Dublin Public Transport Information

devnull

Not everyone who gets the 66 is going from the city centre to Maynooth....

LXFlyer

Geuze wrote: »

Then it seems to me there are too many routes, and too many bus stops?

As more tram lines get built, surely the no. of bus lines should fall?

Indeed, I have often asked, why is there a 66 to Maynooth when there is a railway line?

Can I ask have you actually seen the loadings on that bus route and the trains at peak times? If you had, you'd realise how off the mark that idea is.

Clearly no one in Maynooth in your view would want to travel to Leixlip village, Lucan, Liffey Valley, Palmerstown, etc that are not served by the railway? Or perhaps people wish to travel to parts of town far away from the railway station?

As for the rollout of LUAS, the bus network along the lines was cut back after the Red and Green lines were launched, with some routes cancelled, but in most cases they were redesigned or reduced in frequency and will serve places for who LUAS stops are not convenient.

A statement that because a map of routes would be too big, that we have too many bus routes is really daft.

The reason we have so many bus routes is a complete failure of our politicians to invest in rail solutions. That's not going to change any time soon. As a result our city bus network is vast and we have much longer routes than most cities.

I really don't see the need for a street map of the entire city at every stop. A local street map and schematic representation of the network from that area is more than sufficient.

A full network spider map and index at major rail stations would also work.

Five smaller maps (like London) would in my view be the best way to go in terms of preparing a street map of city bus routes as I've already mentioned.

Banjoxed

lxflyer wrote: »

Can I ask have you actually seen the loadings on that bus route and the trains at peak times? If you had, you'd realise how off the mark that idea is.

Clearly no one in Maynooth in your view would want to travel to Leixlip village, Lucan, Liffey Valley, Palmerstown, etc that are not served by the railway? Or perhaps people wish to travel to parts of town far away from the railway station?

As for the rollout of LUAS, the network along the lines was cut back after the Red and Green lines were launched, with some routes cancelled, but in most cases they were redesigned or reduced in frequency and will serve places for who LUAS stops are not convenient.

A statement that because a map of routes would be too big, that we have too many bus routes is really daft. The reason we have so many bus routes is a complete failure of our politicians to invest in rail solutions. That's not going to change any time soon.

As a result our city bus network is vast and we have much longer routes than most cities.

I really don't see the need for a street map of the entire city at every stop. A local street map and schematic representation of the network from that area is more than sufficient.

A full network spider map and index at major rail stations would also work.

Five smaller maps (like London) would in my view be the best way to go in terms of preparing a street map of city bus routes as I've already mentioned.

The main reason why we have such long bus routes is that rail was underdeveloped. We moved from London to Leixlip in 1970 and despite the town's population increasing exponentially the rail service to Maynooth was only commissioned in 1981, and was entirely due to political pressure. CIE grudgingly cascaded the infamous push pulls onto the service for years.

In the meantime, the Sindo and the Tribune were full of commentators giving out stink about any railway investment, claiming buses were sufficient.

In what state would the GDA be now for traffic and sprawl if what has been grudgingly invested in rail, wasn't?

Geuze

Okay, so clearly Dublin has a fundamentally different style of bus network than London or Paris.

I guess this is because they have a metro, so fewer bus routes?


The Dublin network then means that creating maps is very difficult.

Geuze

lxflyer wrote: »

I really don't see the need for a street map of the entire city at every stop. A local street map and schematic representation of the network from that area is more than sufficient.

Could we have one created though?

And then posted at railway stations, tram stops, and major bus stops?

Geuze

A nice example of a schematic map of Nurnberg, including all bus routes:

http://www.vgn.de/media/liniennetz-nuernberg-fuerth-stein.pdf

Devilman40k

Geuze wrote: »

A nice example of a schematic map of Nurnberg, including all bus routes:

http://www.vgn.de/media/liniennetz-nuernberg-fuerth-stein.pdf

Core network map

http://www.dublinbus.ie/PageFiles/1826/Core_routes_interactive_map_January_2016.pdf

devnull

Geuze wrote: »

A nice example of a schematic map of Nurnberg, including all bus routes:

http://www.vgn.de/media/liniennetz-nuernberg-fuerth-stein.pdf

There's a lot less bus routes on there than there is in Dublin. According to Wikipedia there are 110 bus routes in Dublin, and over 80% of them would go through the city centre.

Apart from that you also have to consider that you'd need a sheet of paper landscape A2 to be able to have that in a readable size, there is not room for it in bus shelters, and only a small percentage of stops have bus shelters, virtually zero in the city centre.

