How to improve Dublin Bus Services in 2017

dfx-

dublinman1990 wrote: »

Here is a small bit of news that was confirmed some time ago. I heard its not a great bit of news it has to be said from enthusiast circles.

Dublin Bus have ordered 2 new single deck midibuses to replace the WVs in Donnybrook Garage.

The new buses are called Wright Streetlites. (Pic Below)

https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5552/15323524565_9888ef4618_b.jpg

It appears that they will be only used for the 44B route between Dundrum Luas Station & Glencullen. They won't be used on any other route.

I am not happy about hearing that news because the 2 remaining WVs had only been refurbished a few months ago with new gearboxes, wheels & LEDs.

http://www.dublinbusstuff.com/PhotoWeek/WV52%20-%20Rt111%20-%20GlenagearyRoadLower%20-%20111116(feat).jpg

I'd guess they may find their way around Donnybrook's routes as the WVs did when they were still in average-to-poor condition and there was four or five of them left. The WVs did show up on the 59, 63 and the old 111 as well too.

Art(h)ur

bk wrote: »

how they can't take the ridiculous amount of fare information DB has to model a flat fare that would be largely revenue neutral.

This does appear to be the core of the issue. I firmly believe that finding a revenue neutral level of the flat fare using existing data is possible. In fact, I would be more than happy to do it myself!

There is also a number of ways in which the risk of a fall in revenue after the introduction of a flat fare can be reduced. E.g. flat premium fare on Xpresso services and on long-distance routes (equal to or slightly below the current "Over 13 stages" fare), like 33 or 65. This could also solve the problem described earlier in this thread of Chapelizod residents filling up Lucan/Leixlip/Maynooth buses.

In terms of flat fare working well elsewhere, even in places like Paris or London buses work on flat fares (zones that everyone recognises from the metro maps do not apply to buses). I presume it's not because they could not come up with anything more optimal but because of its simplicity: both for the operator and for the passenger. Incidentally, London has recently introduced free bus-to-bus transfers within one hour (link), same feature that the paper version of Travel 90 used to have. So we are talking about practices that have been tried and tested in this part of the world, not an experiment or a revolution...

dublinman1990

I have some more info about what is happening this year. I am not sure if this is verified now as it could be speculation off another website.

Dublin Bus are going into a process of having some routes in Ringsend Garage to go under a review & having new timetables.

The routes being mooted for the confirmed/possible changes are the 1, 15, 27, 49, 77a & the 150.

The only bit of info that is confirmed is that the 1 is getting a new proposed timetable drawn up to the NTA. There will be no changes to the route at all. The new timetable for the 1 is to address the 60 minute journey time between the termini in both Santry & Sandymount.

The 15 will be next to get the changes after the 1 gets the new timetable.

bigredone

The NTA insists the new double door bus is used on certain departures, as we know they have less capacity than the Tri-axel bus.
This results in people left behind as there is no room to carry them. A simple thing to improve DB would be allow the use of Tri-axel on these departures.

Pre NTA when city center was busy and last bus was full, call would go out on radio, "any driver want to do a bit of over time and drive a extra bus on last departure?"
The NTA banned this, so if you cant get the last bus home because it is full dont blame DB, blame the NTA for insisting on the use of center doors bus and a ban on a extra departure not on the time table.

VG31

bigredone wrote: »

Pre NTA when city center was busy and last bus was full, call would go out on radio, "any driver want to do a bit of over time and drive a extra bus on last departure?"
The NTA banned this, so if you cant get the last bus home because it is full dont blame DB, blame the NTA for insisting on the use of center doors bus and a ban on a extra departure not on the time table.

That makes no sense.

devnull

bigredone wrote: »

The NTA insists the new double door bus is used on certain departures, as we know they have less capacity than the Tri-axel bus.

Do you have some verifiable source where I can read this other than on a message board, I'd appreciate it - thanks!

This results in people left behind as there is no room to carry them. A simple thing to improve DB would be allow the use of Tri-axel on these departures.

