Mystery of the missing buses

um7y1h83ge06nx

Standing here on O'Connell Avenue fur the last 45 minutes, waiting for a bus to Raheen. Saw 5 buses pass on the way in, none so far on the way out.

According to the time table 3 should have came by now.

The Minister for Transport wants us to use more public transport but it's just not feasible really.

They really need to improve the service here in Limerick.

seachto7

I was at the bus stop a few Sundays back for over an hour waiting for a bus from Raheen church into town. One came out from town, and turned up the ballycummin road, but no sign of any other bus. Over an hour.
Ended up getting a taxi to town instead.
Shocking stuff.

roast

seachto7 wrote: »

I was at the bus stop a few Sundays back for over an hour waiting for a bus from Raheen church into town. One came out from town, and turned up the ballycummin road, but no sign of any other bus. Over an hour.
Ended up getting a taxi to town instead.
Shocking stuff.

Were you waiting at the stop opposite the church, or the one at the side of the church (ballycummin road)? You'd be better off getting the bus at the side of the church. Different route, and more frequent. Still not as reliable as you'd like though.

The price hike recently is the cherry on top though, an extra ten cent despite the service having gone to sh!t (again) in the last couple of months....at least on the route I regularly take.

I finish work at nine tonight.... which means, I'll be waiting at the stop for at least an hour before a bus finally turns up. Useless.

MrJones2013

Personally I think they need to improve the public transport in the city and make it more frequent and reliable. It's not a big city so it shouldn't be hard. If they are trying to get people to convert to public transport they should be making it more reliable, frequent and a reasonable price. If they want to make the city modern and get more of a buzz in around there they need to make it more accessible. At the moment I just jump in the car and get in and out as quick as I can but if the public transport was much better I'd much rather use that.

They're probably outside my house in the crescent traffic. I live near collins's bar. My lord the chaos!

Also a buddy of mine started writing
blogs lately and the latest one is a rant about the limerick bus service. He shares your frustration!

MrJones2013

Snotaul Goodman wrote: »

Also a buddy of mine started writing
blogs lately and the latest one is a rant about the limerick bus service. He shares your frustration!

Do you have a link for the blog? You can't bate a good rant about public transport!

Every other European city has a decent and reliable service, it's like we're in the dark ages here.

MrJones2013

MrJones2013 wrote: »

Do you have a link for the blog? You can't bate a good rant about public transport!

Every other European city has a decent and reliable service, it's like we're in the dark ages here.

I do.
http://eoindmadigan.com/2013/12/16/middle-class-snobbishness-curtails-public-transport-use/

I hope Kess and the rest of the lads are ok with me posting this here.

A slight bit of insight - he works in plassey and lives in the city centre. PUBLIC TRANSPORT DISASTER!

Pumpkinseeds

I hope you don't mind my asking but does this route go via the regional hospital? I'm in Limerick tomorrow afternoon for an outpatient appointment and I don't want to miss it. I'm not very familliar with the buses.

Pumpkinseeds

Pumpkinseeds wrote: »

I hope you don't mind my asking but does this route go via the regional hospital? I'm in Limerick tomorrow afternoon for an outpatient appointment and I don't want to miss it. I'm not very familliar with the buses.

Right outside the door I think

Jofspring

I used to regularly see the Coonagh bus go into ashbrook on the Ennis road and instead of continuing out to the coonagh roundabout would come out of ashbrook and head straight back into town meaning anyone waiting further out were left sitting waiting for the next bus. The bus service is now gone but it was so unreliable no body bothered using it anymore.

Totally Tropical

Jofspring wrote: »

I used to regularly see the Coonagh bus go into ashbrook on the Ennis road and instead of continuing out to the coonagh roundabout would come out of ashbrook and head straight back into town meaning anyone waiting further out were left sitting waiting for the next bus. The bus service is now gone but it was so unreliable no body bothered using it anymore.

Doesn't the bus to the Shannon industrial estate serve Coonagh now?I see that Galway has double decker buses on some routes and there was some shiny new double decker buses put into service in Cork last year to compliment the double deckers that the garage in Capwell got in late 2008.From what i hear from a relative that drives the city buses in Cork their badgering the headquarters in Dublin for more double deckers!Maybe a request for double decker buses was put into headquarters from Roxborough bus depot and it was ignored but the 304 bus service to UL and the Crescent Shopping centre could do with them.

MrJones2013

Snotaul Goodman wrote: »

I do.
http://eoindmadigan.com/2013/12/16/middle-class-snobbishness-curtails-public-transport-use/

I hope Kess and the rest of the lads are ok with me posting this here.

A slight bit of insight - he works in plassey and lives in the city centre. PUBLIC TRANSPORT DISASTER!

Thanks for the link, I thought I was alone in my frustration at the inferior public transport on offer in Ireland outside the pale.

