RTE 47 Highs and Lows

The_Wrecker

From the days of only dropping a few bewildered people at Donnybrook church to a badly timed Network direct city service.
To a service that delivered the goods at peak time and carried the numbers between terminus and the Mount st area ~ now lost to the Luas and a long walk down the canal. Thats what the regulars are doing now!
The insanity of giving your established customers a two fingered salute and removing a full bus from the inbound bus lane at Merrion to go sit at a rail crossing. The slow process of re-filling the bus through Sandymount while the regular customers (whats left) who have already endured 50mins on an elderly AV just want to get to the city.

AlekSmart

The_Wrecker wrote: »

From the days of only dropping a few bewildered people at Donnybrook church to a badly timed Network direct city service.
To a service that delivered the goods at peak time and carried the numbers between terminus and the Mount st area ~ now lost to the Luas and a long walk down the canal. Thats what the regulars are doing now!
The insanity of giving your established customers a two fingered salute and removing a full bus from the inbound bus lane at Merrion to go sit at a rail crossing. The slow process of re-filling the bus through Sandymount while the regular customers (whats left) who have already endured 50mins on an elderly AV just want to get to the city.

Ah......forgot about that.....:rolleyes:

On a serious note however,the 47 was indeed beginning to assert itself as a stand-alone route after it's already ropey conception......It appears now that Network Direct,as a concept,has become the work of a Kommittee,in the same manner as a Camel.

Tragi-Comedy really....:(

BenShermin

Suffered the same fate as route 26 imo. A route with potential that Dublin Bus couldn't be bothered advertising and then realigning it to "benifit" the customer under Network Direct. Much better to market failed routes like the 40 for example:rolleyes:.

In relation to the 47 and the Merrion Road corridor in particular, after the destruction of frequency on the 4 and now the withdrawal of the 47 and soon to be withdrawal of the 45 (if rumours are to be believed) I wonder how many people are now sitting in high horsepowered purple cars on that corridor and not "getting the bus"? Do DB "get it yet", I doubt they ever will tbh!

AlekSmart

BenShermin wrote: »

Suffered the same fate as route 26 imo. A route with potential that Dublin Bus couldn't be bothered advertising and then realigning it to "benifit" the customer under Network Direct. Much better to market failed routes like the 40 for example:rolleyes:.

In relation to the 47 and the Merrion Road corridor in particular, after the destruction of frequency on the 4 and now the withdrawal of the 47 and soon to be withdrawal of the 45 (if rumours are to be believed) I wonder how many people are now sitting in high horsepowered purple cars on that corridor and not "getting the bus"? Do DB "get it yet", I doubt they ever will tbh!

Ben Shermin,that is a VERY valid point.

In the light of the latest PR puffery,you may well point to the somewhat obvious conflict between what is preached and what is practiced.

There appears little obvious concern within the company at the developing situation,but perhaps there is a game-plan as yet unrevealed ..?

In the interim,one could contact the NTA in order to seek their opinions on the stuttering nature of the 47...et al.. ?

CIE

AlekSmart wrote: »

Ah......forgot about that.....:rolleyes:

On a serious note however, the 47 was indeed beginning to assert itself as a stand-alone route after its already ropey conception......It appears now that Network Direct,as a concept,has become the work of a Kommittee, in the same manner as a Camel.

Tragi-Comedy really....:(

Oh, that old saying again. No committee could ever design a camel out of a horse; they just don't have the brains. The camel is too good at what it does.

And what is with all the Network Destruct's deliberate reversal of what they had to do with route 47 in order to make it work (bring it all the way into the city centre), especially with bus routes like the 45 and 84? If there were true privatisation allowed with Dublin bus routes, then I maintain that as soon as DB gave up the 45, some private operator could re-establish the former frequent service to/from the city centre and make it work. And then DB would suddenly get jealous of it taking passengers away from the 145 and DART...

thomasj

BenShermin wrote: »

Suffered the same fate as route 26 imo. A route with potential that Dublin Bus couldn't be bothered advertising and then realigning it to "benifit" the customer under Network Direct. Much better to market failed routes like the 40 for example:rolleyes:.