The Dublin Bus core network map that was also posted also has left out a number of cross city routes.

What you are proposing is operationally impossible for on street information, something more align with what lxflyer proposes is far more possible.

noelfirl

Devilman40k wrote: »

Core network map

http://www.dublinbus.ie/PageFiles/1826/Core_routes_interactive_map_January_2016.pdf

In fairness, and appreciating the difficulty of representing all Dublin Bus routes individually on one map, that core map is pretty crap.

LXFlyer

For the umpteenth time - the NTA have already started drafting spider maps for Dublin.

I've linked to them already. Click on the link below and then scroll down and select which one you want:
https://www.transportforireland.ie/journey-planner/maps/

They have a much better high frequency schematic map than that DB one which is useless:
https://6fbc941dc3601609010c-fefe0183ab5374c49be7718979d9b9c7.ssl.cf3.rackcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Frequent_Services_A31.pdf

LXFlyer

Geuze wrote: »

Could we have one created though?

And then posted at railway stations, tram stops, and major bus stops?

With respect I have repeatedly said already that there is work being done on producing updated mapping. We will have to wait and see exactly what that entails but my understanding is that there are both street and spider maps in design. How detailed they are I have no idea. What they will look like I have no idea either.

How many times do I need to say that before you take this in?

I'm sorry, but frankly my patience is wearing thin at repeating myself here.

LXFlyer

For information this is the previous DB network spider map prior to the Network Direct changes:

https://www.dublinbus.ie/Global/RouteNetworkDiagram.pdf

As a starting point I'd like to see an updated version of that.

LXFlyer

And here is the last full printed street map before the OSI started to demand fees for using it.

Apologies for the quality - I had to photograph it using my mobile phone!

As you can see it is massive.

Geuze

lxflyer wrote: »

With respect I have repeatedly said already that there is work being done on producing updated mapping. We will have to wait and see exactly what that entails but my understanding is that there are both street and spider maps in design. How detailed they are I have no idea. What they will look like I have no idea either.

How many times do I need to say that before you take this in?

I'm sorry, but frankly my patience is wearing thin at repeating myself here.

I hear you, and your contributions are very good, thanks.

Geuze

lxflyer wrote: »

And here is the last full printed street map before the OSI started to demand fees for using it.

Apologies for the quality - I had to photograph it using my mobile phone!

As you can see it is massive.

Very good, thanks.

A modernised and updated version of that map should be at every railway station and tram stop.

Then the solution is for Govt to force OS to drop the fees.

MOH

Even the online systems are fairly unreliable, certainly as far as buses go.

The so-called "real time" system isn't.
The Dublin Bus website suffers serious UX issues, and regularly fails to provide promised information.

Was faced last week with waiting 30 minutes at a stop for a bus, or getting one one heading roughly the same direction, which I knew would get me close enough to my destination to walk, or worst case, a short taxi journey.

Figured I'd get on the bus and check the DB site for the best place to get off that left me closest to my goal.

DB main page > Enter route number > Hit OK > Choose direction (which in itself requires you to know which way the bus is heading based on knowing roughly where the start and end point are).

Click on 'Show route on map' ... oh, wait, there's no such option under real time information.

Go back to main page, choose the Timetables tab, repeat the process.
Click on 'Show on map'. Map doesn't display.

Check mobile data is working, check Google Maps is working, repeat process again, map still doesn't display.

Go back to the Real Time tab, choose 'Search on the map' to bring up a map of stops, with the idea of checking the stops along the route to see where the bus turns off.
This map loads successfully. But display of stops reloads from scratch every time the map is panned or zoomed, freezing the map, making it difficult to actual focus on the target area.
Eventually zoom in on the stops I'm interested in. Tap the stop icon on the map.
Map just zooms in again. Try again. Same thing happens - no real time information is actually available from the map on a mobile device.

Give up on DB website, switch to Google Maps. Make an educated guess as to likely places where bus might turn off the main road, and where the best place to get off is. Text someone who lives reasonably close by to confirm if my plan sounds sensible.

I actually ended up nearly missing the stop, as I'd spent 20 minutes trying to get information from the DB site that should have been available in a couple of minutes. And I'm used to dealing with Dublin Bus (which I guess begs the question why I even tried using their website in the first place). God help a tourist.

The Transport For Ireland journey planner, aka a-b.ie, is similarly useless on a mobile device, advising me to right-click on the map to select my start and end point. :rolleyes:

devnull

The transport for Ireland planner website is designed for computers. That is why there is an app for it.

