Reliability of Network Direct merged bus routes

Kh1993

As I stood in the rain waiting 75 minutes for a 17A today in Santry, I wondered if other Network direct modified or merged routes are as unreliable as this one, not just cross city but windy orbital routes.

17a is supposed to be a 20 min service, 15 at peaks. Yet between 1530 and 1645 today, no bus came at Santry towards Kilbarrack. (well one apparently did, an 'out of service' labelled, full bus which didn't stop). Fobbed off with the usual operational issues, buses not running, inclement weather conditions (lol) & traffic. Today was extreme, but I use the bus at this time every weekday - in the last 2 weeks I've had four 30 minute plus waits (at their specific 'peak time'). And DB tell us there's less traffic during summer w/o schools

Traffic obviously an issue, Beaumont Hospital can be a 25min detour, Santry Lane can be snail pace, and Ballymun, finglas and blanch centres all have their pinch points. So how then can such a long route be in anyway reliable?. If theres traffic coming out of Blanch, then south of Ballymun can be left without a bus for 30, 40, 50, 60 minutes etc. Happened rarely before bus extended past Finglas. (Also a good argument for anyone wanting 27b kept as is, couldnt possibly rely on the 17a as an alternative)

I've heard other issues with routes such as the 102 during evenings, the 75 in south dublin, and even cross city routes being regularly curtailed.

Can anything be done to remedy this? Specific short runnings, route mods? Limited resources I know

Stevek101

There must be serious staffing issues. Buses simply are not running even off peak.

Kh1993

Running times surely an issue too. Eg. 17a running time is 63 mins Kilbarrack to Blanchardstown. Theres very few services I'd imagine that do it in that time. It can take 50 mins to half the route at times.

Looking through their twitter feed the last few weeks, there seems to have been lots of operational issues or buses not running. One bus not running, add in traffic or a delay and then theres huge problems. (I appreciate entire fleet is in use at times)

AngryLips

I've got a really good idea, why don't we give them a 30% pay increase!

cgcsb

Bunch of them won the lotto on Friday night. I wonder is that the issue

LXFlyer

This sounds far more like driver shortages than anything else being honest about it, compounded by summer annual leave commitments.

It has been an annoying feature of the bus service for the last number of years, which is one of the reasons I favour the introduction of summer schedules across the network - advertise a service that is deliverable rather than one that is not.

LXFlyer

cgcsb wrote: »

Bunch of them won the lotto on Friday night. I wonder is that the issue

Wrong garage!

LXFlyer

Kh1993 wrote: »

Running times surely an issue too. Eg. 17a running time is 63 mins Kilbarrack to Blanchardstown. Theres very few services I'd imagine that do it in that time. It can take 50 mins to half the route at times.

Looking through their twitter feed the last few weeks, there seems to have been lots of operational issues or buses not running. One bus not running, add in traffic or a delay and then theres huge problems. (I appreciate entire fleet is in use at times)

The guide times at the base of the timetables are purely that - indicative times. They do not reflect the end-to-end running times that are on driver boards, which will include recovery time prior to the next departure.

Different (longer) running times will apply at peak than off peak.

Unless you've access to the driver boards which show the actual running times you can't know what the running times are.

You mentioned the 75 - it's generally very reliable since the last timetable was introduced, with far better running times, but it still occasionally gets afflicted by heavy traffic along the route which can lead to curtailed services eastbound to Stillorgan in order to get the bus and driver back into place.

You ask what the solution is?

Twofold:

1) Recruit more drivers - this takes time and it has been reported on boards that some of the new recruits have not stayed

2) Introduce new schedules with increased running times - this requires additional driver and bus resources to deliver the same frequency - not something that can be done anytime - only as new buses are delivered to increase the fleet size. Otherwise frequency must be cut.

Changes are happening though. The 130 schedule is being changed this weekend with increased running times.

haulier

I think some of the 17A's have running time of 100 minutes in the peak

dfx-

lxflyer wrote: »

Wrong garage!

same mistake of an elderly customer to a 68 driver on Saturday night. Wrong garage..

_Kaiser_

The 17A has been unreliable since the days I used to get it to school in the 80s (and then again to work in the mid-00's). I really fail to see how extending routes massively was ever supposed to make them more reliable - sure you can go further on one bus now but the traffic issues are compounded, a missing driver or bus more significant, and the excuses are still the same.

markpb

_Kaiser_ wrote:

The 17A has been unreliable since the days I used to get it to school in the 80s (and then again to work in the mid-00's).

I used it daily from 2004 to 2009 and never had a problem with it. I knew, to within a minute or two, when it would arrive.

I stopped using it just as it was being "improved" through Beaumont and out to Blanch so I'm not sure what it's like now.