Aircoach have route numbers now?

bk

devnull wrote: »

Its by no means perfect, but it's 100x better than what was there before.

It is better, certainly cleaner, but definitely not 100 times better. It really is just the exact same structure of the old site, with the broken links and out of date information cleaned up and a new bit of paint splashed on it.

The UIX design of it is truly awful, actually worse then the old site!!

It is a pity, as with the redesign of the site, they had an opportunity to really do a good job of it and make a proper, high quality advertisement for their services that was easy to use.

I really hope this is just the starting point for the improvement of their website. I fear they now consider it fixed!!!

devnull

The ticket booking interface is not too dis-similar from the old one, with the benefit that you can now can access the booking form (partially) on the side of each page, the old site was painful in that you can only book from the front page, as I said I agree it's not perfect, and it seems to run a little slow which causes the XML error, but I still think it's a vast improvement.

There is a special offer of 24% off all fares to celebrate the launch of the site, see twitter here: https://twitter.com/Aircoach/status/410414772262166529.

I'd be worried if the site would cope with such a load, since it's been slow all morning and this may push it over the edge.

SandyfordGuy

The site is down now

devnull

I'm amazed they launched such an offer when there clearly was performance issues with the site even before the offer was announced. This is very much a rushed launch and the only thing that could make it worse would be to now send an email newsletter out to all their customers as they do from time to time which will put it under even more strain.

The problem now is that site is most likely going to get hammered over and over again by people retrying because of the offer, so it may be struggling for a while now, all of this could have been avoided, if they resolved the performance issues, and had an official launch later in the week rather the same day the site went live.

Honestly, I thought with the new website it would be the start of turning the corner from the horrible mess the last one was, but at least the last one was stable!

SandyfordGuy

I just got a mail advertising it

devnull

Priceless, the response from Aircoach on their Facebook page to two users is also priceless saying that the site is undergoing "Maintenance" rather than admitting the failure.

paddyh117

Oh dear - what a disaster on launch day! can't get on the site - actually tried to book a couple of hours ago before i saw this discount - couldn't book then, can't get near the site now - much fiasco.

SandyfordGuy

the whole thing is an emabarassment for them. They really need to read boards more and to not rush things.

They should get a customer panel like other first companies to work with and offer feedback to avoid things like this.

They are not hard things to catch but clearly some external eyes and views will help spot things and feedback what others may not.

a lot of aircoach issues havw been flagged on here as being likely to happen and proven to be correct and Aircoach should use.such input.from the.well informed people

devnull

Clearly the problem is simple as the server simply cannot cope with the load or the hosting is not adequate for the type of site it is being asked to run. It seems to be Drupal based by the look of it, which shouldn't be a problem itself, but the site would be much more sophisticated technology wise than the old one.

But as I said earlier, this is not something that just happened, the site has been struggling ever since I first clapped eyes on it this morning and the extra load pushed it over the edge and whoever made the decision to push ahead with the promo made a bad call if you ask me, they tried to run before they could walk and paid the price.

SandyfordGuy

they will have to roll back the performance will pick up as people stop using it but it won't fix the problem.

They should save face and admit that an honour the discounts for longer as a gesture of goodwill

devnull

May I apologise on behalf of Aircoach for any inconvenience experienced as a result of our website being temporarily unavailable.

The issues you are experiencing are due to an unprecedented amount of customers attempting to avail of the promotional offer.

We are working towards a resolution of all of these intermittent issues and we hope for the website to be fully operational as soon as possible.

Please be aware that the 24% discount offer will be available for bookings made before 23:59 tomorrow (Wednesday 11th December).

If you are unable to book online you may purchase tickets from the driver when boarding the coach; this applies to all services at all times but please note that fares may be different than those available online..

Just telling people that we're sorry the site is down, not extending the offer, and saying don't worry, you can buy your tickets on-board and pay more, really would make me just want to use the competition.

joegriffinjnr

http://wallys-wanderings.smugmug.com/PlaxtonCoachbuilders/Coaches-and-Single-Deckers/22335812_VPXhCT#!i=2955630851&k=XRRQGVf

One of the new coaches nearly complete.

devnull

I believe that one is actually complete, just needs shipping, registering and decals applied by the looks of it, you may see it before the end of the year, but I guess it will be tight considering they'll be type training etc.

