Map of Dublin bus routes

Irish Steve

Is there such a thing as a decent map that shows the Dublin area (DB) routes in detail, that's suitable for zooming in to try and work out how to get from (say) the Applewood area of Swords, to Ballyfermot?

Yeah, I know, there are no buses that do direct, DB are clearly still city centre focussed, but there are people who need to do things like get to Ballyfermot College and back, and the bus routes are apparently slow and tortuous.

Short of looking for an old ordnance survey map, as the latest version doesn't show the routes at road level, it's proving to be hard, I tried the DB site, and there's pictorial maps that show the routes in the sort of detail of the london underground maps, but nothing with clear route detail on it at a wide level, which is (bluntly) absurd. If you know where the local stops are, there's some help, but that requires local knowledge, which is not always possible.

loyatemu

a-b.ie will tell you how to get from one place to another by public transport.

pclive

http://www.journeyplanner.transportforireland.ie/nta/XSLT_TRIP_REQUEST2?language=en

Victor

Using the Swords Express or routes 33x or 41x and then route 40 seems to make the most sense.

cdebru

Irish Steve wrote: »

Is there such a thing as a decent map that shows the Dublin area (DB) routes in detail, that's suitable for zooming in to try and work out how to get from (say) the Applewood area of Swords, to Ballyfermot?

Yeah, I know, there are no buses that do direct, DB are clearly still city centre focussed, but there are people who need to do things like get to Ballyfermot College and back, and the bus routes are apparently slow and tortuous.

Short of looking for an old ordnance survey map, as the latest version doesn't show the routes at road level, it's proving to be hard, I tried the DB site, and there's pictorial maps that show the routes in the sort of detail of the london underground maps, but nothing with clear route detail on it at a wide level, which is (bluntly) absurd. If you know where the local stops are, there's some help, but that requires local knowledge, which is not always possible.

Probably not exactly what you are looking for but individual routes are mapped on the Dublin bus app, showing each stop if you click on a bus stop it tell you what other routes are serving that particular stop, on the app just search by route then enter a route number, then select a direction, then when it lists all the stops, at the top it says "show on map" it then opens a map with all the stops for that route, you can zoom in and out.

41, 40 is the obvious choice but a lot of people use the buses to chapelizod and walk up from the bottom of the kylemore road, bit of a hike but, after a few days on the 40 you mightn't mind the walk. That would be 25,26,66/a/b and the 67.

LXFlyer

There hasn't been a proper map since before Network Direct.

The Next Ordnance Survey map should revert to type with bus routes, but we shall wait and see.

An updated full schematic of the network is needed too.

In the meantime, use the National Journey Planner at www.a-b.ie or download the National Journey Planner app. It is designed specifically for queries such as yours.

Applewood to Ballyfermot is either 41c or Swords Express to city (there are a couple of route 43 trips from Glen Ellan too) and then 79/79a to Ballyfermot. As others have suggested, routes 25, 26, 66/a/b or 67 to Chapelizod and walk may be a faster option.

I'd avoid the 40 as it is too slow.

bk

cdebru wrote: »

Probably not exactly what you are looking for but individual routes are mapped on the Dublin bus app, showing each stop if you click on a bus stop it tell you what other routes are serving that particular stop, on the app just search by route then enter a route number, then select a direction, then when it lists all the stops, at the top it says "show on map" it then opens a map with all the stops for that route, you can zoom in and out.

You can also find them on the Dublin Bus website:

http://dublinbus.ie/en/Examples/Google-Map/?routeNumber=1&direction=IO&towards=Sandymount+%28St.+John%26%2339%3bs+Church%29&from=Santry+%28Shanard+Rd.%29

Though they make them incredibly hard to find!
- Search for a route
- Click View Direction
- Click View on one of the stops
- Click Timetables and Maps
- Click on the Map you want!

God I don't know why they hide this. First of all, clearly the Timetable and Maps buttons should be right on the first page, the route page, not buried down in the stop page!

And second given that they have a Goggle Map of every route, it would be trivial for them to create a overall Google Map, that would allow you to show all routes and select and deselect them as you need.

random_guy

I can add some links for comparison from Stuttgart:

Route Maps showing all the Sbahn, Ubahn and individual bus routes, and the streets where they stop. The side of the road, that the bus stops on is also indicated by the red semi-circles.

(Some are pretty big files, especially the Verbundraum)

A list showing the layout of every single public transport stop and how they tie in with the surrounding area and other modes or transport.

