Busses in Galway

Fiddlesnap

Is there any rhyme or reason to the arrival and more importantly departure time of Galway city buses? My better half arranged to leave work early to get a bus in the city centre to get to a creche on the outskirts by 6. If the bus had been on time or even a bit late this would be no problem - but nearly the full hour had passed and the scheduled bus had still not arrived. The day before no problem. T'would be nice to know like....
Whos ear can I bend? :mad:

ben.schlomo

I've been getting the number 9 to GMIT for the last few weeks and there really is no point using the times listed. The 9:30 am bus has come once in the 7 times i've waited. Its headwrecking.

Fiddlesnap

Its a joke - Who can I complain to?
As an aside, a couple of months ago I was driving through a roundabout at westside when a Red bus came flying down through and nearly crashed into me - then has the cheek to shout abuses at me - calling me a f**kin gob****e etc - real charming fellow. Not a fan of Galway Bus...

ben.schlomo

http://www.buseireann.ie/inner.php?id=93#contact

Fiddlesnap

ben.schlomo wrote: »

http://www.buseireann.ie/inner.php?id=93#contact

Thanks!

brembo26

Red bus is City direct based in Rahoon, not Bus Eireann. Not that makes a difference :rolleyes:

softmee

ben.schlomo wrote: »

I've been getting the number 9 to GMIT for the last few weeks and there really is no point using the times listed. The 9:30 am bus has come once in the 7 times i've waited. Its headwrecking.

Sometimes they just decide to have a brake for breakfast or lunch in Parkmore -no joke! :rolleyes:
Once I was on nr 3 and on roundabout on Tuam Rd (first one beside petrol station, he just decided to go eye cinema direction not continue on Tuam Rd. I was living in Liosban at the time and was going back home with some shopping.. went to driver, asked why he changed the route and he told me he will drive again near Liosban on his way back! :eek:
It took me 1.20h to get home and I am sorry I haven't complained!
This service is ridiculous. (with few exceptions of really really nice drivers!)

(there is one horrible grumpy man with grey hair and glasses -he kicked out of the bus two black boys, because as he said there was no room and only at the next stop he let in two man and let them stand in the same place, also once he refused to let in one black lady because she gave him 5€ not exact change -I even more sorry I haven''t complained about that one!)

Mrs OBumble

Fiddlesnap wrote: »

Is there any rhyme or reason to the arrival and more importantly departure time of Galway city buses? .... T'would be nice to know like....
Whos ear can I bend? :mad:

The short answer you'll get from the bus companies is: Galway traffic is the reason.

The long / real answer is Galway traffic, plus unintelligent scheduling, plus a certain "ahh, shure'n it's grand" attitude to lots of services here.

Each no 9 service, for example, is allocated 30 minutes to get from the city to Parkmore, and 30 to get back. That's fine a lot of the time, but clearly doesn't work at peak times. If the 8:30am bus from the city is late leaving from Parkmore at 9am (eg 'cos a zillon people caught it to GMIT), then you can close-to guarantee that the 9:30am from the city will be late leaving too.

For Bus Éireann, there is an inspector based in the Eyre Square area each day, who does try to re-arrange the available buses and drivers to meet the schedule, but I think his options are a bit limited. Seems to me that they don't have a lot of spare buses around.

I'm guessing that the OP's partner wasn't using route 9, 'cos the frequent scheduling means that waiting an hour is very, very rare. But you do get similar issues with other routes too - and that's where long waits can come in.

I'm not justifying this at all, just trying to give some sense of rhyme/reason. I absolutely believe that the current service isn't good enough, and we need:

1) More bus lanes
2) More frequent services on key routes (esp 2d/w, 7, 1, 33)
3) Mapping of bus+driver to timetabled service that takes account of likely passenger volumes.


OP, rather than just bending ear (makes you feel good, but may not achieve anything), why don't you try writing to the Regional Manager. Normally complaints that someone has bothered to write on paper get taken more seriously.

snubbleste

It's traffic volume as JustMary pointed out.