The problem with tri-axles is there is only so many of them and they are a long bus with one door which leads to chronic dwell time, they are more expensive to operate and normally even when people are downstairs standing and driver turning passengers away there is a ton of seats free down the back upstairs and you couldn't just run a tri-axle for one bus, it would have to be a whole duty, that is before you even take into account the hassle of driving a tri-able around a building site like Dublin City Centre with the Luas works.

Pre NTA when city center was busy and last bus was full, call would go out on radio, "any driver want to do a bit of over time and drive a extra bus on last departure?"
The NTA banned this, so if you cant get the last bus home because it is full dont blame DB, blame the NTA for insisting on the use of center doors bus and a ban on a extra departure not on the time table.

Again can you supply a source for this, I know there has been a push to get double doors on cross city routes, but as far as I was aware there is no ban on any type of PSO vehicle appearing on any PSO route at any one time,

Since you claim there is a ban can you show to me a source which confirms this? Otherwise it looks like typical NTA bashing without any real foundation.

Slutmonkey57b

Amazing how often "can't be done" seems to boil down to "not being offered overtime rates" from the experts inside the company.

bigredone

VG31 wrote: »

That makes no sense.

Bus with center doors has less carry capacity than Tri-axel.

thomasj

NTA has plans for introducing BRT on a number of corridors in the coming years. These vehicles will have 3 sets of doors and have a capacity of 120+

Dyr

Would be good if the NTA actually started like an ombudsman, or if there was a way for customers to act as quality control by being able to openly view and query KPI performance against what's happening on the ground

Dublin Bus tends to guard their stat's like their the last secret of fatima, drag em into the open where customers can point out discrepancies.

bigredone

devnull wrote: »

Again can you supply a source for this, I know there has been a push to get double doors on cross city routes, but as far as I was aware there is no ban on any type of PSO vehicle appearing on any PSO route at any one time,

Since you claim there is a ban can you show to me a source which confirms this? Otherwise it looks like typical NTA bashing without any real foundation.

Source?? I am a DB driver, what more do you want, maybe some of the other drivers who post here will come along and either confirm or deny what i have posted.
This has been posted on union message boards, it has been said verbally by inspectors.
Driver,"im leaving people behind need a Tri-axel to carry the loading"
Inspector." I know , NTA wont allow it, must be a center door bus"
The NTA have banned types of buses running on certain routes and certain departures. that is a fact.
You dont like it simply because it does not fit with your view that The NTA are knights in shining armor coming to the rescue of public transport users.

bigredone

Slutmonkey57b wrote: »

Amazing how often "can't be done" seems to boil down to "not being offered overtime rates" from the experts inside the company.

This is i would guess from someone who does not travel on DB.
If you or anyone else here do travel on DB you will hear overtime called out on the radio daily by inspectors and you will hear drivers replying that that will do it.

bigredone

thomasj wrote: »

NTA has plans for introducing BRT on a number of corridors in the coming years. These vehicles will have 3 sets of doors and have a capacity of 120+

This news will be of great comfort to people standing in the rain this weekend when the last bus leaves them at the stop because it has no room

bigredone

Bambi wrote: »

Would be good if the NTA actually started like an ombudsman, or if there was a way for customers to act as quality control by being able to openly view and query KPI performance against what's happening on the ground

Dublin Bus tends to guard their stat's like their the last secret of fatima, drag em into the open where customers can point out discrepancies.

Simple thing to do , get on to them and ask why they wont let the last bus running be a Tri-axel and why wont they allow DB to put on a extra last bus when nights are busy?

bigredone

I see one who tanked devnull is Brayhead.
i guess you are from bray?
The 145 is one of several routes that is often full on last departure and has to leave people behind.
Many a night it is full by Nassau street and cant carry anymore.
So if you are standing in the cold rain and a bus passes you by full, know that this is the fault of the NTA.
Pre-NTA a driver would be on a busy route and on the last bus, the control inspector would call him. "let me know if it gets busy"
Driver would see the bus filling up and know he would be leaving people behind so call control. "the bus is full"
The inspector would then get on the radio. " little bit of OT, anyone finished in town, need a driver to do a journey on the ABC out of town"
A driver would call back. "yea i'll do it"
Problem sorted a extra bus running no one left behind.
The NTA banned this extra bus from running.

hytrogen

A bus "not in service" or a bus "entering service" is a bus not making money

bigredone

hytrogen wrote: »

A bus "not in service" or a bus "entering service" is a bus not making money

Here is something that will blow your mind.
A bus running in service but will very few passengers is a bus that in loosing money.

