Further cuts in Rosslare?

Southsider1

I was talking to a Bus Eireann driver yesterday who told me the hourly Expressway to and from Rosslare Port will finish in April. Allegedly they will operate to and from Wexford Town only but they will be cutting four or five of the daily trips too.

Louche Lad

I hope they keep the ones that connect with the ferry - I use those.:(

n97 mini

Not really surprising. Wexford has one of the higher levels of one-off housing in the country, making public transport very difficult to provide. Any service to Rosslare is going to go through relatively sparely populated areas.

bmaxi

Southsider1 wrote: »

I was talking to a Bus Eireann driver yesterday who told me the hourly Expressway to and from Rosslare Port will finish in April. Allegedly they will operate to and from Wexford Town only but they will be cutting four or five of the daily trips too.

What do you mean "cutting four or five trips", to Rosslare only or on route 2 in general? I would have thought route 2 was fairly well supported although I don't know what the loading is like on the later services.

wexford12

About time too the amount of busses going to Dublin from Rosslare is crazy it was one every hour traveling up and down with maybe 2 on board and more times than not when it came from Dublin there is no one on it at Wexford

dowlingm

meanwhile there were 8 on board that 4-carriage train that struck horses near Rosslare. Someone should ask the PDs how they think having CIE compete is working out - oh wait they're busy counting the money in their fat pensions.

bmaxi

wexford12 wrote: »

About time too the amount of busses going to Dublin from Rosslare is crazy it was one every hour traveling up and down with maybe 2 on board and more times than not when it came from Dublin there is no one on it at Wexford

Well I can only speak for Gorey but certainly most services coming this far are quite well supported. Maybe it's time to increase the frequency of the 384, it would hardly be fair or sensible to cut paying services.

Niles

bmaxi wrote: »

Well I can only speak for Gorey but certainly most services coming this far are quite well supported. Maybe it's time to increase the frequency of the 384, it would hardly be fair or sensible to cut paying services.

Exactly. I use the 002 service 5/6 days a week and the services I use (usually what would be the 6:30 ex-Rosslare, and the 17:30 or 18:30 services ex-Dublin) are always well supported. Anytime I've got the other morning departures to Dublin or afternoon/evening services out of Dublin they've been well supported too. Got the 19:30 yesterday evening (a Bank Holiday Sunday) and it was quite well loaded. Occasionally I've got the 23:30 ex-Dublin and even it is reasonably well supported considering the hour it's at.

That said I generally use it from Inch or Arklow so can't account for it south of there.

wexford12 wrote: »

About time too the amount of busses going to Dublin from Rosslare is crazy it was one every hour traveling up and down with maybe 2 on board

I've never been on a service with that few, well, maybe early on a Sunday morning - I've been regularly using the 002 since I started college in Sept. 2006 and now use it to get to work.

It's possible there are light loadings on the likes of the 11:30am ex-Dublin, but as far as I know that would have to run anyway as it's worked by the driver/coach off one of the morning Rosslare-Dublin services which certainly do load well.

Judgement Day

dowlingm wrote: »

meanwhile there were 8 on board that 4-carriage train that struck horses near Rosslare. Someone should ask the PDs how they think having CIE compete is working out - oh wait they're busy counting the money in their fat pensions.

Well, some notable contributors on these boards seem to think unlimited competition is the panacea to all our transport needs. CIE's wasteful competition has gone on for decades and cost innumerable millions, throw in the unsustainable internal air services tried over the years (Avair, Aer Arann and Aer Lingus Commuter etc) and a virtual free for all by barely legal coach operators and we are where we are. :rolleyes:

dowlingm

To be honest I thought if a CIE company was to reduce service south of Wexford it would have been IE blinking first.

markpb

wexford12 wrote: »

About time too the amount of busses going to Dublin from Rosslare is crazy it was one every hour traveling up and down with maybe 2 on board and more times than not when it came from Dublin there is no one on it at Wexford

I've only taken that bus route once but it was over half full at 3am (northbound).

Niles

markpb wrote: »

I've only taken that bus route once but it was over half full at 3am (northbound).

I think that bus is probably handy for those with early flights; now and again I've got that from Arklow (at 5am) and as you said it's been far from empty.

Last year they did scrap the 01:00 Dublin Airport-Rosslare and 01:30 Rosslare-Dublin Airport, which were reportedly poorly loaded. With them went the 06:00 Dublin Airport-Rosslare and 19:30 Rosslare-Dublin Airport - presumably these were the balancing workings.