The Aircoach website is still down meanwhile. Even the maintenance message takes a few seconds to load.

SandyfordGuy

getting 503 Server too busy errors now

the cuerentt server is clearly inadequate rather than papering over the cracks for it to break again they should get it changed and to a better host

J_Dublin15

Being someone who works in IT and also Marketing in the past I find the whole shambles of the way it has tuned out as being laughable. It is a classic case of how not to launch a website and why you should never launch a big promotion on day one of launching a new website, but if you are going to launch the promotion (Which I would never advise a client to do unless they are 100% sure the site can cope on the live platform) best give people a few days to book tickets rather than actually encouraging them to all go onto the site to prevent any problems.

It seems clear that nobody properly tested the site on the live environment, they may have done all of the testing in the world on a test environment or a development server, but that counts for nothing if the platform your are about to run the site on is configured differently and the platform is provided by a third party. What should be happening now is that Aircoach should be working with the developers, as I assume they are external, the hosts and anyone else who had a development involvement on getting this resolved.

If the site is really getting a 503 error this means the sever is overloaded, so it's either down to a badly developed website that is not resource efficient, a server which cannot cope with the load, or a hosting package that has some kind of resource throttling on it which needs upgrading. If the problem is with the hosting and it's 24 hours later and the problem is still not resolved, then its time to say goodbye to the host, or if it's the coding it's time to look at why such code is inefficient.

Finally the decision to actually run the promotion when they did, if the site was already struggling was a foolish one and has made what was already a problem a much bigger one. I cannot fathom why someone would make that kind of call in such situation, of course a launch offer may sound good on paper since the company clearly badly needed a new website, but the way it was handled was one of the worst website launches I have ever seen.

And the fact that customers are now being told that because of all the above, they have to pay more for their tickets from the driver because of something that was no fault of their own, is a big own goal from a PR point of view. That kind of thing will drive customers to the competition. The company should offer a gesture of goodwill to customers when this is finally resolves and extend the offer, if the downtime goes on for much longer, they should compensate customers who had to pay higher prices because of the outage.

This is incredibly bad PR for the company, and they should be doing what they can to turn this around. It's even worse from an IT viewpoint. If they don't get this resolved today, I would expect BE/Irish Rail, if they are savvy enough, to take advantage of this and lower their online fares for a few days to woo customers who are forced to pay the much higher on coach rates.

devnull

So having not looked at what was happening all day, I now take a look at the site and find that it either doesn't load or it's slow as can be, and wonder has there really been no progress from the same time yesterday? Clearly so, and the above poster makes some very valid points.

It seems that they've been flooded with complaints on Twitter and on Facebook all day from customers who are getting increasingly more and more angry as the website seems to have gone up and down many times today with many different problems, and they still seem no nearer to fixing the actual problem.

It seems from reading from what must be almost 100 tweets and Facebook messages they moved the site to a new server this afternoon which made an improvement, but when people went to book tickets and paid, they got an error message saying that the reference number could not be emailed to them, which has caused the highest number of complaints, with people obviously being angry that they paid but did not get a ticket.

Then someone made a fateful tweet about the fact that offer was extended until 2pm tomorrow, and wisely (sarcasm) used the line "Subject to availability" which seemed to cause another rush on the site a couple of hours ago below, with the site spewing out errors about "too many connections" and has been down again ever since as even the new server can't cope with the load.

Their competitors must be laughing their heads off.

TheBandicoot

And people want to see shambolic private companies like this getting a foothold in Dublin's city bus service? Lol.

bk

TheBandicoot wrote: »

And people want to see shambolic private companies like this getting a foothold in Dublin's city bus service? Lol.

Right, a shambolic company who has brought a 3 hour service to Cork that runs hourly almost 24 hours a day, almost 4 times as many departures per day as Bus Eireann!!!

Sure, they badly messed up this website rollout, but their service on the whole is excellent and they are now investing 3.5million in the route, introducing 10 brand new coaches to the route over the next month.

I'm often very critical of Aircoach, but they have done far more good then bad. And we also have many other private companies who do almost everything right, Citylink, GoBus, Dublin Coach, etc. All with great websites, that work well, great booking systems, modern, up to date coaches, etc.

Five Lamps

bk wrote: »

Right, a shambolic company who has brought a 3 hour service to Cork that runs hourly almost 24 hours a day, almost 4 times as many departures per day as Bus Eireann!!!