Dyr

bigredone wrote: »

Simple thing to do , get on to them and ask why they wont let the last bus running be a Tri-axel and why wont they allow DB to put on a extra last bus when nights are busy?

A more simple thing would be to get onto them and ask why the number 1 disappeared off RTPI yday when there was also a 1c right behind it..and a number 4 then wandered up with no mention of it on RTPI. But TFI are not set up for those kind of queries from the public and you might as well be talking to the wall as ask DB

a better solution would be to have transport providers have to publicly provide their running stats in real time and allow the public to query discrepancies with an ombudsman. You might see some changes then when the actual state of play is revealed through the dread spectre of accountability.

devnull

bigredone wrote: »

Source?? I am a DB driver, what more do you want, maybe some of the other drivers who post here will come along and either confirm or deny what i have posted.
This has been posted on union message boards, it has been said verbally by inspectors.
Driver,"im leaving people behind need a Tri-axel to carry the loading"
Inspector." I know , NTA wont allow it, must be a center door bus"
The NTA have banned types of buses running on certain routes and certain departures. that is a fact.
You dont like it simply because it does not fit with your view that The NTA are knights in shining armor coming to the rescue of public transport users.

Thanks for confirming it's a claim with nothing to back it up. By source I mean referencing a third party or a document or site in the public domain that backs it up. Anyone on here can say someone said something doesn't mean they did.

Anyone can post anything on boards doesn't mean it's true. We cannot verify anyone is who they say they are all we can do is ask them to reference their sources and like pretty much every NTA rant you ever came out with you are unable to back up.

devnull

bigredone wrote: »

Simple thing to do , get on to them and ask why they wont let the last bus running be a Tri-axel and why wont they allow DB to put on a extra last bus when nights are busy?

You made the claim. It's for you to back up. Not for other people to prove you wrong. That's not how it works in Ireland.

If you make an allegation you have to prove it. That is the kind of society we live in.

CIARAN_BOYLE

bigredone wrote: »

Problem sorted a extra bus running no one left behind.
The NTA banned this extra bus from running.

Well its not so much a ban. Rather the NTA takes the farebox for all routes. Dublin Bus get a set fee. Dublin bus could run extra services if they wanted but they wouldn't get the farebox so they would be paying for nothing. In the old days they got the farebox.

bigredone

CIARAN_BOYLE wrote: »

Well its not so much a ban. Rather the NTA takes the farebox for all routes. Dublin Bus get a set fee. Dublin bus could run extra services if they wanted but they wouldn't get the farebox so they would be paying for nothing. In the old days they got the farebox.

So what you are saying is the NTA are leaving money on the table?
They could be making money but have decide not too?

bigredone

devnull wrote: »

Thanks for confirming it's a claim with nothing to back it up. By source I mean referencing a third party or a document or site in the public domain that backs it up. Anyone on here can say someone said something doesn't mean they did.

Anyone can post anything on boards doesn't mean it's true. We cannot verify anyone is who they say they are all we can do is ask them to reference their sources and like pretty much every NTA rant you ever came out with you are unable to back up.

Pot, kettle and black springs to mind.
You have a severe mental block, The NTA can do no wrong, DB,BE,IE,CIE are the bad guys.
Book mark this discussion, in about 2-3 years if you are lucky you will see documents to back this up posted on DublinBusDrivers.com, your only source of out of date info.

Slutmonkey57b

bigredone wrote: »

I see one who tanked devnull is Brayhead.
i guess you are from bray?
The 145 is one of several routes that is often full on last departure and has to leave people behind.
Many a night it is full by Nassau street and cant carry anymore.
So if you are standing in the cold rain and a bus passes you by full, know that this is the fault of the NTA.
Pre-NTA a driver would be on a busy route and on the last bus, the control inspector would call him. "let me know if it gets busy"
Driver would see the bus filling up and know he would be leaving people behind so call control. "the bus is full"
The inspector would then get on the radio. " little bit of OT, anyone finished in town, need a driver to do a journey on the ABC out of town"
A driver would call back. "yea i'll do it"
Problem sorted a extra bus running no one left behind.
The NTA banned this extra bus from running.

