Dublin Bus route 16

Victor

Does it still operate the loop through Beaumont Road-Shantalla Road? In both directions? I thought that it was to disappear under the reorganisation.

http://www.dublinbus.ie/en/Examples/Google-Map/?routeNumber=16&direction=OI&towards=Ballinteer+%28Kingston%29&from=Dublin+Airport

Conway635

Unfortunately yes.

My solution would have been to have the 1 take over that section, but apparently there is demand for an Airport link from the loop residents.

C635

ollaetta

Other major changes were considered for the 16 route but they didn't (and won't) happen. That new bus lane along Clanbrassil Street which is causing bedlam most mornings was put in as it was proposed to run the 16 along there directly to Christchurch rather than its current magical mystery tour along the SCR. Not sure who or what knocked it on the head.

LXFlyer

Perhaps the people who use it? That's one of the busiest sections of the 16 route.

Clanbrassil Street / Christchurch was never included in any of the public plans for the 16.

Jamie2k9

Does it still operate the loop through Beaumont Road-Shantalla Road? In both directions? I thought that it was to disappear under the reorganisation.

I thaught that some of the morning and evening peak services were suposed cut that loop out.

LXFlyer

The early morning services from Shanard Road go straight onto the Swords Road at Whitehall avoiding Beaumont. During this period there are services from Collins Avenue going via Beaumont (in reverse direction) before they then head into town via the Swords Road.

The 16 does not start from the airport until 0800, and all departures from the airport go via Beaumont.

ollaetta

lxflyer wrote: »

Perhaps the people who use it? That's one of the busiest sections of the 16 route.

Clanbrassil Street / Christchurch was never included in any of the public plans for the 16.

Checked my source and hands up I was wrong, it did not reach the stage of being considered. The change was suggested as a possibility in the early stages of planning the Rathfarnham QBN but did not go any further as Dublin Bus was not interested.

CIE

Victor wrote: »

Does it still operate the loop through Beaumont Road-Shantalla Road? In both directions? I thought that it was to disappear under the reorganisation.

Dublin bus page that is never set in stone

I can't fathom how vital a link to the Airport is for Beaumont residents in particular. It is certainly a high amount of trips.

And why do any route 16 trips start at the old terminus of Shanard Road at all? Is not the Airport open earlier than 6 in the morning? (And why has the pre-Shantalla Road loop routing appeared after so many decades, with these Shanard Road trips...?)

Aside: Mildly interesting that the route numbers going from the city centre to Beaumont are now 14 and 16. Consecutive even numbers. And I would not have expected route 16 to be taken off South Great Georges Street/Aungier Street/Wexford Street/Camden Street and SCR anyhow; it's the only link between that part of Dublin and Harold's Cross (North Terenure Road particularly), what with the 9 going down Lower Kimmage Road.

jd

I drive to either Whitehall or Griffith Avenue area, and then catch a bus. I don't want to get lost in the Beaumont vortex on the 16.

Conway635

A practical solution would be:

Divert the 1 via the current loop.
Extend the 104 to the Airport (would provide the Beaumont-Airport link).
Run the 16 direct.

Then everyone would be happy (and there would be some new links to the airport, and maybe even the odd extra customer on the 104).

C635

LXFlyer

The reason for the anti-clockwise routing on the 16 around Beaumont in the morning peak is that the traffic on Beaumont Road inbound was and is horrific and the buses were losing too much time there.

The reason for route 16 starting at Shanard Road is that it was the most efficient way of dealing with the early morning services in terms of vehicles and drivers, while keeping the same number of departures from each north side terminus as before the changes.

The 1 operates between Parnell Square and Sandymount until 9am, when it starts from Shanard Road.

The 41 covers the Airport inbound in the early mornings, between 0645 and 0740 approximately, so there is still a service there.

bk

I think the 16 is a massive lost opportunity.

- Straighten out the 16, make it direct into the city.
- Make it a 24 hour service, which pick ups and drop offs at normal stops and a normal fares (with lets say + €1 after midnight) [1]
- Make Dublin Airport the terminus for the 16 with driver changeovers done here [2]

Basically the 16 would become DB's premium service running 24 hours through the heart of the city to the airport. Most other European countries have a route like this.

I think the reason this hasn't happened and the 16 is hamstrung the way it is, is because DB don't want it competing with the 747 [3]

[1] Basically trial on this route a regular 24 hour service that most other European cities have. If it is successful like I expect it would be, then extend it to other routes.

[2] It is crazy that the driver changeover is done at Parnell Square, very annoyingly just one stop short of where most people get off. It is a truly stupid thing. Dublin Airport would be an excellent location for changeovers, with great facilities.

[3] I don't think DB should ever have been licensed to operate the 747 service. It competes with their regular service and means DB are much less likely to properly develop their other regular stopping service to the airport. If DB didn't have the 747, you can guarantee the 16 would be running 24 hours.

LXFlyer

As usual i think you are reading far too mch into this and letting your dislike of CIE group companies cloud the facts.

The 747 stops at 2330 as well, so I fail to see how that is stopping the 16 being extended. Never mind the fact that the express and stage carriage services have co-existed for over 60 years quite happily, but sure why let that get in the way of the facts.

The DoT were exceptionally wary of changing anything at the airport due to fear of litigation from private operators. DB had specifically bought vehicles some years ago for the 746 with the intention of it being operated 24 hours but at the last minute the DoT withdrew permission for the service.