Sure, they badly messed up this website rollout, but their service on the whole is excellent and they are now investing 3.5million in the route, introducing 10 brand new coaches to the route over the next month.

I'm often very critical of Aircoach, but they have done far more good then bad. And we also have many other private companies who do almost everything right, Citylink, GoBus, Dublin Coach, etc. All with great websites, that work well, great booking systems, modern, up to date coaches, etc.

I would always use Aircoach going to the airport over taxis. However, I do think that the service has gone down since launch. The organisation at the airport is a mess and I often see buses going around with no destination display (as I did today).

going back to the route number, the cost of having a route number and destination displayed is zero and makes the service at least look more professional and organised.

devnull

The reason that the Setras do not have a route number or display is because that model was designed exclusively for tours, rather than service work and there was no option to fit destination equipment to it from the manufacturer. I do agree that the Scania centuries that have displays should be set properly and with route numbers though.

The website seems much more stable now, though it seems some people are still not getting tickets all of the time sent to them and GoBe have had a dig at their expense with a post on their Facebook page

"Need a reliable bus service from Cork to Dublin? Book with GoBé Cork where you are guaranteed a website that works offering our best value rates. www.gobe.ie"

I'm not surprised they exploited it.

Felim_Doyle

I'd like to see more accurate, clearly visible signage on coaches with route number and destination and ‘via’ destinations where applicable.

At Dublin Airport (T1) there could be better indication of where coaches for each route will be parked. Passengers who are not familiar with the ‘system’ often walk the entire line of coaches looking for the correct one.

In weather like this, some better sheltering at Dublin Airport (T1) would be welcome. At Christmas one of the 703: Dublin Airport to Killiney/Dalkey coaches was severely delayed in traffic on its way to the airport. The AirCoach representative told us to wait in the warmth of the terminal building and he would come and fetch us when the coach arrived!†

Unlike the early days, there is often a distinct lack of on-board screens and/or drivers announcing each stop. It makes for a nice quiet journey but it isn't very helpful to visitors who are unfamiliar with their route.

There needs to be some additions to the website including up-to-date route maps, live progress of coaches† and maybe a view of the latest posts on the Twitter and Facebook pages. As has already been mentioned, there is room for major improvements to the user interface and navigation of the website.

The on-board WiFi is great though!

†The AirCoach website used to have live tracking of coaches and the AirCoach staff still have access to this.

bk

In fairness, the signage on the Aircoach buses is very good and clear, with very clear route number and destination on front, side and back of all buses.

In fact I think Aircoach are better at this then any other coach company in Ireland.

However you are right, I think they are falling down on their Dublin Airport services. I think this is because they are currently putting more effort and focus on their intercity services, in particular the Cork route, as this is currently much more profitable then their airport routes.

The intercity routes don't really need per stop announcements or signs and they don't really need RTPI or tracking.

However I absolutely agree with you that they should improve their airport routes by:

1) Introduce RTPI for all buses, available on their own website, NTA app and Google Transit.
2) RTPI data displayed on screens at key stops at the airport and in town, etc. *
3) Show bus locations on a map on their website.
4) On bus screen showing the next upcoming stop (more like the full LCD screens you see in Amsterdam that show the route number, destination and the next 4 upcoming stops, much better for tourists).

* This would also help with Taxi drivers trying to pouch Aircoach customers at stops.

I'd also love to see Aircoach introduce same day booking on their website.

As for better signage directing passengers to buses and shelters at Dublin Airport, unfortunately that is a job for the Dublin Airport Authority. Aircoach can't do much about that.

Victor

bk wrote: »

The intercity routes ... don't really need RTPI or tracking.

It is useful for people on the coach or meeters and greeters.

devnull

bk wrote: »

In fairness, the signage on the Aircoach buses is very good and clear, with very clear route number and destination on front, side and back of all buses.

Wrong - there is no destination displays on the Setras, since such option was not possible on that particular model just a board in the window since they are from the TopClass, the pinacle of European coach building and was only ever designed to be used on touring duties, Ireland is about the only country where I've seen the Topclass in regular scheduled service. The ComfortClass does however have an option for such display and can be seen on the Dublin Coach examples, although again Dublin Coaches TopClass lack displays for the same reason.

