Swiftway BRT: Issues highlighted in public consultation

Aard

Nice graphics, monument. Seeing a section like that really gets one (well, me) thinking about how the "space between buildings" might be better divvied up in Dublin, both in town and in the burbs.

AlekSmart

Aard wrote: »

Nice graphics, monument. Seeing a section like that really gets one (well, me) thinking about how the "space between buildings" might be better divvied up in Dublin, both in town and in the burbs.

And...there's room for Trees too

cdebru

monument wrote: »

As other cities in Europe show, it's not just about space but about how we use the space. Extra restrictions city centre on private cars are coming with Luas and BRT can add to that.

Sometimes it's mainly about road design and layout -- for example the Drumcondra Road: If centre-of-road BRT is used on such roads it could give BRT a distinct advantage by removing a lot of conflicts (parking, left turns, loads etc) and allow for buses to overtake others at stops.

Re railway order: I think I missunderstood you when you said BRT "won't benefit from a railway order to give it the priority that Luas" -- I was thinking more along the lines of the general route priority etc, not the interaction with the current/planned Luas lines. There's really no interaction expect the crossing points mentioned and the bit at lower O'Connell St -- lots of that could be avoided or limited by putting two-way BRT on the east side of O'Connell Street.

This is what I have in mind for centre-of-road BRT:





An example of staggered stops north and south of the junction to allow for turning lanes:







Yes, I have. Wexford St is the worst by far, and BRT does not go that far. But with taxis at night, a Friday / Saturday night issue should not be dictating how we plan BRT lines.

A maybe less apparent but a far larger problem for a larger percentage of the time is the poorly designed and regulated loading and parking. This issue affects rush hour on weekdays and weekends outside cycle lane hours when the streets become a free-for-all for parking (and that affects buses and adds to the taxi issue too).




While private cars often make up a small percentage of the people traveling on the street, they often cause more or at least as much congestion as taxis.

Even just look at the left turn from Georges Street to Dame Street -- the line of cars is often backed up to Exchequer St, which stops buses from getting into the often half empty bus / cycle /taxi right turning lane.

Trying to make out that removing private cars won't make any difference because there's too many buses or taxis (which are also issues) was already claimed and proven wrong about College Green. The oversupply of taxis is an issue, I'm not claiming otherwise but tackling the level of private cars is one way of making a difference.

I don't think anyone said removing private cars won't make any difference, just that you can't have a proper functioning BRT if those BRT lanes allow access to 25,000+ taxis particularly in around the city center, whilst the problem is more obvious at night time it extends into daytime as well, the bottom of Grafton street taxi rank that at times extends down to college green, and the only place where I have seen Gardai actually try and control it but in vain.
Central bank and Westmoreland street and Aston/ Wellington Quay are getting worse by the week. And it will get worse as Luas and BRT impinge further on the legitimate taxi ranks and the city center is turned into one big taxi rank.

I know Alec said it can't be done but it is going to have to be done or the city will literally grind to a halt at least 70% of them have to go, the easiest way is barriers to entry/remain in the industry, all taxis should be wheelchair accessible, and strict standards on car quality so not some 20 year old Fiat wheelchair taxi, that way you will drive out most of the cowboy fly by nights and leave people who are commited and willing to invest to provide a proper sustainable taxi service. Sustainable for the city and the taxi drivers themselves.

monument

cdebru wrote: »

I don't think anyone said removing private cars won't make any difference, just that you can't have a proper functioning BRT if those BRT lanes allow access to 25,000+ taxis particularly in around the city center, whilst the problem is more obvious at night time it extends into daytime as well, the bottom of Grafton street taxi rank that at times extends down to college green, and the only place where I have seen Gardai actually try and control it but in vain.
Central bank and Westmoreland street and Aston/ Wellington Quay are getting worse by the week. And it will get worse as Luas and BRT impinge further on the legitimate taxi ranks and the city center is turned into one big taxi rank.

I know Alec said it can't be done but it is going to have to be done or the city will literally grind to a halt at least 70% of them have to go, the easiest way is barriers to entry/remain in the industry, all taxis should be wheelchair accessible, and strict standards on car quality so not some 20 year old Fiat wheelchair taxi, that way you will drive out most of the cowboy fly by nights and leave people who are commited and willing to invest to provide a proper sustainable taxi service. Sustainable for the city and the taxi drivers themselves.

