Dublin Bus has a new website

robbie_998

AND

a route planner ..... yeah !

its crap.

i just saw the site there a few mins ago to check how i shall be descending to work in a while and i saw the new site and i thought it looked fairly decent... but at the same time i didn't see any problem with the old site.

i gave the route planner a go for a bit of craic.

From: Clondalkin Village
To: Liffey Valley SC

now usually for this journey the best option for me is to hop on a 76 of any kind and get off on Cold Cut road right next to liffey Valley, the B&Q side.

the new route planner gave me two options for my journey

Option 1: get a 210 all the way.

01 Take Bus (210:Towards Liffey Valley Centre): from New Road,Junction Main Street Clondalkin ,Stop 2112 to Liffey Valley,Liffey Valley Shopping Centre , Stop 4715
02 Walk approximately 280 metres from Stop 4715 to Liffey Valley Shopping Centre

grand.. except a 210 only comes about 4 - 6 times a day and i dont wanna be hours early or late for work so no thanks.

Option 2:

01 Walk approximately 140 metres from New Road, Junction Main Street Clondalkin, Stop 2112 to Convent Road, Moyle Park College, Stop 2172
02 Take Bus (51c:Towards Aston Quay): from Stop 2172 to High Street, St. Audeon's Church, Stop 2001
03 Walk approximately 210 metres from Stop 2001 to Merchant's Quay, Junction Winetavern Street, Stop 1444
04 Take Bus (25a:Towards Lucan (Esker Church),66:Towards Maynooth (Straffan Rd.),67a:Towards Maynooth (via Celbridge),25:Towards Lucan (Dodsboro),66a:Towards Captain's Hill (River Forest),67:Towards Celbridge,25x:Towards Lucan / Adamstown,51d:Towards Clondalkin,66b:Towards Leixlip (Castletown),66d:Towards Leixlip (Easton Rd.),66x:Towards Leixlip/ Maynooth serving Lucan Village,67x:Towards Celbridge / Maynooth): from Stop 1444 to Lucan Road, Liffey Valley, Stop 2213
05 Walk approximately 160 metres from Stop 2213 to Liffey Valley Shopping Centre

seriously ? they want me to go all the way to town and get another bus from there ... if im gonna do that i might as well walk in the feckin first place (but its raining)

they have maps on these routes too but this is looking feckin hopeless already.

just for some more craic there i put in i want to go to bray dart station from tara street dart station and it told me to use the dart all the way.. strange they would do that ???

Option 2 - Route Details

01 Take DART (Rail [url]www.irishrail.ie):[/url] from Tara Street DART Station to Connolly DART (and Rail) Station
02 Take DART (Rail [url]www.irishrail.ie):[/url] from Connolly DART (and Rail) Station to Bray DART Station

dynamick

duplicate thread
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056003990

robbie_998

dynamick wrote: »

duplicate thread
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056003990

not entirely ... we shall discuss the website itself in here too :P

devnull

There is something seriously wrong with the way it works out journeys involving the DART as it always tells you to double back on yourself if you are coming from the south side of the city.

EG if you are going to anywhere in the city centre from the southside it always tells you to get a DART to Connolly then get another DART to Tara street, why not get off at Tara Street on the first DART, why go past it, go to Connolly and go back the way you came.

It clearly has not been tested.

KC61

devnull wrote: »

There is something seriously wrong with the way it works out journeys involving the DART as it always tells you to double back on yourself if you are coming from the south side of the city.

EG if you are going to anywhere in the city centre from the southside it always tells you to get a DART to Connolly then get another DART to Tara street, why not get off at Tara Street on the first DART, why go past it, go to Connolly and go back the way you came.

It clearly has not been tested.

At the end of the day (certainly from my experience) there is no substitute for letting Joe Public find things like this - although that DART issue is clearly daft!

celticbest

robbie_998 wrote: »

just for some more craic there i put in i want to go to bray dart station from tara street dart station and it told me to use the dart all the way.. strange they would do that ???