I can't imagine there's any particular service left that's poorly loaded on weekdays, or in cases where they are poorly loaded they're probably a balancing working to a well loaded one. For eg, the 11:00 Dublin Airport-Rosslare wouldn't carry much, and is duplicated as far as Enniscorthy by the 11:30 Dublin-New Ross-Waterford, but as far as I know it's worked by the driver/coach off the 05:30 Rosslare-Dublin Airport which is well used, so it would have to run anyway to get the driver/coach back to the depot.

parsi

Judgement Day wrote: »

Well, some notable contributors on these boards seem to think unlimited competition is the panacea to all our transport needs. CIE's wasteful competition has gone on for decades and cost innumerable millions, throw in the unsustainable internal air services tried over the years (Avair, Aer Arann and Aer Lingus Commuter etc) and a virtual free for all by barely legal coach operators and we are where we are. :rolleyes:

You're right.

I think that the desire to restructure CIE in a meaningful fashion within a coherent transport framework has been thrown on the bonfire of "privatisation is good". There seems to be an inherent inability to accept that there is a need for a socially conscious element to public transport - it doesn't have to be a free for all but it shouldn't exclude those who just can't pay (as distinct from those who won't).

Carawaystick

CIÉ don't do public transport, so the rest of your argument falls down a bit.

Private sector operators carry free pass passengers( or definitely pensioners), so why should BÉ/BÁC/IÉ get all the plamás for doing so?

I'd say the population of Tagoat/Rosslare is very low. The amount of foot passengers needing an hourly coach service to the Ferry is also fairly low.

bmaxi

Carawaystick wrote: »

CIÉ don't do public transport, so the rest of your argument falls down a bit.

Private sector operators carry free pass passengers( or definitely pensioners), so why should BÉ/BÁC/IÉ get all the plamás for doing so?

I'd say the population of Tagoat/Rosslare is very low. The amount of foot passengers needing an hourly coach service to the Ferry is also fairly low.

I accept the point that the population of Tagoat/Rosslare is small but we still haven't established whether the proposed cuts are to the ferryport or to the service in general. As I've said earlier, loading as far as Gorey is quite high but CIE's track record in cutting services is inclined to be arbitrary and I would fear that they would cut the service as a whole rather than get up off their arses and look at the big picture.

parsi

Carawaystick wrote: »

CIÉ don't do public transport, so the rest of your argument falls down a bit.

Private sector operators carry free pass passengers( or definitely pensioners), so why should BÉ/BÁC/IÉ get all the plamás for doing so?

I'd say the population of Tagoat/Rosslare is very low. The amount of foot passengers needing an hourly coach service to the Ferry is also fairly low.

That doesn't seem to be in response to my post

wexford12

Well speaking from sitting in a taxi watching the buses coming in counting the numbers getting on and off I'm amazed that so many use it. I must of missed those times with so many people on it everynight I sit there and most times between 1 and 5 get off with maybe 2 ish waiting to jump on. Ok on a Fri Sat night you will get the night club crew going to Enniscorthy or Rosslare which I'm sure the drivers love lol

Niles

wexford12 wrote: »

Well speaking from sitting in a taxi watching the buses coming in counting the numbers getting on and off I'm amazed that so many use it. I must of missed those times with so many people on it everynight I sit there and most times between 1 and 5 get off with maybe 2 ish waiting to jump on. Ok on a Fri Sat night you will get the night club crew going to Enniscorthy or Rosslare which I'm sure the drivers love lol

Maybe that's the case by the time it reaches Enniscorthy, but it certainly loads well north of Gorey. In fact it's not unheard of for the afternoon buses out of Dublin to have to leave people behind at UCD and Loughlinstown due to being full.

bmaxi

Niles wrote: »

Maybe that's the case by the time it reaches Enniscorthy, but it certainly loads well north of Gorey. In fact it's not unheard of for the afternoon buses out of Dublin to have to leave people behind at UCD and Loughlinstown due to being full.

It's also not unknown for city bound buses to leave people in Arklow.

Niles

bmaxi wrote: »

It's also not unknown for city bound buses to leave people in Arklow.

Very true, I've seen it happen at the Ferrybank and Templerainey stops in particular. If I'm not getting on at Inch I normally go for the Knockmore or Lidl stops for this reason.