A lot of steps are slowly been taken to make the taxi industry more professional but these things will take time to have an effect. It won't happen overnight and projects like Luas and BRT can't wait until taxis are sorted.

Part of the problem is just too few ranks / rank spaces and that will also need to be sorted with more spaces / ranks / feeder areas etc -- clearly they can't accommodate every taxi, but the low amount of spaces is just as unsustainable as the high amount of taxis.

Carawaystick

Maybe if thee was public transport running at the times of peak taxi use
There'd be less demand for taxis
But you'ld need comprehensive public transit before a lot of the wearers of high heels would switch

Regarding using brt space with trams, I've seen tramlines with multiple services using them in Dresden(trolley busses, but similar fixed routes), Prague and Halle
If there is off vehicle ticketing, as long as services aren't full to bursting point people should be able to board quickly

cdebru

monument wrote: »

A lot of steps are slowly been taken to make the taxi industry more professional but these things will take time to have an effect. It won't happen overnight and projects like Luas and BRT can't wait until taxis are sorted.

Part of the problem is just too few ranks / rank spaces and that will also need to be sorted with more spaces / ranks / feeder areas etc -- clearly they can't accommodate every taxi, but the low amount of spaces is just as unsustainable as the high amount of taxis.

You can't provide sufficient rank space for the number of taxis in this city, because there are simply far to many of them, talking about rank space is a waste of time first port of call is a taxi cull. Then when you get to a sustainable number of taxis for a city of 1.5 million people and clearly that won't be a taxi for every 60 people in the city you can look at how much rank space you need and where. Also what Alec said as well that taxis should have to operate to an overall roster to ensure that sufficient taxis are provided outside of the peak demand.

cdebru

Carawaystick wrote: »

Maybe if thee was public transport running at the times of peak taxi use
There'd be less demand for taxis
But you'ld need comprehensive public transit before a lot of the wearers of high heels would switch

Regarding using brt space with trams, I've seen tramlines with multiple services using them in Dresden(trolley busses, but similar fixed routes), Prague and Halle
If there is off vehicle ticketing, as long as services aren't full to bursting point people should be able to board quickly

Taxi deregulation actually pretty much killed late night mass public transport

monument

cdebru wrote: »

You can't provide sufficient rank space for the number of taxis in this city, because there are simply far to many of them, talking about rank space is a waste of time first port of call is a taxi cull. Then when you get to a sustainable number of taxis for a city of 1.5 million people and clearly that won't be a taxi for every 60 people in the city you can look at how much rank space you need and where.

As I said: "...Clearly they can't accommodate every taxi..."

But you're wrong about extra ranks not being able to make a difference -- extra spaces, ranks and feeder ranks means less taxis on the move without people in them and less cars in a lines at the end of but outside ranks.

cdebru wrote: »

Also what Alec said as well that taxis should have to operate to an overall roster to ensure that sufficient taxis are provided outside of the peak demand.

Where else do taxi drivers act on rosters?

Aard

Were taxis identified as a major issue in the public consultation?

antoinolachtnai

monument wrote: »

As other cities in Europe show,

There aren't that many cities in Europe with a population as big as Dublin's that don't have a more comprehensive system of segregated rail public transport.

it's not just about space but about how we use the space. Extra restrictions city centre on private cars are coming with Luas and BRT can add to that.

Sometimes it's mainly about road design and layout -- for example the Drumcondra Road: If centre-of-road BRT is used on such roads it could give BRT a distinct advantage by removing a lot of conflicts (parking, left turns, loads etc) and allow for buses to overtake others at stops.

Your diagrams indicate a 100-foot wide road. Are there really roads that wide in Drumcondra?

Even if this can be executed on wide sections, how will any road layout solve the problem of bottlenecks in certain places on the route? The bottlenecks are the problem, not the uncongested parts.

Re railway order: I think I missunderstood you when you said BRT "won't benefit from a railway order to give it the priority that Luas" -- I was thinking more along the lines of the general route priority etc, not the interaction with the current/planned Luas lines. There's really no interaction expect the crossing points mentioned and the bit at lower O'Connell St -- lots of that could be avoided or limited by putting two-way BRT on the east side of O'Connell Street.

