

It has far more to do with the politics of the situation in terms of how revenue will be split between operators. But it should resolve itself next year.

There has been a singular lack of understanding of how public transport (and in particular how the bus service) should work, and be managed by the Department of Transport in recent years, which has resulted in much of the mess we as customers face.

However, there are some chinks of light - but they will take until next year to start appearing en masse.

KC61

HQvhs wrote: »

Thanks! Are they non-consecutive? And how much are they?
The 14/14a runs mostly parallel to the Luas, so it pretty much serves areas within a short walking distance of the Luas. They could do with routes that would run to the Luas from nearby areas just outside of walking distance.

There are no non-consecutive days multi-mode tickets available I am afraid.