Noise on long distance public transport

ruairi

I generally use the Aircoach for travel between Cork & Dublin, as it's (a) reasonably priced, and (b) comfortable. This comfort is being eroded recently though by the pikey scumbags with cheap earphones and horrible taste in music, the way Dublin Bus has been for years.

Is there anyone from Aircoach on here who pays attention to these things? If so, how about explicit enforcement of quiet buses on the longer routes? It would make the majority of your customers much happier.

Ruairi

bk

I'm a little surprised you are having this problem on Aircoach. As a Corkonian living in Dublin I very regularly take the Aircoach/GoBE to Cork and in the last two years I've only ever once experienced such a problem on one of these services.

I find you get anti-social behaviour far less on these services then you do on any other public transport I use. I find non of the drunk rowdy people you find on the train, non of the druggies and I've never seen anyone playing music/video without headphones (really annoying).

I think these services are much better as they don't take any free travel pass holders. So there is non of the undesirable element of the free travel pass holders.

Ironically the one time there was trouble on a GoBE service was at Busaras, where two druggies just out of the social office there tried to board with their free passes. When told it was a private service and would have they pay, they said no bother and paid! But then they preceded to ask the driver to wait a few minutes while they went out for a smoke! Screamed at him when he refused and then proceeded to be noisy down the back the entire journey!

I found it they had no problem paying, despite having free passes and told a BE bus would be heading to Cork in 30 minutes which they could use the pass on. For me that shows how much many people really needs the pass.

Anyway, coming back to the OP's question, if people are noisy and rowdy, then the driver can ask them to quiet down or he will throw them off. However loud noise from headphones is a grey area. If the person near you is listening to too loud music, maybe you could just ask them to turn it down, they might not realise other people can hear it.

If you travel on public transport regularly, then I recommend you get some canal earphones. The type of earphones that act like earplugs, they naturally block out a tremendous amount of noise, even when not listening to anything and IME make travelling far more enjoyable.

Potatoeman

ruairi wrote: »

I generally use the Aircoach for travel between Cork & Dublin, as it's (a) reasonably priced, and (b) comfortable. This comfort is being eroded recently though by the pikey scumbags with cheap earphones and horrible taste in music, the way Dublin Bus has been for years.

Is there anyone from Aircoach on here who pays attention to these things? If so, how about explicit enforcement of quiet buses on the longer routes? It would make the majority of your customers much happier.

Ruairi

Why not listen to music yourself? I blare the sound on my headphones if there are noisy kids or people talking very loud. Its not a library.

bk

Potatoeman wrote: »

Why not listen to music yourself? I blare the sound on my headphones if there are noisy kids or people talking very loud. Its not a library.

In fairness, doing this is pretty anti-social and you should really re-consider your actions.

You should consider using closed back headphones or in-ear canal phones, both of which leak far less noise to your neighbours and allow you to hear your music without turning it up too loud.

Also your ears will thank you for it.

To be honest I hate people who do what you do, it really is very inconsiderate.

Potatoeman

bk wrote: »

In fairness, doing this is pretty anti-social and you should really re-consider your actions.

You should consider using closed back headphones or in-ear canal phones, both of which leak far less noise to your neighbours and allow you to hear your music without turning it up too loud.

Also your ears will thank you for it.

To be honest I hate people who do what you do, it really is very inconsiderate.

I only do it if there are noisy people or kids on the bus. If its quite then I dont.

bk

Potatoeman wrote: »

I only do it if there are noisy people or kids on the bus. If its quite then I dont.

But then you are just adding to the noise, increasing the disturbance to the other majority of quiet passengers around you and that is VERY inconsiderate of you.

Close back and canal phones can be purchased very cheaply now and you would block out the noise while not disturbing anyone else.

BanzaiBk

I use the air coach/gobe very regularly and find it very quiet generally speaking. I use my closed ear headphones to cover my ears even if I'm not listening to music though.

bk

Here are some recommendations for cheap closed back heaphones and canal phones:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Koss-T55959-UR-20-Stereo-Headphones/dp/B00005N9D3/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1392810796&sr=8-1&keywords=Koss+UR+20
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sennheiser-Closed-Dynamic-Stereo-headphones/dp/B0007XJSQC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1392810825&sr=8-1&keywords=Sennheiser+HD201
http://www.amazon.co.uk/NuForce-NE600X-Earphones-Replacement-Cushions/dp/B0073XY5LC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1392810916&sr=8-1&keywords=nuforce

Really there is no excuse for having your music annoy people all around you.