Option 2 - Route Details

01 Take DART (Rail [url]www.irishrail.ie):[/url] from Tara Street DART Station to Connolly DART (and Rail) Station
02 Take DART (Rail [url]www.irishrail.ie):[/url] from Connolly DART (and Rail) Station to Bray DART Station

This makes total sense to me, as Irish Rail & Dublin Bus are both state owned companies ? Why wouldn't one tell you to use the other.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_transport_operators_in_Dublin

noelfirl

celticbest wrote: »

This makes total sense to me, as Irish Rail & Dublin Bus are both state owned companies ? Why wouldn't one tell you to use the other.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_transport_operators_in_Dublin

It's a good sign, in that the transport operators might start to acknowledge each other in more then just a passing mention, and heaven forbid we might see them integrating their timetables/operational details leading towards a 'Dublin Transport' journey planner. In the immediate term and along the same lines, it would be nice if Veolia were to revise this little doozy:

FAQs * How do I get from the Green Line to the Red Line? There is no public transport linking the two. The most direct route is down Grafton Street, across College Green and up O ‘Connell Street to Abbey Street. It is a 15 minute walk.

http://www.luas.ie/connections.php

KC61

noelfirl wrote: »

It's a good sign, in that the transport operators might start to acknowledge each other in more then just a passing mention, and heaven forbid we might see them integrating their timetables/operational details leading towards a 'Dublin Transport' journey planner. In the immediate term and along the same lines, it would be nice if Veolia were to revise this little doozy:

FAQs * How do I get from the Green Line to the Red Line? There is no public transport linking the two. The most direct route is down Grafton Street, across College Green and up O ‘Connell Street to Abbey Street. It is a 15 minute walk.

http://www.luas.ie/connections.php

Yes indeed - obviously the 92 to/from Heuston or the 10, 46a, 145 to O'Connell Street and the 128 to Busaras don't count as connections!!!

foggy_lad

the dublin bus website has been operational for a while now and the many issues have not been ironed out at all and the new site is completly unusable on mobiles, a very backward step by dublin bus!

devnull

It's not as bad as completely unusable, it's been awfully slow and occasions down the last week or so,

The route planner is still as useless as it was the day it came in, and still has that awful bug with the DART where it tells people going to the city centre from the southside to get a DART to Connolly then get another one to Tara Street!

foggy_lad

devnull wrote: »

It's not as bad as completely unusable, it's been awfully slow and occasions down the last week or so,

The route planner is still as useless as it was the day it came in, and still has that awful bug with the DART where it tells people going to the city centre from the southside to get a DART to Connolly then get another one to Tara Street!

the route planner is useless! if you start to put in say heuston station it will pick the first option for heuston station as you are typing and messes up the whole inputting of your start and end points.

bring back the old site!!

tipperaryjim

This new website is complete nonsense!

How the heck am I supposed to know the stop number of my stop...

For example, If I want to know if a bus goes from Drumcondra to Pearse Street I have to know the exact details of the stop.

That is hideous!

Surely they've copped on by now that the site is utterly useless...

KC61

tipperaryjim wrote: »

This new website is complete nonsense!

How the heck am I supposed to know the stop number of my stop...

For example, If I want to know if a bus goes from Drumcondra to Pearse Street I have to know the exact details of the stop.

That is hideous!

Surely they've copped on by now that the site is utterly useless...

They are in the process of putting every bus stop number in prominent numbering along the side of each pole.

This will also facilitate checking the RTPI when it goes live next year.

Stevek101

tipperaryjim wrote: »

This new website is complete nonsense!

How the heck am I supposed to know the stop number of my stop...

For example, If I want to know if a bus goes from Drumcondra to Pearse Street I have to know the exact details of the stop.

That is hideous!

Surely they've copped on by now that the site is utterly useless...

You could just type in the name of the street, you don't have to know the number of the stop.

However, small signs are going to be affixed to all bus stop with the stop number as well as the number written in braille. This will come in handy when real time information of the bus comes into play as well as being useful for the route planner. Some have already been put up.

KC got in there before me. :P

Aard

Maybe they can flash these stop numbers up on future in-bus displays. 1) no scrolling; 2) no ridiculously long names; 3) no translation.

tipperaryjim

Stevek101 wrote: »

You could just type in the name of the street, you don't have to know the number of the stop.

However, small signs are going to be affixed to all bus stop with the stop number as well as the number written in braille. This will come in handy when real time information of the bus comes into play as well as being useful for the route planner. Some have already been put up.