Six junctions is a lot of interaction with an on-street LRT as busy as the Luas. It will result in maybe 4 or 5 minutes of delay on every round-trip. If you create a two-way bus-lane separate from the other traffic between the two directions of BXD, you will create a much more complex junction at either end, and the bus will still need to cross the Luas somewhere or other.

All could be done, at the end of the day, but you would need really world-class bus operations in Dublin, because bus would be more critical than ever in the mix. You cannot do this with the current management of buses in Dublin. They are just not capable of it.

While private cars often make up a small percentage of the people traveling on the street, they often cause more or at least as much congestion as taxis.

Do private cars make up a small percentage of the people travelling on the street very often? On the busiest streets at busy times, this is certainly true, but it is not always true. Private cars are also important for shopping trips for 'higher order' goods. This is why out of town centres are doing well, and the city centre is economically weak. You can't just look at the number of people. You also have to look at the economic activity.

And again, the problem is there is no viable replacement for the private car (or taxi) in most cases. The buses we have in Dublin are just not of sufficient quality to take the place of the car. They could be improved, and various agencies claims they are fixing up buses, but there is no real will to really fix things. The service is bad, and also very expensive.

MGWR

"Swiftway" name sounds like CitySwift part deux.

Pete_Cavan

I see from the images on the website that BRT lanes will also be bus lanes, if this is the case, how will this system be any faster than the existing buses? It will still have the same issues with other traffic blocking the lane and will be held up every time a bus in front stops… For example, how will a BRT bus make it down the Drumcondra Road any faster than a normal bus? Is this proposal just a new fleet of buses?

Aard

^We don't know the answer to those questions, because the initial public consultation was largely about asking the public what they thought about BRT in general. AFAIK nothing has been decided as to whether there will be BRT-only lanes, whether all busses using the lane will be a specific type of vehicle, whether all busses using the lanes (assuming mixed runnin) will only stop at the newly-spaced-out stops..... There is no concrete plan as yet because it is still in public consultation.

antoinolachtnai

The problem with these projects is that they are often presented to make it look like they are going to represent some sort of 'quantum leap' in service, when the reality is that they are just justifications to get more budget to gold plate something that was happening anyway. The capital might be better pumped into getting the nuts-n-bolts to work rather than the fancy stuff.

Pete_Cavan

Aard wrote: »

^We don't know the answer to those questions, because the initial public consultation was largely about asking the public what they thought about BRT in general. AFAIK nothing has been decided as to whether there will be BRT-only lanes, whether all busses using the lane will be a specific type of vehicle, whether all busses using the lanes (assuming mixed runnin) will only stop at the newly-spaced-out stops..... There is no concrete plan as yet because it is still in public consultation.

Well the website has preferred routes so they must have put some thought into it. The specific type of vehicle, etc. can come later but how can they start a consultation unless they have already determined some basic issues, like how can a suitably uncongested lane be achieved? This is a prerequisite of BRT and there is no point in holding consultations unless they know they can achieve it. The website state "Uses own BRT lane or shared bus/BRT lane" so clearly they are happy to share the bus lane where a dedicated lane cannot be achieved. If this is the case, BRT will not be faster than the buses. The only benefits of the BRT are the off-board ticketing and reduced stops but these are negated by the DB bus stopping every 150m for passengers fumbling with change. Changing the DB system to use off-board ticketing and rationalising the number of stops would be far more beneficial at a fraction of the cost.

cdebru

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

The problem with these projects is that they are often presented to make it look like they are going to represent some sort of 'quantum leap' in service, when the reality is that they are just justifications to get more budget to gold plate something that was happening anyway. The capital might be better pumped into getting the nuts-n-bolts to work rather than the fancy stuff.

Agree 100% a lot of money is going to be spent on providing an improved road surface to facilitate the use of bendi buses, simple question is how long will this super flat road surface last before , Irish water, ESB, eircom and Bord gas dig the **** out of it and it is just a patchwork of refilled holes like other roads, the plans don't reveal any plan to remove services from under the BRT lane as in the LUAS. Also how are they going to stop cars, trucks, vans etc pulling in and parking in the BRT lanes, and why don't they implement those plans on current bus lanes?

Improvements that amount to what BRT might deliver could be implemented for very little cost, rationalize stops, use triaxle buses and implement off bus ticketing, and actually police the bus lane laws we have.

cdebru

monument wrote: »

As I said: "...Clearly they can't accommodate every taxi..."

