Do Bus Éireann expressways have loos and if not why not?

Boulevardier

I have seen some ads recently for Bus Eireann expressway services, offering wifi, power points and other goodies, under the slogan "someday air travel may be this good"

Well, even budget airliners have loos. The Go-bus coach to/from Galway has loos. Most national coach services in the UK, as far as I remember, have loos, but Expressway still does not seem to have them.

The Dublin-Galway Expressway service I took last year had no loos. I do remember a couple of years ago the Dublin-Limerick Expressway service advertised its buses as "toileted" but I have not seen that mentioned since.

Does Bus Eirann offer loos on any of its services, and if not why not?

bk

No it doesn't.

They are a few reasons why they might not have it:

1) It means 4 less seats per bus, therefore less revenue
2) It requires extra maintenance and cleaning.

Some might argue that it isn't needed anyway as all BE so called "expressway" services actually stop at a couple of places along the way, so usually you can use toilet facilities at one of these anyway.

I agree that all long distance (2 hours or more) really should have toilets.

Rumours of a new BE service to Belfast to launch soon will have toilets, so perhaps competition from all the private operators with toilets is starting to make them change their mind.

Boulevardier

BK, I hope you are right. Having to stop in towns along the way is madness when outfits like Go-Bus are running non-stop along the motorway.

But then, many of these so-called "expressway" services are really glorified versions of old-style town-to-town country buses.

It would be interesting to know why the "toileting" of Dublin-Limerick expressways a couple of years ago was announced and then apparently cancelled.

munchkin_utd

Boulevardier wrote: »

I have seen some ads recently for Bus Eireann expressway services, offering wifi, power points and other goodies, under the slogan "someday air travel may be this good"
<snip>

well to start with... the slogan is wrong.

I was home for a stag in Belfast 6 weeks ago.

On the german side the coach to "Munich West" was a pleasure to behold. Bus was ABSOLUTLY spotless. Toilet on board and functioning. Announcements welcoming us on board and announcing intermediate stops working. Arived on time to the distant ryanair airport.
The ryanair flight was also spot on. I let the other 180 passengers get in a tizzy about boarding and sauntered onto the plane as the last person and got an aisle seat a couple of rows from the door. A pleasure to fly with them.

And then! Bus Eireann showcase Expressway number 1 to Belfast via Dublin airport. Christ.
Dirty bus in general. The first seat I chose even had a rotting orange or banana on the air vent so was completely stinking. Where I did sit was cramped and uncomfortable, and I'm only 5,7 and legs so short that I need jeans altered as theres no leg short enough for me! And for time keeping. Bloody students and pensioners ensured that all optional drop off stops were indeed served.

So, sorry bus eireann.
No.
I hope that air travel never ends ups like what you are actually providing.

The one positive is that 2 epic journeys I made a couple of years back with Bus eireann expressway, Derry to Cork (the length of it) and Ballina to Belfast(bus indescribably decrepit & vandalised & dirty) were that horrible that I was inspired to take the time and money to get a driving licence to avoid coach travel in Ireland if at all possible.

EDIT: anyhow... if Bus Eireann cant keep their busses on their main routes clean in general then do you REALLY want them to have also toilets ?

coylemj

Boulevardier wrote: »

But then, many of these so-called "expressway" services are really glorified versions of old-style town-to-town country buses.

Many of which stopped at bars & restaurants which gave the drivers free grub in return for dropping a few dozen customers on his doorstep, this is/was a feature of coach trips all over the world.

Before they built all the bypasses and eventually the M4 motorway, Kinnegad was the halfway point between Athlone and Dublin so it was a natural stop for BE and private buses. In the centre of Kinnegad was a large roadhouse called Harrys which had a special small dining room for bus drivers who dined for free.

The building of bypasses around Palmerstown and Lucan, followed by the big triple bypass of Leixlip, Enfield and Maynooth brought Kinnegad much closer (on the clock) to Dublin so at one stage BE decided to change the last stop before Dublin to somewhere west of Kinnegad but the drivers based in Galway threatened to go on strike unless the Kinnegad stop was maintained!