The public transport here is ridiculously poor, it's actually akin to 3rd world countries. We had the so called 'boom' years where there was ample opportunity to invest in transport systems in the larger cities but all the funding was spent on making Dublin more accessible from every corner of the country. Fair enough that needed to be done but surely it would have been much less expensive to do it by investing in a rail service and improve ALL inter city rail lines.......whoopee I can get to Dublin from Limerick in around 1 hr 45 mins.....it still takes me longer to get from UL to LIT with Bus Eireann!

Poxyshamrock

Contact the National Transport Authority, they actually take complaints into consideration unlike Bus Éireann. The more complaints might make them contact Bus Éireann.

highlydebased

Eurobus should apply for licenses to operate far more routes than what they have. I'd go as far as saying they're 100% reliable, and the drivers have some manners. Apparently they applied for a license to operate to Raheen but it was refused

Jofspring

Totally Tropical wrote: »

Doesn't the bus to the Shannon industrial estate serve Coonagh now?I see that Galway has double decker buses on some routes and there was some shiny new double decker buses put into service in Cork last year to compliment the double deckers that the garage in Capwell got in late 2008.From what i hear from a relative that drives the city buses in Cork their badgering the headquarters in Dublin for more double deckers!Maybe a request for double decker buses was put into headquarters from Roxborough bus depot and it was ignored but the 304 bus service to UL and the Crescent Shopping centre could do with them.

Yes it does but there is no specific coonagh bus anymore and it doesn't go into ashbrook anymore. There was even a Clareview bus at one stage which came regular, then was cut to twice a day and now I think it is gone.

um7y1h83ge06nx

In the end it took me 70 minutes to get from the office on O'Connell Avenue to my place on Father Russell Road.

According to Google Maps it would have taken me 45 minutes on foot.

The bus driver wasn't happy I'd say, reckon he got a lot of abuse. Not his fault and I wasn't going to say anything to him. Although when I got on to the bus he was throwing his hands up at me saying he nearly drove past as it didn't seem I was waiting for a bus even though I was standing at the bus stop. Fair enough but I just replied that it was hard to look enthusiastic when I've been waiting for 40 minutes.

Although as I said he was probably having a bad day, other passengers at other stops were giving out to him.

Totally Tropical

Kyng Silly Lemonade wrote: »

In the end it took me 70 minutes to get from the office on O'Connell Avenue to my place on Father Russell Road.

According to Google Maps it would have taken me 45 minutes on foot.

The bus driver wasn't happy I'd say, reckon he got a lot of abuse. Not his fault and I wasn't going to say anything to him. Although when I got on to the bus he was throwing his hands up at me saying he nearly drove past as it didn't seem I was waiting for a bus even though I was standing at the bus stop. Fair enough but I just replied that it was hard to look enthusiastic when I've been waiting for 40 minutes.

Although as I said he was probably having a bad day, other passengers at other stops were giving out to him.

I don't see the point in people just berating the driver over a bus being late.What can you do if your stuck in traffic?Perhaps more bus lanes would help things.

um7y1h83ge06nx

Yeah, no point at all.

I wasn't going to say anything to him myself until he started giving out to me. In fairness it sounds like he was getting lots of abuse so it probably got to him.

Hard to know what the solution should be. Bus lanes would help. Real time tracking of buses using gps that could be assessed via an app and website would be good. Some of the bus stops I see have electronic boards but are they just going according to the timetable or are the buses tracked?

Touch Fuzzy Get Dizzy

Kyng Silly Lemonade wrote: »

some of the bus stops I see have electronic boards but are they just going according to the timetable or are the buses tracked?

I was at Dunnes a few months back and the board said 40 min for next bus, so good decided to walk and met it on Sarsfield bridge

um7y1h83ge06nx

Yeah, not worth a curse so unless it uses tracking of the buses.

At least if you knew the next bus would be forty minutes away you could do something useful in the meantime.

MrJones2013

Anyone know anything about the 'flagship river route from Limerick City to the University of Limerick to be completed in 2014'?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLsnFunjvRY

seachto7

roast wrote: »

Were you waiting at the stop opposite the church, or the one at the side of the church (ballycummin road)? You'd be better off getting the bus at the side of the church. Different route, and more frequent. Still not as reliable as you'd like though.

The price hike recently is the cherry on top though, an extra ten cent despite the service having gone to sh!t (again) in the last couple of months....at least on the route I regularly take.

I finish work at nine tonight.... which means, I'll be waiting at the stop for at least an hour before a bus finally turns up. Useless.

Opposite the church, but nothing there to tell me I was at the wrong stop.

roast

seachto7 wrote: »

Opposite the church, but nothing there to tell me I was at the wrong stop.

Yeah, it's all a bit vague. Everytime I've gotten the bus from that stop, it's been late.

seachto7

That was it : vague. I was at the stop, and wondering, should I be here? Across the road? Up the road? Down the road? Regardless of where I should have been, I should have seen a bus...

Pumpkinseeds

My husband and I got the 304 from the hospital last Friday. We'd bever been on it before. There were more people standing in the aisle than there were sitting. It was scary. Never, ever again. That was apart from the 60 odd year old woman effing and blinding and telling her son that she'd like to split his wife's head open with a hammer:eek: and that he shouldn't pay her any maintenance.