1) Introduce RTPI for all buses, available on their own website, NTA app and Google Transit.
2) RTPI data displayed on screens at key stops at the airport and in town, etc.
3) Show bus locations on a map on their website.

All which are supposed to be at least being considered I believe.

On bus screen showing the next upcoming stop (more like the full LCD screens you see in Amsterdam that show the route number, destination and the next 4 upcoming stops, much better for tourists).

Already exists on the Jonckheere vehicles. The LCD screens on the Leopardstown service show the next stop, along with a graphic showing the next two or three. Just before approaching the stop the graphic changes to tell what attractions or hotels are served by the stop. It works very well and is one of he best uses of LCD screens for passenger information I've seen. To the airport it also displays a list of airlines and what terminal they operate from.

The other vehicles are not fitted with such system, The Setras had an early passenger information system that was fitted when new in 2003/2004, but over time they suffered from technical issues and whilst the screens themselves were of good quality, the underlying system was PC based, and suffered from a number of issues over time so much so that the company gave up on them in around 2010/2011 but the screens remain fitted. It's believed that retrofitting them would require both new screens and a new system and a lot of rewiring which would be very expensive for vehicles which will be leaving the fleet soon (and some may have already!) and as they are leased it may not even be possible to make such changes under the terms.

The Levantes were built to National Express spec which stated that screens were not needed and the spec must be strictly be adhered to, whilst the Scanias were also never intended to be used on the work that they later ended up operating on in Ireland, they were originally as part of a coach hire arm and rail replacement arm out of First Manchester, and again such technology was in it's early days 10 years ago.

As for better signage directing passengers to buses and shelters at Dublin Airport, unfortunately that is a job for the Dublin Airport Authority. Aircoach can't do much about that.

The signage at T2 was recently changed by Aircoach at their stop at DUblin Airport and now is a lot better even if it's not ideal. Aircoach have a very visible ticket desk at Terminal 1, but it's hard to see where they can improve on this since there is no real walls where they could advertise. They do however have two shelters there. It still won't be warm there, but it is a shelter, and if you want more you should ask the DAA to provide proper transport facilities at the airport.

The issues with not knowing what coach will park at which space is unfortunate, but there simply is not enough space to park them neatly and in the same place each time when they are operating five routes and there is only room for 4 standard length or three triaxle coaches and some may be laying over as well. They did that previously as the Cork and Belfast services were in the Coach park, with no information, no fixed bay, and a longer walk, it may have meant that the Dalkey/Leopardstown/Ballsbridge/Greystones got the same parking bay each time, but it was overall worse.

bk

Victor wrote: »

It is useful for people on the coach or meeters and greeters.

Could be, but of relatively minor utility.

I'm finding that since they introduced the new toilet equipped coaches, they are now keeping to schedule very consistently. So of course nice to have, but I would consider it low priority.

Thanks devnull, great info.

It sounds like the Jonckheeres are well equipped.

As for other coaches, I wouldn't think it would be too difficult to retrofit a LCD screen up front on the ceiling with a mini PC attached to the back of it to display the information. Relatively cheap and straightforward tech now.

AlekSmart

bk wrote: »

In fairness, the signage on the Aircoach buses is very good and clear, with very clear route number and destination on front, side and back of all buses.

In fact I think Aircoach are better at this then any other coach company in Ireland.

The founder of Aircoach had a very clear notion of how important a recognizable and clear brand is.
That can be seen in how the original Aircoach principle has been successfully carried forward into his Dublin Coach operation...absolutely NO possibility of it being mistaken for any other operator/service.

First Group,however being a far more corporate animal,most definitely diluted the original Aircoach brand,but thankfully resisted the urge to "Barbie" the entire operation.

I was party to a very highly charged conversation today amongst some of the Irish Language Advocacy marchers,some of them caught sight of an Aircoach vehicle showing an LED destination which apparently did NOT have an Irish translation being displayed in an equal manner......what followed was a heated angst ridden display which included some of the group rushing to "Get it's number"....:rolleyes:

I rather suspect that the Comisinéir Teanga's inbox will be bursting ar maidin dé Luan with highly charged emotional calls for Aircoach's head on a plate.....

We shall see how "good and clear" the Aircoach Destinations will be when they are "encouraged" to provide FULL translations on all of their displays.....;)

Mind you,the oul Commish might also,in the interests of commonsense,just say "Would yiz ever féic right off outa dat,le do thoil"