Filibuster

I used to travel regularly on the bus to Belfast and it really irritated me having to listen to one sided conversations as people would yap away on their phones beside you. I now carry ear plugs in my wallet.

Are noise cancellation headphones any good??

hfallada

Filibuster wrote: »

I used to travel regularly on the bus to Belfast and it really irritated me having to listen to one sided conversations as people would yap away on their phones beside you. I now carry ear plugs in my wallet.

Are noise cancellation headphones any good??

Try taking a train in China. No joke every single passenger on the train uses their phone for the 4 hour journey. Some chinese fly just to avoid the noise on the train

bk

Filibuster wrote: »

Are noise cancellation headphones any good??

Heaphones with active electronic noise cancellation only block out constant noises (e.g. the noise of the engine) but not voices, music, etc.

In-ear canal phones (like earplugs) do a far better job at blocking all noises out. However a word of warning, don't wear these type of headphones walking down the street, you won't hear anything and might get hit by a car!!!

Banjoxed

Well by definition the scummers won't go all fancy dan by being considerate. Thankfully I haven't heard chipmunk techno on mobile phones on public transport for some time.

bk

Banjoxed wrote: »

Well by definition the scummers won't go all fancy dan by being considerate. Thankfully I haven't heard chipmunk techno on mobile phones on public transport for some time.

I think it is worth pointing out to them. I think a lot don't realise how much of their music are leaking and how much it is annoying people around them.

Not all of them are scumbags, many are just ordinary teenagers/young adults who don't know better.

Obviously people who play music without headphones are just scum.

GTE

Those Sennheisers are okay. They are a bit shallow and don't seal around your ear as well as other, deeper ones on the market.

Be very careful with the in-ears, they tend to fool your hearing system into thinking things are quieter then they are and you can do your hearing more harm then good by having the volume up higher than you think. Humans do not like to hear nothing, and the more extreme exclusion of ambience can confuse those automatic parts of our hearing.

I did some research on a set of Sennheiser in-ears and they put out 110dB at 2cm very easily from a run of the mill media player. That is about 1 minute 52 seconds before hearing damage occurs according to EU and US regulations.

You can double the time for every 3dB you decrease that figure by.

Anyway, fighting volume with volume will do much worse long term damage to you then a good effort by all of us and companies at clamping down on the noise nuisances.

bk

bbk wrote: »

Those Sennheisers are okay. They are a bit shallow and don't seal around your ear as well as other, deeper ones on the market.

Yes, they are Sennheisers cheapest model, very good for just €18 but don't expect miracles.

bbk wrote: »

Be very careful with the in-ears, they tend to fool your hearing system into thinking things are quieter then they are and you can do your hearing more harm then good by having the volume up higher than you think. Humans do not like to hear nothing, and the more extreme exclusion of ambience can confuse those automatic parts of our hearing.

Really, I find the complete opposite! I find I play music at a much lower level with in ear canal phones as I'm not trying to "drown out" the external ambient noise like you would with standard headphones.

In fact I always play my Shure (and previously Etymotics) in-ears at very low audio levels. The only place I find you have to be careful is plugging them into airline entertainment systems. These are normally designed to work with the terrible free headphones that airlines give out, so they set the volume very high, it will blow your ears out if you plug in good canal phones. Shure sell an adaptor (works with any standard headphone) that reduces the audio in such situations.

TheIrishGrover

Filibuster wrote: »

I used to travel regularly on the bus to Belfast and it really irritated me having to listen to one sided conversations as people would yap away on their phones beside you. I now carry ear plugs in my wallet.

Are noise cancellation headphones any good??

Not on busses/trains etc. Excellent on planes and places where you have to turn your mobile off. As someone said, they mainly cancel out monotones (Like engine noises) and they do that very well. However y'know that "Dut duhduhduh duhdu dut" noise you sometimes hear on a radio if someone is getting a call? Well that can actually be amplified by noise-cancelling headphones.

RonnieRocket

I don't often use public transport in Ireland, but the few times I've used the Aircoach on the Dublin-Belfast route it was half-empty and I had a quiet, pleasant journey. The seats were very comfortable and the wifi was reliable except for a brief rural stretch around Newry. I'd highly recommend it. Now it sounds like the Aircoach has become a victim of its own success as the great unwashed migrate to it from Bus Eireann.