The real time Ireland app is now very
Good as well and allows you to search nearest stops. You don't need to know names or stops numbers it works it out for you.

Dyr

devnull wrote: »

The transport for Ireland planner website is designed for computers. That is why there is an app for it.

The real time Ireland app is now very
Good as well and allows you to search nearest stops. You don't need to know names or stops numbers it works it out for you.

Nah, Dublin bus don't pass their real time cancellations info onto Transport for Ireland, the TFI app is basically like the official line on what dublin bus are running rather than the reality

random_guy

This is always an interesting site to check routes, but I'm not sure how accurate it is. I know it can take realtime data but Dublin is based on schedules.

Link

devnull

Bambi wrote: »

Nah, Dublin bus don't pass their real time cancellations info onto Transport for Ireland, the TFI app is basically like the official line on what dublin bus are running rather than the reality

Actually the TFI app gets a raw feed from the on vehicle system, same as the street signs, it doesn't have anything edited, added or taken away from it, it goes straight into the back-end and out, so it's accuracy is based on the information from the vehicles.

I know that on their site Dublin Bus has added extra details to this data on top of the actual feed from the buses, however this is based on criteria Dublin Bus set and program their end, not based on actual data.

Dyr

devnull wrote: »

I know that on their site Dublin Bus has added extra details to this data on top of the actual feed from the buses, however this is based on criteria Dublin Bus set and program their end, not based on actual data.

Yeah details like when they've pulled a bus or curtailed its run. Little details that you need for reliable real time info

devnull

Bambi wrote: »

Nah, Dublin bus don't pass their real time cancellations info onto Transport for Ireland

You have to understand the way the system works to know why. The TFI app and on street data is a clean, unedited feed directly from the vehicles, based on their locations and then output onto the RTI app and also the street signs, this information has not been changed in any way.

Think of it like a branch system, you have the core system at the top, based on vehicles, and details sent to a separate data recipients this supplies rtpi.ie, the on street signs, Dublin Bus, Real Time Ireland etc. The data arrives at these sources and then is adapted in format to be published on the web.

However in Dublin Bus case it comes in, and appears to go through another system, which is not connected to the real time core, which allows them to put the expected delays etc stuff in, and allows them to show curtailments etc, since this is being made after the data is sent out to all parties, there is no way for this data to come back to the other data recipients and most instances of the system that powers it are designed deliberately that way in other countries especially when operators are subject to an external regulator.

What needs to be done is that instead of central control editing the data that goes out via the Dublin Bus website, is to make the real time information core system update itself when a driver switches to a short working, which will mean all of the sources will then be showing correct information, and there will be no manual intervention, which I am completely against.

LXFlyer

That's an interesting technical problem as the system is reading from the timetable - there would have to be some sort of manual over-ride surely?

I'm not sure you're 100% correct though as curtailments do appear on the on street displays so there has to be some connection between them.

Of course they have to be entered as a curtailment in the first place.

devnull

lxflyer wrote: »

That's an interesting technical problem as the system is reading from the timetable - there would have to be some sort of manual over-ride surely?

From what I believe the changes are not made at the RPTI core - they're made post processing of the data Dublin Bus end, which is why they don't show up in other places but do on the Dublin Bus end. Ideally what should happen is if a driver logs onto a C route having been previously on a normal route for instance, the core automatically updates and updates the destination at the same time it updates the minutes. I believe routes however that start off already being curtailed upon the start of their journey do update on the core system.

The trouble is that a lot of real time systems are extremely reluctant to put in a simple over-ride system, because it has been used to manipulate data for reporting purposes outside Ireland to make performance look better than it is. I don't think that is going on in Dublin and have seen nothing to suggest it is, but I know that some of the systems have been designed to prevent that.

What Dublin Bus are doing is a workaround, but the ideal scenario is making the core system able to do it automatically rather than it being a manual task.

Dyr

devnull wrote: »

The trouble is that a lot of real time systems are extremely reluctant to put in a simple over-ride system, because it has been used to manipulate data for reporting purposes outside Ireland to make performance look better than it is. I don't think that is going on in Dublin and have seen nothing to suggest it is, but I know that some of the systems have been designed to prevent that.

My instinct would be that is exactly why Dublin bus don't pass that data onto TFI and if they were forced to then they'd wouldnt add any ad hoc changes to RTPI rather than give an accurate picture of how many alterations are being made.

carlmango11

It's incredible how people are attacking the OP and trying to defend Dublin's fairly-abysmal approach to public information. These people are part of the problem. It wouldn't be accepted in other European capitals.