No need for onboard toilets in those days.

gbob

There is also the fact that there is a legal requirement 'for all passengers to remain seated with seatbelt fastened whilst the vehicle is in motion'. And given how bad our roads and drivers are you'd wonder how long it'd take for the claims to come rolling in for all the 'little toilet accidents'

Lapin

coylemj wrote: »

In the centre of Kinnegad was a large roadhouse called Harrys which had a special small dining room for bus drivers who dined for free.

The building of bypasses around Palmerstown and Lucan, followed by the big triple bypass of Leixlip, Enfield and Maynooth brought Kinnegad much closer (on the clock) to Dublin so at one stage BE decided to change the last stop before Dublin to somewhere west of Kinnegad but the drivers based in Galway threatened to go on strike unless the Kinnegad stop was maintained!

Do you have any source to confirm the highlighted part of your text above ?

I'm not disputing what you say but I just find it odd that the drivers could hold the bus company to ransom over the location of a dining area. Although with CIE, nothing surprises me.

Having said that, I wouldn't blame the drivers for opting for Harry's of Kinnegad. As someone who has travelled the road between Galway and Dublin for years I remember the place well. I had many a great dinner in the bus drivers dining area as it was also used by lorry drivers.

Incidentely, when Nestor's, and O'Connell's first threw their hat in the ring to challenge the CIE monopoly on the Galway Dublin run, one of the reasons they took off was because they stopped twice along the way during certain runs. Moate & Harry's on the way to Dublin, Harry's and Ballinasloe on the way back to Galway.

It seems daft now, but this was during a time when getting through Loughrea and Athlone could add more than an hour to the journey at times.

Things have changed for the better in some respects, although Harry's is still missed.

kieran4003

munchkin_utd wrote: »

well to start with... the slogan is wrong.

I was home for a stag in Belfast 6 weeks ago.

On the german side the coach to "Munich West" was a pleasure to behold. Bus was ABSOLUTLY spotless. Toilet on board and functioning. Announcements welcoming us on board and announcing intermediate stops working. Arived on time to the distant ryanair airport.
The ryanair flight was also spot on. I let the other 180 passengers get in a tizzy about boarding and sauntered onto the plane as the last person and got an aisle seat a couple of rows from the door. A pleasure to fly with them.

And then! Bus Eireann showcase Expressway number 1 to Belfast via Dublin airport. Christ.
Dirty bus in general. The first seat I chose even had a rotting orange or banana on the air vent so was completely stinking. Where I did sit was cramped and uncomfortable, and I'm only 5,7 and legs so short that I need jeans altered as theres no leg short enough for me! And for time keeping. Bloody students and pensioners ensured that all optional drop off stops were indeed served.

So, sorry bus eireann.
No.
I hope that air travel never ends ups like what you are actually providing.

The one positive is that 2 epic journeys I made a couple of years back with Bus eireann expressway, Derry to Cork (the length of it) and Ballina to Belfast(bus indescribably decrepit & vandalised & dirty) were that horrible that I was inspired to take the time and money to get a driving licence to avoid coach travel in Ireland if at all possible.

EDIT: anyhow... if Bus Eireann cant keep their busses on their main routes clean in general then do you REALLY want them to have also toilets ?

The good news is that there is a brand new fleet of double deck Intercity coaches starting tomorrow morning on the Dublin - Belfast service. 06:00 to Belfast should be the first service.

coylemj

Lapin wrote: »

Do you have any source to confirm the highlighted part of your text above ?

No, you'll have to take my word for it. I travelled that route for years by hitching and then in my own car so knew every inch of the old road. A feature of Kinnegad every Sunday evening was the mayhem caused by the logjam of buses double-parked outside Harry's, even though there was always a Garda at the N6 junction to allow cars coming from Galway & Athlone out and onto the main street, originally only on Bank Holiday Mondays but in later years they used to post a Garda at the junction every Sunday evening.

Lapin wrote: »

I'm not disputing what you say but I just find it odd that the drivers could hold the bus company to ransom over the location of a dining area.