In the present economic climate at DB I can't see them trying something like this out, until things have stabilised again. Anything that could increase costs I suspect is being given the cold finger.

markpb

Conway635 wrote: »

Extend the 104 to the Airport (would provide the Beaumont-Airport link).

The 104 isn't a real bus route - it's a granny bus that runs once an hour (except for the bizarre two hour gap in the evening) and gives up at 8pm. No-one is going to rely on it to get to work and, for such a short journey, few people on going to rely on it to get to the airport for travel.

NufcNavan

Is it still possible to get off at Camden Street on the 16?

Losty Dublin

NufcNavan wrote: »

Is it still possible to get off at Camden Street on the 16?

Only if the bus stops there for you

clunked

Conway635 wrote: »

A practical solution would be:

Divert the 1 via the current loop.
Extend the 104 to the Airport (would provide the Beaumont-Airport link).
Run the 16 direct.

Then everyone would be happy (and there would be some new links to the airport, and maybe even the odd extra customer on the 104).

C635

I might be biased since I grew up in Beaumont and indeed worked on the 16 regularly in my first job but there is actually a fair level of business from Beaumont heading up towards the airport. I've seen a good number of hospital staff, especially medical students travel from Shantalla Rd. across to the College of Surgeons getting off at Aungier Street too.

To be honest, Beaumont people are probably too posh to be served by Ringsend garage (joking!)

NufcNavan

Losty Dublin wrote: »

Only if the bus stops there for you

So just ask the driver?

LXFlyer

markpb wrote: »

The 104 isn't a real bus route - it's a granny bus that runs once an hour (except for the bizarre two hour gap in the evening) and gives up at 8pm. No-one is going to rely on it to get to work and, for such a short journey, few people on going to rely on it to get to the airport for travel.

With respect that is looking at it as it is now, which is not the way to look at it.

The 104 would I think need to be a minimum 30 minute frequency service throughout the day if it were to serve the airport.

It would also open up completely new areas directly to the airport, Clontarf, Killester and Artane.

LXFlyer

NufcNavan wrote: »

So just ask the driver?

Yes. The 16 still serves Camden Street.

trellheim

The 16 is a core route that stops at every stop unfortunately. I tried to use it once to commute from Knocklyon to DCU ( walk to rathfarnham ) but gave up as it stops at every stop whereas the 15b/15 and 19a as it was then combination did it in less than half the time.

Conway635

IMO the 16 corridor has never really received the sort of attention it deserves from the company.

As a core corridor from the Airport through key city centre alignments and directly through the centre of the south city "no rail" zone, it could and should be a "super route" benefitting from attention, frequency, investment etc.

It should have been one of the first routes to go fully lowfloor, but in fact has ended up as one of the last handful of inaccessible routes.

C635

CIE

trellheim wrote: »

The 16 is a core route that stops at every stop unfortunately. I tried to use it once to commute from Knocklyon to DCU (walk to Rathfarnham) but gave up as it stops at every stop whereas the 15B/15 and 19A as it was then combination did it in less than half the time.

Very odd that such a busy route does not have a limited-stop counterpart. Is the 39A set up as the 39's limited-stop counterpart, or does it make every stop where it shares the route with the 39? Other routes should have this too; perhaps create the 46 as a limited-stop version of the 46A. (Just food for thought, based on what other cities do.)

Victor

CIE wrote: »

Very odd that such a busy route does not have a limited-stop counterpart. Is the 39A set up as the 39's limited-stop counterpart, or does it make every stop where it shares the route with the 39? Other routes should have this too; perhaps create the 46 as a limited-stop version of the 46A. (Just food for thought, based on what other cities do.)

No, the 39 and 39a share the distance between Blanchardstown and the city, but have different routings in Blanchardstown.

Dublin Bus have very few limited-stop services - the Expresso routes (most have -x as a suffix) and the the 747.

CIE

Victor wrote: »

No, the 39 and 39a share the distance between Blanchardstown and the city, but have different routings in Blanchardstown.

Dublin Bus have very few limited-stop services - the Expresso routes (most have -x as a suffix) and the the 747.

Well, I was thinking the shared corridors rather than where the 39A bypasses Blanchardstown village. The 39 should stop at every stop whereas the 39A only stop at major junctions (e.g. on an Ongar-Belfield trip on the Navan Road: Ashtown Cross, then Nephin Road, then Cabra Road, then North Circular Road, and so on).

Most of the "Xpresso" (f.k.a. "CitySpeed") services are outdated especially as rush-hour service; they need to become all-day service (e.g. 25A/B, which IMHO should have used different numbers) where the market demands it.

cson

Serious capacity issues on this service too once you get into a ~5km radius of the City Centre either Southbound or Northbound during both rush hour periods you'll be struggling to get on a bus.

CIE

cson wrote: »

Serious capacity issues on this service too once you get into a ~5km radius of the City Centre either Southbound or Northbound during both rush hour periods you'll be struggling to get on a bus.

And Network Direct does not seem to endeavour to solve capacity issues; its authors and administrators worry about what they perceive to be route duplication.

cson

Therein lies the issue; it may look great in theory combining two services into one; but you also end up combining two loads into one and the ensuing result is that the customer gets shafted, reliability of the service goes down and you turn more people off using the bus which negates what was presumably the goal of ND.

LXFlyer

To quantify this, there are 4 less departures between 0620 and 0900 northbound, with two of these prior to 0700, one between 0700 and 0800 and one between 0800 and 0900.

There are exactly the same number of pre-9am departures from the northside as there were before the changes were made (20).