The Matthews Bus, which operates between Dundalk and Dublin, has suffered a similar fate. Once a quiet, pleasant service, it's now packed full of students loudly regaling tales of their weekend conquests on their daily commute. Packed buses in general are very unpleasant - stuffy, sweaty, cramped and loud. I have returned to using the train even though it's slower. The high cost of train fares means it retains exclusivity (except for the golden pass holders, of course)

GTE

bk wrote: »

Really, I find the complete opposite! I find I play music at a much lower level with in ear canal phones as I'm not trying to "drown out" the external ambient noise like you would with standard headphones.

In fact I always play my Shure (and previously Etymotics) in-ears at very low audio levels. The only place I find you have to be careful is plugging them into airline entertainment systems. These are normally designed to work with the terrible free headphones that airlines give out, so they set the volume very high, it will blow your ears out if you plug in good canal phones. Shure sell an adaptor (works with any standard headphone) that reduces the audio in such situations.

My point is not with respect to masking ambient information, its about the ears (in)ability to adapt to the modern sonic environments presented to it which when dealing with in-ears can result in a higher SPL than the perception indicates, especially when bass response is relatively poor.

In addition:
Given the ear is exposed to a constant "loud" ambience, the hearing mechanics will stiffen up to avoid damage and maintain the best possible sensitivity. The automatic process here is that when in danger, evolution taught the hearing system that a loud noise should be fairly visible so it can protect itself for another day to an extent. In modern life, we then make things worse in the utterly unnatural experience of listening to music with headphones which in combination with the new concept of a loud city environment, for example, the coping abilities of the mechanism are exceeded.

Given a very quiet environment, such as the ear plug effect of IEMs, the mechanism loosens up to become more sensitive. The example here is that when in a quiet environment, the added sensitivity is beneficial to hunting or detecting dangers. The result of the in a modern environment is that the slow compression (coping) characteristics of a stiffening timpanic membrane is not enough to defend the system from damage when listening to dynamic music.

In addition, low SPL playback for a long time or indeed long periods of ear plug usage where they are to be taken out in a louder environment can cause shocks to the system. Think dark room to sunlight scenarios.

Although volume scales were used by in my post earlier they can vary greatly from headphones to headphone and device to device.

This is something the casual user is more susceptible to but using low SPL when using any headphone is not necessarily a pat on the back situation.

Therefore the advice of this audio engineer is fight the causes of noise nuisances rather than finding ways to drown it out.

bk

RonnieRocket wrote: »

The Matthews Bus, which operates between Dundalk and Dublin, has suffered a similar fate. Once a quiet, pleasant service, it's now packed full of students loudly regaling tales of their weekend conquests on their daily commute. Packed buses in general are very unpleasant - stuffy, sweaty, cramped and loud. I have returned to using the train even though it's slower. The high cost of train fares means it retains exclusivity (except for the golden pass holders, of course)

Really, I've seen non of this on the Aircoach Cork route. I'm not saying it never happens, but I've never seen it going to Cork about once every two weeks, so it is pretty rare.

I use to see WAY more anti-social behaviour on the train to Cork, thanks to the scumbags with their free travel and bringing lots of cans of beer on board.

Also while obviously you have less space if the bus is full, it really isn't as uncomfortable as you describe, personally I find no problem with it when full.

bk

bbk wrote: »

Therefore the advice of this audio engineer is fight the causes of noise nuisances rather than finding ways to drown it out.

Unfortunately not very realistic. I saw one passenger on Dublin Bus ask a scumbag who was playing music with no headphones to turn it off and the situation quickly almost descended into a fist fit as the scum threatened to stab him!

GTE

bk wrote: »

Unfortunately not very realistic. I saw one passenger on Dublin Bus ask a scumbag who was playing music with no headphones to turn it off and the situation quickly almost descended into a fist fit as the scum threatened to stab him!

That's not my problem, that's a tangent from the issues that I was addressing earlier. What is clear from some of your posts is that pessimism is at the core, which is very disappointing.

Good luck to all in fighting the nuisances.

RobbingBandit

I am sat on the 19:05 Silgo train on the way to Maynooth, about 8 seats in front of me is a Christian prayer group chanting very loudly singing too, FML.
They have been doing it now for about 35 minutes. This is the craziest thing I have experienced in a long time.