Then there was the charming pr*ck who parked his granny shopping trolley on the opposite side of the aisle to a woman with a pram, leaving very little space for passengers to get on or off the bus. He was only in his late 30's so he'd no excuse. Like a bloody zoo. Oh, I almost forgot the old chap swigging away from his bottle of vodka in the front disabled passenger seat.

Totally Tropical

This is just a rumour at this stage and nothing more than that but Bus Eireann could be swapping city buses around.According to the proposal Bus Eireann are going to transfer double decker buses VWD 1 and VWD 2 to the garage in Cork for a few weeks.However when some more replacement double deckers are sent down to Cork from Dublin VWD 1 and VWD 2 will be transferred to Limerick.VWD 3 which has been in service in Cork for the past few years will be transferred to Limerick as well with the other two buses.The garage in Limerick will then release three of the 2012 single decker VWL buses already in service there up to Dublin so Limerick would be losing three of it's newer single decker buses.To cut a long story short if this proposal goes ahead then Limerick will be getting three double decker buses for it's city service.Their not brand new buses they were put into service in late 2008.I don't know about the other two buses but VWD 3 the bus already in service in Cork is in good shape.

Poxyshamrock

Hopefully there's truth in the rumour!

iguana

Kyng Silly Lemonade wrote: »

Real time tracking of buses using gps that could be assessed via an app and website would be good.

We have that, Real Time Bus is the name of the android app, I've had it on my phone for nearly a year and it's not bad. However only about 75% of the buses actually have tracking systems, so sometimes I'm told a bus will be 35 minutes, I start walking and a few minutes later a bus passes me as it was one of the ones that don't show up on the system. The information displays at many bus stops use the same system.

The other problem is that either the tracking systems don't take scheduled breaks into account or the drivers are still taking unscheduled breaks. I waited nearly 40 minutes for a bus in Castletroy that said it would be 7 minutes for 25 minutes, then disappeared off the system. Then the second bus stalled at 7 minutes for 10 minutes. I gave up and started walking as I was worried the second bus wasn't coming either but just as I reached the next stop, both buses came along. There was no heavy traffic so the buses weren't delayed by that. I strongly suspect that the driver of the first bus waited at UL for the second driver, they had a chat and then drove on together. I've seen that type of thing happen on numerous occasions at the UL stop. I don't know if the breaks were scheduled or not but the fact that both buses left together suggests not.

Poxyshamrock

The Transport for Ireland app is very handy too.

garv123

Ive missed 2 busses home twice from the station due to waiting at the stop outside UL for over a hour for a bus to come along. It was mid day so it wasnt even rush hour.

Got the bust into town wednesday and the sign said 2 mins, 25 mins, and 45 mins, The 45 was the accurate one.. the sign never once changed.

iguana

garv123 wrote: »

Got the bust into town wednesday and the sign said 2 mins, 25 mins, and 45 mins, The 45 was the accurate one.. the sign never once changed.

Was that the one across from Brew Bros by any chance? That one was completely borked earlier this week, the bus times didn't change and it was perpetually 9.14am.

garv123

iguana wrote: »

Was that the one across from Brew Bros by any chance? That one was completely borked earlier this week, the bus times didn't change and it was perpetually 9.14am.

Just down passed the hurlers heading to town?
Thats the one I got anyway.

Builderfromhell

According to Bus Eireann web site there are no more buses going from Limerick to Killaloe. This service just stopped and according to Bus Eireann's dreadful web site will resume in June or July.

Champ

The BE UL bus is suppose to have 1 every 15 minutes during peak hours unless that recently changed?

Most days I'm often waiting half an hour to a full hour before one shows and even then its so over packed that there's got to be some safety issues.

If it wasn't for the Euro Bus it'd really be a total joke getting out and back there again (though the Euro Bus is more timely it doesn't have enough extra capacity to deal with the full numbers of people stranded due to BE not showing up).

On a particular horrendous day I was waiting roughly 70 minutes for the BE bus before one finally turned up.

I'm not exactly sure but I suspect aside from external conditions that there's a driver factor involved. When you travel a route enough times you start to get to know some of the drivers. There's three drivers I know which always somehow managed to arrive at UL within 5 minutes of the expected time no matter whether its morning, afternoon or evening. Its a very stark (if not pleasant) contrast to the otherwise terrible service one has come to expect.

Add the mystery of multiple buses turning up together and it probably complicates the situation somewhat for later commuters. I can understand that maybe now and again that 2 buses may arrive together but 3??? (yes they were all the 304!)

Villa05

Champ wrote: »

Add the mystery of multiple buses turning up together and it probably complicates the situation somewhat for later commuters. I can understand that maybe now and again that 2 buses may arrive together but 3??? (yes they were all the 304!)

This practice could be planned, it usually happens around the euro bus scheduled time,

Well_Then

Sure sometimes they dont even run the late buses it seems! Was once waiting 50 minutes for a bus out to Castletroy. The two last buses were meant to have left within that time but they never arrived