Another list showing the layout of Barrier-Free stations along with notes on ramp gradients, lengths, widths, distances between platform edges and trains.

A very simple zoning map for prices.

And jsut to add, they're not hidden on the website. I would think as an experiment someone here could quite easily work their way through the German version of the site and find them.

Carawaystick

Victor wrote: »

Using the Swords Express or routes 33x or 41x and then route 40 seems to make the most sense.

You may not be able to get on a 33x at Lisenhall. People are often left behind in Lusk...

Ernest

bk wrote: »

You can also find them on the Dublin Bus website:

http://dublinbus.ie/en/Examples/Google-Map/?routeNumber=1&direction=IO&towards=Sandymount+%28St.+John%26%2339%3bs+Church%29&from=Santry+%28Shanard+Rd.%29

Though they make them incredibly hard to find!
- Search for a route
- Click View Direction
- Click View on one of the stops
- Click Timetables and Maps
- Click on the Map you want!

God I don't know why they hide this. First of all, clearly the Timetable and Maps buttons should be right on the first page, the route page, not buried down in the stop page!

And second given that they have a Goggle Map of every route, it would be trivial for them to create a overall Google Map, that would allow you to show all routes and select and deselect them as you need.

Dublin Bus website is a disgrace as far as finding what bus to get is concerned.
As an example, recently I was trying to find what bus would take someone from the Thomas St area to the City Centre but the Dublin Bus website, in effect, required me to key in the exact bus stop location in order to find a starting point and an exact bus stop location for the finishing point. If you key in a nearby street to where the bus stop is, the site will fail to recognise the street. To find a bus leaving the Thomas Street area going towards town, I had to switch first to Google Maps and click on the bus stops indicated (no link to this from Dublin Bus website!) and these stops all showed only the out-of-town destinations (not the city center ones wanted). This makes no sense to the bus users but probably makes it easy for Dublin Bus. Why cannot Dublin Bus get its act together in this respect.

I had not heard of the A-B site before looking at this forum but it seems a bit better the Google maps for this purpose, although it still links to bus stops and going out of town is the default direction indicated for the various routes appearing.

miss-p

Try hittheroad, it's pretty good!

Ernest

miss-p wrote: »

Try hittheroad, it's pretty good!

Hittheroad.ie is quite good but I found it produced some pretty strange route recommendations.
(1) for a journey from Thomas Street to Nassau Street it recommends an 8 minutes walk towards the north quays rather than a one minute walk along Thomas St to get the nearest bus.
(2) for a journey from Connolly Station to Smithfield, it doesn't recommend the obvious step of taking the Luas from right next to Connolly Station but instead a complicated series of bus routes or walks to Abbey St and then the Luas. That's if you don't follow its immediate assumption that Smithfield is not a well-knowb place in Dublin but somwhere out beyond Baldonnel aerodrome.

Victor

Ernest wrote: »

(1) for a journey from Thomas Street to Nassau Street it recommends an 8 minutes walk towards the north quays rather than a one minute walk along Thomas St to get the nearest bus.

Maybe there was a bus due in 8 minutes on the north quays, but not on Thomas Street.

LXFlyer

Unfortunately all journey planners will suffer the same issue from time to time.

The Dublin Bus journey planner is based around bus stop locations, which makes it very limited in use.

www.a-b.ie does include full route maps (in either direction) and the Dublin Bus website does include individual route maps on each timetable page.

Ernest

Victor wrote: »

Maybe there was a bus due in 8 minutes on the north quays, but not on Thomas Street.

Yes I was thinking that this might be the problem - perhaps it assumes the query relates to the here and now instead of the there and then.

LXFlyer

Ernest wrote: »

Yes I was thinking that this might be the problem - perhaps it assumes the query relates to the here and now instead of the there and then.

That is the definite advantage of www.a-b.ie (and the National Journey Planner app for smartphones) in that you can specify particular times that you want to take a trip.

Victor

Ernest wrote: »

Yes I was thinking that this might be the problem - perhaps it assumes the query relates to the here and now instead of the there and then.

In such cases, you need to make sure you set the correct time.

Ernest

lxflyer wrote: »

That is the definite advantage of www.a-b.ie (and the National Journey Planner app for smartphones) in that you can specify particular times that you want to take a trip.

Victor wrote: »

In such cases, you need to make sure you set the correct time.

That's not necessarily an advantage. You may just want to find what buses would cover a particular journey generally. The query may not relate to a particular time of day.