But you're wrong about extra ranks not being able to make a difference -- extra spaces, ranks and feeder ranks means less taxis on the move without people in them and less cars in a lines at the end of but outside ranks.




Where else do taxi drivers act on rosters?

So you want to create massive on street parking to facilitate the oversupply of taxis ?

So if no one else has done it, it is a bad idea or can't be done ? Luckily Jaime Lerner didn't take that attitude or BRT may never have existed .

antoinolachtnai

In Singapore, the drivers were rostered as far as I could tell in 2001 when I lived there (and from conversations with drivers this seemed to be the case). You don't end up with crazy amounts of unneeded cars on the road.

LXFlyer

Pete_Cavan wrote: »

Well the website has preferred routes so they must have put some thought into it. The specific type of vehicle, etc. can come later but how can they start a consultation unless they have already determined some basic issues, like how can a suitably uncongested lane be achieved? This is a prerequisite of BRT and there is no point in holding consultations unless they know they can achieve it. The website state "Uses own BRT lane or shared bus/BRT lane" so clearly they are happy to share the bus lane where a dedicated lane cannot be achieved. If this is the case, BRT will not be faster than the buses. The only benefits of the BRT are the off-board ticketing and reduced stops but these are negated by the DB bus stopping every 150m for passengers fumbling with change. Changing the DB system to use off-board ticketing and rationalising the number of stops would be far more beneficial at a fraction of the cost.

From the discussions that I had with the planners at their roadshow in the spring, that level of detail (in terms of roadspace and interaction with ordinary buses) had not been established.


I would fully expect that the next consultation in October will have this level of information as otherwise it will be somewhat meaningless.

L1011

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

In Singapore, the drivers were rostered as far as I could tell in 2001 when I lived there (and from conversations with drivers this seemed to be the case). You don't end up with crazy amounts of unneeded cars on the road.

Singapore isn't a country I'd like us to be copying regulations from generally but this is something that may be needed at this stage. Would have to be sold to the drivers as "stamping out part-timers" or similar though.

cdebru

MYOB wrote: »

Singapore isn't a country I'd like us to be copying regulations from generally but this is something that may be needed at this stage. Would have to be sold to the drivers as "stamping out part-timers" or similar though.

Actually very good way of selling it , if all taxis had to do x number of off peak hours that were rostered for them it would make it difficult for those holding down other full time jobs to remain in the industry, and for those that have taxi plates to just use bus lanes etc.

monument

Sorry, have not got a chance to reply on till now… and again, I’m at pains defending the BRT plans without knowing the detail, so please take this as defending BRT in principle more than anything...

Pete_Cavan wrote: »

but how can they start a consultation unless they have already determined some basic issues, like how can a suitably uncongested lane be achieved? This is a prerequisite of BRT and there is no point in holding consultations unless they know they can achieve it.

There are many ways.

It’s a BRT menu rather than them having to pick all options: Centre running; at-kerb lanes up to junctions, bus-only streets, priority at traffic lights, kerb-segregated lanes, fixed camera enforcement, on-bus camera enforcement, etc.

Pete_Cavan wrote: »

The website state "Uses own BRT lane or shared bus/BRT lane" so clearly they are happy to share the bus lane where a dedicated lane cannot be achieved. If this is the case, BRT will not be faster than the buses.

It is likely that BRT will be replacing many/most local bus routes on the corridors the routes are planned for.

But the lane improvements will improve speeds for all buses.

Pete_Cavan wrote: »

Changing the DB system to use off-board ticketing and rationalising the number of stops would be far more beneficial at a fraction of the cost.

No would not be far more beneficial. You’re only able to say that because you’re underestimating and undervaluing the benefits.

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

The problem with these projects is that they are often presented to make it look like they are going to represent some sort of 'quantum leap' in service, when the reality is that they are just justifications to get more budget to gold plate something that was happening anyway. The capital might be better pumped into getting the nuts-n-bolts to work rather than the fancy stuff.

It could be seen as the gold plate option but on the other hand a lot of the possible ways of improving priority needs political will (will to give traffic light priority, will to have as near as possible continuous bus/BRT lanes). That political will is far, far more likely to support a complete package of measures that BRT has to offer, over slower marginal improvements.