KC got in there before me. :P

cheers for the feedback guys!

I guess my big issue lies in the fact that I don't know the name of the street I want to go to.

For example, if I want to go down Pearse Street, I need to know the exact crossing street of the stop that i want to get off which I don't know. The previous site enables one to identify all streets that went down Pearse Street. This one however, is way too specific for general, casual bus users.

Also, in terms of getting familiar with the bus stop numbers, this does not facilitate any tour planning for trips to places in Dublin that I have never been. Since I live in Dublin and find it confusing, one can only imagine the impact this could have on tourist.

I'm sure the issue could be relieved somewhat should DB integrate some sort of a mapping tool online that will help one identify the numbers of each bus stop by searching for specific locations (as per google maps, etc).

munchkin_utd

just looking for some feedback here.

I was over last weekend in Dublin and stayed at the nice and reasonably priced Maldron Hotel, on Cardiff Lane, off Pearse st, behind the grand canal theatre.

I tried to find what bus options I had to town using the website.
I failed.
AND - standing in the rain, and gale force wind, on my holidays with a pregnant wife and baby in the buggy, to wait for a bus that I dont know exists or not, let alone not knowing when the unknown bus is theoretically supposed to leave its depot somewhere 15km away - wasnt an option.
(meaning walking and taxis and luas were what happened, depending on how bad wind and rain was)

Am I missing something or is the route planner just impossible to use?

(And is the company doing the route planner an offshoot of the taxi drivers federation? because you'd swear they were trying to hide the bus info from you and drive you into a taxi)

stop

munchkin_utd wrote: »

just looking for some feedback here.

I was over last weekend in Dublin and stayed at the nice and reasonably priced Maldron Hotel, on Cardiff Lane, off Pearse st, behind the grand canal theatre.

I tried to find what bus options I had to town using the website.
I failed.
AND - standing in the rain, and gale force wind, on my holidays with a pregnant wife and baby in the buggy, to wait for a bus that I dont know exists or not, let alone not knowing when the unknown bus is theoretically supposed to leave its depot somewhere 15km away - wasnt an option.
(meaning walking and taxis and luas were what happened, depending on how bad wind and rain was)

Am I missing something or is the route planner just impossible to use?

(And is the company doing the route planner an offshoot of the taxi drivers federation? because you'd swear they were trying to hide the bus info from you and drive you into a taxi)

The Hotel's website lists Dublin Bus route 3 as the nearest bus stop. With this information you could have checked the Dublin Bus site for the Route 3 timetable. There is a link (shown as "View on map") on the timetable showing each stop on the route. By clicking on the stop nearest Cardiff Lane, you would be told of the many routes which stop there, some of which begin their journey from Ringsend Garage, which is only a few minutes away and thus easy to time.

Coming from town would have been much more difficult to time due to the issues regarding timetabling you mentioned. However the routes 50/77/77a are frequent enough.

All that said, the route planner is a nightmare, I wouldn't bother with it.

foggy_lad

My suggestion is to look up the area on google maps and it will show the different bus/rail stops if available when you zoom in to street level. then look up the routes on the Dublin Bus site because the route planner is rubbish.

patrickmooney

I use that hotel all the time. It's local to the my work and my gym is in the basement. There is little or no public transport links. You've to walk over the liffey to the luas or back to pearse or grand canal dock for the dart. Or back to pearse for the main buses. It's a bad area to be caught needing public transport.

munchkin_utd wrote: »

just looking for some feedback here.

I was over last weekend in Dublin and stayed at the nice and reasonably priced Maldron Hotel, on Cardiff Lane, off Pearse st, behind the grand canal theatre.

I tried to find what bus options I had to town using the website.
I failed.
AND - standing in the rain, and gale force wind, on my holidays with a pregnant wife and baby in the buggy, to wait for a bus that I dont know exists or not, let alone not knowing when the unknown bus is theoretically supposed to leave its depot somewhere 15km away - wasnt an option.
(meaning walking and taxis and luas were what happened, depending on how bad wind and rain was)

Am I missing something or is the route planner just impossible to use?

(And is the company doing the route planner an offshoot of the taxi drivers federation? because you'd swear they were trying to hide the bus info from you and drive you into a taxi)