Why can't the problem be sorted without using overtime? Why does overtime rates dictate whether an extra bus can run? Did the nta explicitly ban schedule additions, or was the practice of announcing on-spec random overtime availability by individual drivers/controllers banned? Because the suspicion would be that when driver a is known to want a bit of handy overtime it will just so happen that overtime might magically appear at a time and on a route to suit them. Just like buses randomly stop and order passengers onto the bus behind when a driver happens to need to end a shift...

And I agree that the 145 is often full however I know that the reason for that is the large volume of passengers who get on that bus when they could easily take an alternative route, because their termination point is well before the stop at which the 145 is the only bus on the road. The same bus that's full at Nassau Street will have plenty of space after ucd.

That's not an issue with seating capacity or driver availability, it's route design where short hop customers aren't being kept off long distance routes.

hytrogen

bigredone wrote:

Here is something that will blow your mind. A bus running in service but will very few passengers is a bus that in loosing money.

See that's not necessarily true for the DB model. You have subsidies and you have paying customers fares to run said bus company, versus running costs of labour employment maintenance fuel insurance and purchasing of new units (buses).
The majority of these costs are to be covered by the subsidy and the passenger fare is to cover the rest. Now to say a bus that is full during rush hour peak usage is not covering the costs of running said bus brings in the questionability of the operator and labour force given that there are competing companies with quite similar if not more overheads and even less subsidies if not none at all making a turn over.
Granted a not-so-full bus won't be making as much money as a full bus on the same route but it is a far less loss-maker than a bus that sits on the yard or is "entering service" or "not in service" carrying noone.

Slutmonkey57b

And in addition to the point above, DB is not a solely profit focused entity, it's an infrastructure and public benefit entity.

Individual loss making routes with low footfall rates may exist to provide a public service, interconnect with busier routes, or be candidates to be redesigned as single decker or hopper bus services.

In the same way that individual routes leading to a motorway aren't chock full, doesn't mean the junction serves no purpose and should be eliminated. DB requires that base costs are met; like all such companies it's expected and desirable that highly profitable routes subsidise the less popular but necessary ones.

Stephen15

Instead of introducing 24h services I would introduce separate night services with similar routes and the same fares as day routes. This is because for some routes it would be unesscary to serve say industrial estates or shopping centres at night, some residental may to be served at night as people espeically women may be afraid to walk alone in the middle of the night and bus services may be needed to replace Dart and Luas.

I would hire private security like on the Luas or Dart to make sure there is no anti social behavior on any of these new night buses also some day buses could do with it also without wanting to mention any particular routes.

boobycharlton

Would be a ridiculous money loser under that set up. Just have a few routes with normal fares serving core corridors and see how it goes from there. Cities like Edinburgh can manage it alright so no reason Dublin can't.

NikoTopps

I am not a regular bus user(lucky enough live\work near Luas)but yesterday i was get the 14 bus at Conghaile,it said 22mins then out of nowhere one pulls right up . very confusing as someone who not use the bus a lot.

I hope they begin allow the use of Contactless debit\credit cards\android~apple pay soon like in London.Seems like a better system than having to remember top up the Leap Card!:pac:

Stephen15

Heres a two changes I'd make

Route 4 - Extend to Honeypark and increase Sunday service

Route 33 - Increase freqency and run between Balbriggan/Skerries and the Airport or just it as far as Swords it seems kinda pointless sending this route into town as Balbriggan, Skerries, Rush and Lusk are served by the train going into the cc also its the longest route on the DB network and the train or the BE service is far quicker from places like Balbriggan

Route 46a and 145 - Perhaps we could turn these routes as they are both high frequency and run mostly along QBC into a BRT style service

Route 84/a - Extend all services to St.Vicents Hospital and put a few buses going all the way into town this would provide extra capacity on the 4 and 7 along the Rock Road since the 8 was scrapped and scrap the cherrywood diversion

Route 184 - Extend to Brides Glen Luas and increase service at weekends to make up for a loss of the 84/a in Cherrywood