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

There aren't that many cities in Europe with a population as big as Dublin's that don't have a more comprehensive system of segregated rail public transport.

Both Amsterdam and Copenhagen originally pushed ahead with promoting more sustainable modes and giving over space to such modes without metro lines or systems in place.

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

Your diagrams indicate a 100-foot wide road. Are there really roads that wide in Drumcondra?

Even if this can be executed on wide sections, how will any road layout solve the problem of bottlenecks in certain places on the route? The bottlenecks are the problem, not the uncongested parts.

I should have included the warning that it’s my educated guesswork rather than firm figures, but there is scope for narrowing what's in the cross-sections I posted (ie remove/reduce buffers, reduce footpaths or cycle paths, remove parking, only having staggered stops etc). My educated guess is that it’s 28-30 meters in places and goes down to ~25 meters in other spots.

Bottlenecks elsewhere could be done by having more bus/access-only streets, or one-waying private traffic while keeping BRT two-way, or some short sections of shared running, or short one-lane sections of BRT which allow buses to go both ways, etc…. did you have any location in mind?

BTW: Cross sections were created using streetmix.net.

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

Six junctions is a lot of interaction with an on-street LRT as busy as the Luas. It will result in maybe 4 or 5 minutes of delay on every round-trip. If you create a two-way bus-lane separate from the other traffic between the two directions of BXD, you will create a much more complex junction at either end, and the bus will still need to cross the Luas somewhere or other.

I know the city council and other may have a problem with it, but putting two-way on the east side of O’Connell Street could really limit the effect of crossing the Green line at two points -- you’d only then be talking about crossing southbound trams (northbound tram movements and BRT would than be segregated).

Almost all road traffic crossing the river in the city centre already suffers from crossing the red line and there’s no way around that for any mode.

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

All could be done, at the end of the day, but you would need really world-class bus operations in Dublin, because bus would be more critical than ever in the mix. You cannot do this with the current management of buses in Dublin. They are just not capable of it.

I would share your concern about Dublin Bus running BRT -- and generally without some kind of tendering for the running of the service (like Luas).

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

Do private cars make up a small percentage of the people travelling on the street very often? On the busiest streets at busy times, this is certainly true, but it is not always true. Private cars are also important for shopping trips for 'higher order' goods. This is why out of town centres are doing well, and the city centre is economically weak. You can't just look at the number of people. You also have to look at the economic activity.

The amount of city centre car shoppers is overestamted even by retailers: http://arrow.dit.ie/comlinkoth/10/

Private cars -- it’s worth pointing out -- will still have access to the city centre car parks.

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

And again, the problem is there is no viable replacement for the private car (or taxi) in most cases. The buses we have in Dublin are just not of sufficient quality to take the place of the car. They could be improved, and various agencies claims they are fixing up buses, but there is no real will to really fix things. The service is bad, and also very expensive.

BRT is part of an attempt to fix the bus system.

And it is part of an offering to have viable replacements for the private car.

cdebru wrote: »

So you want to create massive on street parking to facilitate the oversupply of taxis ?.

As I’ve said and I’m not sure how to make it clearer: I’m not suggesting that ranks would be set up to hold all of the oversupply.

But part of the problem is that the rank spaces amounts to an undersupply even if the numbers of taxis were at a more sustainable level.

cdebru wrote: »

Also how are they going to stop cars, trucks, vans etc pulling in and parking in the BRT lanes, and why don't they implement those plans on current bus lanes?

Improvements that amount to what BRT might deliver could be implemented for very little cost, rationalize stops, use triaxle buses and implement off bus ticketing, and actually police the bus lane laws we have.

Because the plans are fairly radical and for that you need coherent master plan -- and that’s what BRT is!

Banjoxed

monument wrote: »

Sorry, have not got a chance to reply on till now… and again, I’m at pains defending the BRT plans without knowing the detail, so please take this as defending BRT in principle more than anything...



There are many ways.

It’s a BRT menu rather than them having to pick all options: Centre running; at-kerb lanes up to junctions, bus-only streets, priority at traffic lights, kerb-segregated lanes, fixed camera enforcement, on-bus camera enforcement, etc.




It is likely that BRT will be replacing many/most local bus routes on the corridors the routes are planned for.

But the lane improvements will improve speeds for all buses.