In relation to the 47 and the Merrion Road corridor in particular, after the destruction of frequency on the 4 and now the withdrawal of the 47 and soon to be withdrawal of the 45 (if rumours are to be believed) I wonder how many people are now sitting in high horsepowered purple cars on that corridor and not "getting the bus"? Do DB "get it yet", I doubt they ever will tbh!

You don't think that the uturn by DB wrt the 76/76a that moreorless cancelled the blanchardstown-tallaght link was to appease those who lost the 26 and 210 legs.

This route was done to appease those affected by the sandymount -belfield leg of the 2-3 with the result being the merrion qbc losing another bus with another to go in the coming weeks.

devnull

The original savage cuts of the 4 at peak times and weekends was the whole reason I gave up Dublin Bus, sick of seeing buses going past full on my way to work in Ballsbridge. The only time I use them now is when I go out and want a drink or on the nitelink, apart from that it's only exceptional circumstances.

Got sick of seeing bus after bus going past full.

lucernarian

The reduction in frequency of the 4 and the tragically stupid level of service on a Sunday, a day which can attract massive numbers of patrons for the RDS and also Landsdowne Road at the weekend, are possibly the single biggest problem stemming from the Network Direct and allied changes/cutbacks.

Even if it means cutting back on other high-frequency routes (e.g. the 140 or 46a - transfer buses from Donnybrook if necessary), the 4 simply has to be improved to a bus every 10 minutes at peak times. And every half hour on a Sunday (from 12 to 7pm), similar to what the Saturday timetable is.

coylemj

To_be_confirmed wrote: »

The reduction in frequency of the 4 and the tragically stupid level of service on a Sunday

Agree with the comment about Sunday service but when/where did they announce a reduction in the frequency? The timetable shows a bus every 15 minutes Mon-Fri and is dated Feb. 2011, I can't see any announcement to the effect that the frequency has changed or will any time soon.

http://www.dublinbus.ie/en/Your-Journey1/Timetables/All-Timetables/4/

To_be_confirmed wrote: »

Even if it means cutting back on other high-frequency routes (e.g. the 140 or 46a

Don't agree, the 46A is the best advertisement for the principal that if you provide a good service, people will use it.

LXFlyer

He/she is referring to the original timetable change when the 4 frequency was cut back with no warning which frankly was unforgiveable.

devnull

coylemj wrote: »

A
Don't agree, the 46A is the best advertisement for the principal that if you provide a good service, people will use it.

Whilst the cut in services on the 4 is the best advertisement for the principal if you provide a good service and then withdraw it people will stop using it.

I took the bus for years as the number four was very convenient for me working in Ballsbridge and a number of my colleagues took it. Now we just car share as the unreliability of the service, buses running past full and general lack of capacity meant it could no longer rely on it following the savage peak service cuts. Buses were running around almost full before the cuts, let alone after.

Now I see the 47 and the 45 are being routed away from this corridor, when what it actually needs is the 4 being restored to the original frequency, all it will do is lead to further over-crowding. Of course the over-crowding will reduce over time, simply because people will stop using the service.

I don't know of anyone who uses the bus in my company anymore apart from a couple of people who live in Blackrock.

Niles

I use the 47 daily between UCD and Sandyford myself. Since the routing change time keeping seems to have suffered, with delays of 10-15 minutes on outbound buses in the morning when they are presumably running 'against the flow'.

The_Wrecker

Niles wrote: »

I use the 47 daily between UCD and Sandyford myself. Since the routing change time keeping seems to have suffered, with delays of 10-15 minutes on outbound buses in the morning when they are presumably running 'against the flow'.

They left the original timing in place so the odd journey does go to Private Hire at peak times.

coylemj

Niles wrote: »

I use the 47 daily between UCD and Sandyford myself. Since the routing change time keeping seems to have suffered, with delays of 10-15 minutes on outbound buses in the morning when they are presumably running 'against the flow'.

That's because the inbound and outbound 47 now has to go through the level crossing beside Sydney Parade Dart station which has a very long cycle time for the simple reason that there is a Dart station right beside it and Sandymount Dart station is only a stone's throw away up the line so that level crossing is probably closed for longer than any other in the city. I regularly sat on the No. 3 for several minutes at a time at that stop. The problem is that once the wait goes over 2 minutes you are almost guaranteed a wait for a train in the opposite direction because they won't open the gates for just a minute or so.

