Christmas and New Year public transport

Mrs OBumble

BE and IE have today published summaries of their Christmas and New Year services for 2010.

Meaning I've been able to finish a summary of services in Galway over the holiday period.

(Resisting the urge to rant about the fact that the private operators had theirs out several weeks ago.)


!

PaulTheMajor

LUAS tram services are finishing at 8pm on Christmas Eve and won't resume until 9 am St Stephen's Day. Which is fine because no-one works on Christmas Day. Not even doctors, nurses, care workers, Gardai, firemen and ambulance crews, and other emergency service workers....still a banana republic, eh?

Cookie_Monster

Ah come on, you can't really complain about Xmas day (regardless of other days lacking service) 99% of people are not at work and of those that are many will drive/ walk.
There is just no where near enough demand for services in general on the day.


This year may be a bit different, with the airports likely to remain open due to the backlog. I wonder will any of the bus companies run routes, money to be made there no doubt.

parsi

PaulTheMajor wrote: »

LUAS tram services are finishing at 8pm on Christmas Eve and won't resume until 9 am St Stephen's Day. Which is fine because no-one works on Christmas Day. Not even doctors, nurses, care workers, Gardai, firemen and ambulance crews, and other emergency service workers....still a banana republic, eh?

The Luas doesn't run any day for those outside of the Pale.

snickerpuss

parsi wrote: »

The Luas doesn't run any day for those outside of the Pale.

I live in Dublin and the Luas essentially doesn't run on the Northside of the city so it's never of use to me either. Get over it.

Vic_08

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

Ah come on, you can't really complain about Xmas day (regardless of other days lacking service) 99% of people are not at work and of those that are many will drive/ walk.
There is just no where near enough demand for services in general on the day.


This year may be a bit different, with the airports likely to remain open due to the backlog. I wonder will any of the bus companies run routes, money to be made there no doubt.

http://www.buseireann.ie/news.php?id=928&month=Dec

PaulTheMajor

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

Ah come on, you can't really complain about Xmas day (regardless of other days lacking service) 99% of people are not at work .

Ok; so, IF some of the 1% (which is a serious understatement anyway of Christmas Day workers) don't get to work, you can't really complain if key ESB staff don't get to work and the power goes out, you break a leg in the dark, knock over a candle thus setting the house on fire...and the fire brigade phone rings out...? Or when you limp to the hospital with third degree burns, and the doors are closed? The key word of course is service, and while I mentioned the trams the point applies to all public transport services, even on the northside of the city, or beyond The Pale.

parsi

snickerpuss wrote: »

I live in Dublin and the Luas essentially doesn't run on the Northside of the city so it's never of use to me either. Get over it.

I think you may have missed my point in your desire to post a sarcastic comment.

PaulTheMajor

parsi wrote: »

I think you may have missed my point in your desire to post a sarcastic comment.

No sarcasm intended. I did finish the post by saying, " and while I mentioned the trams the point applies to all public transport services, even on the northside of the city, or beyond The Pale." If Metro North ever gets built, I'll expect it to be operational on Christmas Day in a cosmopolitan, multi-cultural city.

Cookie_Monster

PaulTheMajor wrote: »

Ok; so, IF some of the 1% (which is a serious understatement anyway of Christmas Day workers) don't get to work, you can't really complain if key ESB staff don't get to work and the power goes out, you break a leg in the dark, knock over a candle thus setting the house on fire...and the fire brigade phone rings out...? Or when you limp to the hospital with third degree burns, and the doors are closed? The key word of course is service, and while I mentioned the trams the point applies to all public transport services, even on the northside of the city, or beyond The Pale.

yet they manage it every year without PT running...
That would lead me to believe they (those employees) all either have private transport sorted or their employers provide such transport on the day.

DWCommuter

Vic_08 wrote: »

http://www.buseireann.ie/news.php?id=928&month=Dec

Hats off to BE for this.

Mrs OBumble

DWCommuter wrote: »

Hats off to BE for this.

+100, fantastic to see that they are capable of responding to needs like this.

fyi, the link points to an item that says

Bus Éireann is to operate a limited inter-city service to and from Dublin Airport and Dublin (Busaras) on Christmas Day 2010 to main destinations around the island. Services will operate to and from Limerick, Belfast, Cork, Galway, Rosslare Harbour, Ballina, Sligo, Waterford, Letterkenny, Donegal, Clonmel, and Derry. All services will operate via the main towns en-route.


Bus Éireann, in consultation with the Dublin Airport Authority and other transport agencies, is operating these services to facilitate people who may be arriving into Dublin city centre or Dublin Airport on Christmas Day. (Services subject to weather & road conditions).

Mrs OBumble

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

Ah come on, you can't really complain about Xmas day (regardless of other days lacking service) 99% of people are not at work and of those that are many will drive/ walk.
There is just no where near enough demand for services in general on the day.

No, they're not at work. They're at leisure instead. They go to church (add priests and ministers to the list of people who do work that day), and visit family, including elderly relatives in nursing homes (add care-givers to the list of people who do have to work). Or if they don't have family around, they visit friends. In fact, I'd guess that very few sit at home all day.

No one actually knows the level of demand. I'm sure I've heard on here that there used to be some DB services on Christmas Day which were cancelled due to low use. But that was a long time ago, and the population has changed a fair bit since.

Cookie_Monster

DB are running Airlinks on Xmas day now too

5 or six lines down the page http://www.dublinbus.ie/