No would not be far more beneficial. You’re only able to say that because you’re underestimating and undervaluing the benefits.




It could be seen as the gold plate option but on the other hand a lot of the possible ways of improving priority needs political will (will to give traffic light priority, will to have as near as possible continuous bus/BRT lanes). That political will is far, far more likely to support a complete package of measures that BRT has to offer, over slower marginal improvements.




Both Amsterdam and Copenhagen originally pushed ahead with promoting more sustainable modes and giving over space to such modes without metro lines or systems in place.




I should have included the warning that it’s my educated guesswork rather than firm figures, but there is scope for narrowing what's in the cross-sections I posted (ie remove/reduce buffers, reduce footpaths or cycle paths, remove parking, only having staggered stops etc). My educated guess is that it’s 28-30 meters in places and goes down to ~25 meters in other spots.

Bottlenecks elsewhere could be done by having more bus/access-only streets, or one-waying private traffic while keeping BRT two-way, or some short sections of shared running, or short one-lane sections of BRT which allow buses to go both ways, etc…. did you have any location in mind?

BTW: Cross sections were created using streetmix.net.




I know the city council and other may have a problem with it, but putting two-way on the east side of O’Connell Street could really limit the effect of crossing the Green line at two points -- you’d only then be talking about crossing southbound trams (northbound tram movements and BRT would than be segregated).

Almost all road traffic crossing the river in the city centre already suffers from crossing the red line and there’s no way around that for any mode.




I would share your concern about Dublin Bus running BRT -- and generally without some kind of tendering for the running of the service (like Luas).




The amount of city centre car shoppers is overestamted even by retailers: http://arrow.dit.ie/comlinkoth/10/

Private cars -- it’s worth pointing out -- will still have access to the city centre car parks.




BRT is part of an attempt to fix the bus system.

And it is part of an offering to have viable replacements for the private car.





As I’ve said and I’m not sure how to make it clearer: I’m not suggesting that ranks would be set up to hold all of the oversupply.

But part of the problem is that the rank spaces amounts to an undersupply even if the numbers of taxis were at a more sustainable level.





Because the plans are fairly radical and for that you need coherent master plan -- and that’s what BRT is!

Gold plate? Unless this is implemented properly this will be every bit as Tin plate as the botched QBC project was, no matter how fake trammy the buses will be.

antoinolachtnai

monument wrote: »

Bottlenecks elsewhere could be done by having more bus/access-only streets, or one-waying private traffic while keeping BRT two-way, or some short sections of shared running, or short one-lane sections of BRT which allow buses to go both ways, etc…. did you have any location in mind?

Drumcondra is the obvious one that comes to mind, but there are plenty other places on the route where there is big pressure.

The amount of city centre car shoppers is overestamted even by retailers:

This is a very limited and flawed study in a retail area that is in long-term decline.

BRT is part of an attempt to fix the bus system.

It is an attempt to re-engineer the bus system from something which serves communities (where the people are) to serve corridors (where the roads are). It is bringing rail planning thinking to short-range urban buses. This makes no sense in the context of Dublin and in particular the suburbs we are talking about.

The core problem with buses in Dublin isn't the buses or the routes or the street layouts. It's the operations. The quality is too low and the cost is too high.

And it is part of an offering to have viable replacements for the private car.

But is it really viable? There is no indication from the investigation work done that it would really be viable.

A viable replacement for the private car in an area like Beaumont or Santry would be a good (reliable,clean, with adequate capacity), regular (10 minute frequency) bus service at a reasonable price within 10 minutes of everybody's house. It is not radical but it would work.

cdebru

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

The core problem with buses in Dublin isn't the buses or the routes or the street layouts. It's the operations. The quality is too low and the cost is too high.

By cost is too high I presume you mean the cost to the consumer ?

I asked you before to show how DBs costs were too high and how you would cut them, but you couldn't /wouldnt .

The fares in DB are too high but that is because the burden of paying the fare falls on relatively few of the passengers.

antoinolachtnai

I mean the cost, the amount of money it costs to deliver a unit of service, so for example, an hour of operation or a km of vehicle operation.

The cost in Ireland is far above what it is in Scotland or England outside London.

The result is that fares are too high and services are too infrequent.