Even though the bus that picks you up is outbound and theoretically going against the traffic, when it goes up Sydney Parade to get to the Merrion Road, it's traveling with inbound traffic so gets snarled up with everyone else. At rush hour there is a tailback for traffic turning right into the Merrion Road heading to town which severly restricts the flow for people turning left for St. Vincents Hospital and this would impact the outbound 47.

LXFlyer

There's also the problem that in order to come outbound it has to do an inbound journey beforehand - there can be a knock on effect.

Bizarre to say the least that the running times were left unchanged.

dowlingm

How extensive are DB's on-the-ground inspectors, or are they relying on RTPI data which can show that a bus is late but not why?

There was a comment made about "if you brought in private operators" but it seems to me that it doesn't matter who runs the buses, it's route planning and performance monitoring that should be fingered here.

It's one of the things I regretted about how NTA worked out - a city the size of Dublin deserves to have its own transport agency which is accountable to local people. A DTA like Vancouver Translink or some other municipally governed agency could haul in DB or a local route licenced operator and say "ridership and OTP on this route is crashing, complaints are rocketing, WTF is going on so we can get on with solving the problem" because if they didn't the local councillors would be feeling it from constituents.

Niles

lxflyer wrote: »

There's also the problem that in order to come outbound it has to do an inbound journey beforehand - there can be a knock on effect.

Bizarre to say the least that the running times were left unchanged.

Indeed. In the evening I've noticed city-bound departures running 10 minutes or so later than used to be the case, presumably as a result of delays getting out. As has been said one would have thought that DB would have modified the timetable accordingly.

LXFlyer

dowlingm wrote: »

How extensive are DB's on-the-ground inspectors, or are they relying on RTPI data which can show that a bus is late but not why?

There was a comment made about "if you brought in private operators" but it seems to me that it doesn't matter who runs the buses, it's route planning and performance monitoring that should be fingered here.

It's one of the things I regretted about how NTA worked out - a city the size of Dublin deserves to have its own transport agency which is accountable to local people. A DTA like Vancouver Translink or some other municipally governed agency could haul in DB or a local route licenced operator and say "ridership and OTP on this route is crashing, complaints are rocketing, WTF is going on so we can get on with solving the problem" because if they didn't the local councillors would be feeling it from constituents.

The service is controlled from a central control centre at Broadstone, where the controllers can see exactly where any bus is using the AVLC system.

However, if the underlying rosters and running time are not sufficient for a bus to complete its journey, with the best will in the world there is not much a controller can do other than either:

1) Instructing the driver to switch the display to out of service and run in set-down mode only;

2) Cancelling a journey and sending the bus "special" (i.e. out of service) to the other terminus to make up its time.

Ultimately the only way problems such as these are resolved is by recasting the schedule - and that unfortunately is something that is not done overnight, as it means revised driver and bus rosters, which take some time to draw up.

If the service is not working that's exactly what they will have to do in due course, and that's what has happened with many of the other changed routes where the original scheduling was too ambitious in terms of running time.

Niles

Punctuality continues to be hit and miss. This evening I noticed the 18:00 ex-Bellarmine running Private Hire (with pax though refusing to pickup at Sandyford), resulting in people waiting 45-50 mins for a bus. Not great considering there isn't much of an alternative for the locations served.

copacetic

Niles wrote: »

Punctuality continues to be hit and miss. This evening I noticed the 18:00 ex-Bellarmine running Private Hire (with pax though refusing to pickup at Sandyford), resulting in people waiting 45-50 mins for a bus. Not great considering there isn't much of an alternative for the locations served.

Couldn't believe they had tinkered with this route yet again. The previous most recent change was ok when not diverting through mount merrion but this change is farcical. Turned a useful route into a pointless one, never running on time and taking forever.

The_Wrecker

The timing through the am peak is bearable, from then on they are down 6/7mins each way which by the time you hit the rush means lost trips.

Every journey on the hour from Belamine hits St Johns church just after the 40 past number 1 has departed so they collect very few on the way in.

The 1800/1830 inbound are suffering major.