You find it odd that a heavily unionised bunch of drivers would resist a route alteration which was going to remove a major perk of the job - a free hot dinner?

Lapin wrote: »

Although with CIE, nothing surprises me.

Now you're talking!

Boulevardier

"The good news is that there is a brand new fleet of double deck Intercity coaches starting tomorrow morning on the Dublin - Belfast service. 06:00 to Belfast should be the first service"

With loos?

Niles

bk wrote: »

No it doesn't.

They are a few reasons why they might not have it:

1) It means 4 less seats per bus, therefore less revenue

Quite a valid point. BÉ have some ex-Eurolines coaches (thus fitted with toilets, but OOU) which results in less seats. Some mornings I've seen a few people left behind in Arklow due to no room, when had there been seats in place of the toilets these people would have gotten on board. Presumably it's costly, but I would actually be in favour of removing toilets for this very reason.

foggy_lad

They manage to provide the space for a wheelchair on the smaller commuter buses by bunching all the other seats up together instead of removing 4 seats so they have 53 seats with feck all legroom and one wheelchair space!

bk

Niles wrote: »

Quite a valid point. BÉ have some ex-Eurolines coaches (thus fitted with toilets, but OOU) which results in less seats. Some mornings I've seen a few people left behind in Arklow due to no room, when had there been seats in place of the toilets these people would have gotten on board. Presumably it's costly, but I would actually be in favour of removing toilets for this very reason.

On the other hand there should be plenty of space in a double decker for many seats, plenty of leg room and a toilet. No need to compromise. Yet I believe these new double deckers still don't have toilets.

Also the fact that BE Eurolines coaches do have toilets shows that excuses like problems with insurance, environmental issues, etc. are just that, excuses. Clearly when it is expected to have toilets, BE do have it.

I predict as more and more private operators start using toilets, we will see BE increasingly do so also. It is just a pity BE are so reactive, rather then proactive.

Cookie_Monster

foggy_lad wrote: »

They manage to provide the space for a wheelchair on the smaller commuter buses by bunching all the other seats up together instead of removing 4 seats so they have 53 seats with feck all legroom and one wheelchair space!

showing once again the minority get pandered too against the cost to everyone else.

Going Forward

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

showing once again the minority get pandered too against the cost to everyone else.

Yes, I cant understand that myself.
But of course it cant even be discussed nowadays for fear of upsetting the PC brigade.

Andremac96

No they Don't, But if your Journey is an hour or more they should have toilets its common sense really

Solair

Because it's an Irish publicly owned company that has some notion that Ireland's completely different to every other market in the world, when in fact it's not at all any different from any other Western European country!

There should be toilets on long distance buses and they should use the motorways!

I would suspect that they probably don't want to canabalise traffic from Irish Rail is the main motivation.

CIE has traditionally offered long-distance bus services along rail lines as a low-budget slower, less comfortable option, rather than something that actually competes with rail and areas that are not served by rail are usually low density so would have lots of small stops en route anyway.

For example, it's 253km from Parnel Place Bus Station in Cork to Bus Aras in Dublin.
Averaging at about 100km/h you'd do it in a little over 2 and a half hours. Putting it into a very competitive position with the Cork-Dublin intercity train, which is (by any standards) not very fast at all, even though in theory it should be running at 160km/h - 200km/h and is capable of this without much modification.

The motorway part of that journey can be driven at bang on 120km/h for about 80% of the journey and 100km/h for the remaining 20% i.e. the Glanmire Bypass M8 and Naas Road M7/N7 + a bit of city centre driving at each end.

gbob wrote: »

There is also the fact that there is a legal requirement 'for all passengers to remain seated with seatbelt fastened whilst the vehicle is in motion'. And given how bad our roads and drivers are you'd wonder how long it'd take for the claims to come rolling in for all the 'little toilet accidents'

I don't really buy that, Ireland's road safety stats are better than most of Europe and significantly better than most of the rest of the world.

http://www.rsa.ie/Utility/News/2011/EU-Report-Confirms-Ireland-6th-Safest-Country-in-Europe/

They're the 6th safest in Europe and safer than Australia and the US.
We are only really topped by the UK, Sweden, Netherlands and a few other places.