I didn't say anything about DB's costs. But since you bring it up, I'd really need management accounts or at least a trial balance to really say anything. Can you supply that? My hunch would be that a major step would be to do something about the vast army of people who work in Dublin Bus but who don't actually drive a bus.

cdebru

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

I mean the cost, the amount of money it costs to deliver a unit of service, so for example, an hour of operation or a km of vehicle operation.

The cost in Ireland is far above what it is in Scotland or England outside London.

The result is that fares are too high and services are too infrequent.

I didn't say anything about DB's costs. But since you bring it up, I'd really need management accounts or at least a trial balance to really say anything. Can you supply that? My hunch would be that a major step would be to do something about the vast army of people who work in Dublin Bus but who don't actually drive a bus.

It was already pointed out to you that you are comparing apples and oranges, comparing the whole of Scotland with a city is not a valid comparison, you are comparing mam and dad rural part time operations with city operations.

You can get a good idea from their published accounts, and as pointed out to you previously the staffing levels are not that high, when you consider what services DB has to provide, that's not to say there is no waste but in general it would be staff redeployment rather than culling. There are about 1200 non driving staff which sounds high till you start breaking it down there are 9 main depots, plus head office plus medical department. When you start dividing them up and then taking account of some of those support staff like mechanics, inspectors, controllers having to work shifts over 7 days a week, it isn't that high. So like I said it is staff in the wrong places rather than too many staff.

I notice you are not putting any figures this time last year you were bandying I think it was 50% too high, but I blew that out of the water by showing it was completely impossible as even if the company only paid minimum wage to drivers and employed no one else, no managers, maintenance, cleaners, controllers, inspectors they still couldn't cut their costs by 50%. Now you are just trying to throw out the costs thing without tying yourself down because you know now it is BS.

antoinolachtnai

You are going well off the topic.

Can you put forward any comparators for a city service in the UK that is as expensive in terms of operating costs as Dublin Bus?

What proportion of the overall do 'mam and dad operations' make up in Scotland? How come they can operate so efficiently? Surely there should be benefits of scale for large operators?

1200 non-driving staff to look after a few hundred buses mostly-new buses seems like an extraordinary number. Dublin Bus also has service contracts for some operations, which makes it even crazier.

You are right about the staff being in the wrong places. The place they should be is driving buses.

The published accounts are a load of gunge. It is very hard to make head or tail of them. The reserves fly all over the place.

monument

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

Drumcondra is the obvious one that comes to mind, but there are plenty other places on the route where there is big pressure.

There is busy sections of Drumcondra, but I can't think of any bottlenecks bar Cat and Cage, which is being sorted.

BRT is all about segregating buses from that congestion and giving buses the priority at lights.

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

This is a very limited and flawed study in a retail area that is in long-term decline.

How is it flawed?

Is it really in a long-term decline? Sure there has been a fairly normal shift given the amount of out-of-town shopping centre which have been built, but the city centre has also grown.

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

It is an attempt to re-engineer the bus system from something which serves communities (where the people are) to serve corridors (where the roads are). It is bringing rail planning thinking to short-range urban buses. This makes no sense in the context of Dublin and in particular the suburbs we are talking about.

The core problem with buses in Dublin isn't the buses or the routes or the street layouts. It's the operations. The quality is too low and the cost is too high.

I don't think it's bringing rail planning thinking to short-range urban buses. It's bringing light rail or modern tram thinking to bus operations -- that's what BRT is and it has proven successful around Europe and in parts of the US.

BRT will need to tackle operations and street layout. And I have to say that street layout and enforcement has a fairly large impact on bus operations:

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

But is it really viable? There is no indication from the investigation work done that it would really be viable.

A viable replacement for the private car in an area like Beaumont or Santry would be a good (reliable,clean, with adequate capacity), regular (10 minute frequency) bus service at a reasonable price within 10 minutes of everybody's house. It is not radical but it would work.

The difference between BRT/trams and conventional buses is that generally BRT/trams can offer the frequency, reliability and quality of service that people will walk or cycle further to stops.

Infini

To be honest myself I dont know how this BRT would be even viable on these corridors expecially since Dublin in many parts is extremely cramped and narrow. Even on the road out of drumcondra for example theres already bus there taking up half the road in parts which leaves little room for this.

Personally we need more rail options in Dublin like the dart underground and expansion of the luas as the road network in dublin inner city is well overloaded.