Road safety stats here are roughly in line with Scotland and Wales and slightly worse than England where much more driving is on motorways. : http://www.iam.org.uk/news/latest-news/731-england-tops-uk-road-safety-league

They're also better than Northern Ireland.

There was a really dramatic improvement in road safety here in the last few years, mostly down to the introduction of motorways but also some improved enforcement and attitudinal changes to drink driving and speeding.

So, I'm afraid the argument that Irish bus passengers are at risk due to bad roads or driving is absolutely nonsense and is not at all held up by statistics. You'd be more at risk in Spain, Italy, or even France or the US and Oz

There's absolutely no reason why a good bus service couldn't provide something almost matching rail.

SandyfordGuy

Believe it or not there are private operators on some of the routes that do match rail and in some cases beat it. Just because Bus Eireann doesn't offer it doesn't mean we still can't have it.

parsi

Whatever about the excuses I would imagine that if they could all operators would ditch toilets . They must be a pain to keep clean and all you need is one messy fecker to spoil it for everyone else .

cson

I was on two pretty full [at a guess ~75% loads] GoBus services this weekend and of the two journeys out of ~70 passengers, 2 used it on the outbound journey and 1 on the inbound.

So the need for them is way overstated imo. Just go before/after. No major drama really.

Boulevardier

Cson, that uptake sounds about average, which is why these loos aren't really that much trouble to maintain.

One of the main points about having loos is reassurance. People often want not to actually use the loos, but to know they are there if needed.
I know that that is a fairly major point with me and probably with many other middle-aged passengers as well.

markpb

cson wrote: »

So the need for them is way overstated imo. Just go before/after. No major drama really.

Just because people didn't use it (on your particular bus trip) doesn't mean they're not needed. People may choose to use the service (over the train or other bus operators) because they have a toilet even if they don't end up needing it.

I don't understand this idea that people can "just" go before or after. What about children, ill people, pregnant women and old people?

ANXIOUS

I will give you my example of a hole on the market. I commute from athlone and work up near harcourt street. The options I have are get the train however a yearly ticket is extremely expensive, I would have another commute on the far side and it takes a long time. The bus is dog slow stopping at least 15 times but then goes to the airport not the city. So I find the only viable solution is drive to killbeggan circa 20km get the kearns bus and that leaves me next to the office. All in 2+ hours. I don't see how there isn't a service from say Galway that stops just off the motorway in one or two places.

cson

ANXIOUS wrote: »

I don't see how there isn't a service from say Galway that stops just off the motorway in one or two places.

There is; the X20.

ANXIOUS

cson wrote: »

There is; the X20.

I ant seem to find that can you link it please?

highlydebased

ANXIOUS wrote: »

I ant seem to find that can you link it please?

http://www.buseireann.ie/pdf/1314893562-20.pdf

Look for the X20 column. Calls at Athlone, Ballinasloe and Loughrea

foggy_lad

highlydebased wrote: »

http://www.buseireann.ie/pdf/1314893562-20.pdf

Look for the X20 column. Calls at Athlone, Ballinasloe and Loughrea

just be aware that it rarely gets to dublin at the stated times, it is usually 30+ minutes late. But the times of the express services don't suit people going to work in Dublin from Athlone or farther afield.

ANXIOUS

foggy_lad wrote: »

just be aware that it rarely gets to dublin at the stated times, it is usually 30+ minutes late.

Thanks I just had a look at that. It doesn't suit first one diesnt get to Dublin until 10.20. I could look at the possibility of getting it home.

Motorist

Only the riff-raff travel by bus.

devnull

Motorist wrote: »

Only the riff-raff travel by bus.

May have been the case in the past, but coaches are now light years of what they were years ago, the interiors are a world apart.

Boulevardier

Or they would be if they all had flippin' loos!

AlekSmart

Motorist wrote: »

Only the riff-raff travel by bus.

Ah....!,Baroness Thatcher returns for a new season on Boards.ie

Victor

Motorist wrote: »

Only the riff-raff travel by bus.

No need to troll.

bk

To the point of wheelchair space taking up too much space. I was on a bus in Norway today and noticed that there is a door on the side of the bus for wheelchair lift, but no space for a wheelchair. The seats by the wheelchair door are removable if needed.

So best of both worlds, wheelchair accessibility the rare times needed and the maximum number of seats available the majority of time.

In the US some coach companies require you book online iron by phone in advance if you need a wheelchair seat. Seems like a fair compromise to me.

Took a few buses in Norway, they all had floor level toilets. Which were nice and clean. This is despite announcements to always use the seat belt and not move around. So obviously they aren't worried about being sued. I assume they would argue the toilets are only to be used when the bus is stationary. If you get up and use the toilet when moving despite the warnings, then it is totally your own responsibility.

The coach buses in Norway had many impressive features. The luggage hold doors opened automatically when the bus stops. They also had a seat where the seat in front of you could be converted into a baby seat,with the child facing the mother. Impressive.

AlekSmart

bk wrote: »

To the point of wheelchair space taking up too much space. I was on a bus in Norway today and noticed that there is a door on the side of the bus for wheelchair lift, but no space for a wheelchair. The seats by the wheelchair door are removable if needed.

So best of both worlds, wheelchair accessibility the rare times needed and the maximum number of seats available the majority of time.

In the US some coach companies require you book online iron by phone in advance if you need a wheelchair seat. Seems like a fair compromise to me.

Took a few buses in Norway, they all had floor level toilets. Which were nice and clean. This is despite announcements to always use the seat belt and not move around. So obviously they aren't worried about being sued. I assume they would argue the toilets are only to be used when the bus is stationary. If you get up and use the toilet when moving despite the warnings, then it is totally your own responsibility.

The coach buses in Norway had many impressive features. The luggage hold doors opened automatically when the bus stops. They also had a seat where the seat in front of you could be converted into a baby seat,with the child facing the mother. Impressive.

Just to reassure bk on the wheelchair issue,the latest BE DD coaches (LE) have exactly such an arrangement with the (manual) whelchair ramp at the rearmost nearside door which leads to a removable section of the floor with two seat rows being sacrificed to accomodate the wheelchair user.

Facilitating the wheelchair user in these cases depends upon them pre-booking the journey which allows for the removal of the seat-pod at the depot.

I understand Aircoach disabled facilitation is under the same conditions and is also dependent upon a suitably trained Driver being designated to that particular journey.

None of these answers are perfect,but I believe it's as close as can be achieved within the operational constraints of Inter Urban journeys.

Again most of Bus Eireann's commuter and express vehicle orders have be specified with power luggage doors for some years now,although many private operators have been somewhat slower to accept the additional electro-mechanical complexity and weight penalty of the equipment.

That only leaves the Baby Seat point which IS a perfectly valid one and perhaps not even considered up to this ??

gbob

A lot of the smaller BE depots have one or two wheelchair accessible buses and you must book in advance to ensure one is used for your journey, however these buses were bought under the NDP plan and cannot be used on expressways. So useless for a wheelchair user who makes a last minute decision to travel across country. Doesn't that constitute discrimination ?

devnull

BE are not allowed to use taxpayer funded vehicles to shunt out competition, that is why they are not allowed to use such vehicles, as we may end up with the undesirable situation where we are paying for BE to remove competition rather than what they are funded to do.

There are a batch of new Expressway vehicles coming on stream which should cascade some other wheelchair accessible vehicles on to other depots expressway routes, so this should help.

bk

Thanks AlekSmart, that is very good to know and reassuring.

gbob wrote: »

So useless for a wheelchair user who makes a last minute decision to travel across country. Doesn't that constitute discrimination ?

I'm sorry, but no.

I'm all for making changes to help disabled persons, but really there is only so far this can be taken. So lets say you create one permanent wheelchair accessible, well now what if two or even three wheelchair users want to use the bus at the same time. Where do you draw the line?

To me this seems like a very fair and reasonable compromise.