Dublin bus capacity issues off peak

thomasj

Anyone else finding this occuring more and more often given the increase in passenger numbers and increasing pressure on limited resources?

Last night at 8.30pm both the 39 and 39a coming from the city had to skip stops after the quays due to being too full.

This is happening though more often than not and I've found in the recent weeks that on quite a few occasions I've found myself standing at the front door area , or even unable to get on the bus as there was no room.

The 39a is not a great route and the times they run every 20 minutes such as evenings and weekends, you find buses to be packed to capacity. 6.30pm is too early for it to running at a 20 minute frequency from the city.

I've emailed Dublin bus and they have said that they are reviewing plans on increasing services at the weekend, but they haven't got the resources to resolve the evening issues.

Anyone have any experience on this on other routes?

loyatemu

thomasj wrote: »

Anyone else finding this occuring more and more often given the increase in passenger numbers and increasing pressure on limited resources?

Last night at 8.30pm both the 39 and 39a coming from the city had to skip stops after the quays due to being too full.

This is happening though more often than not and I've found in the recent weeks that on quite a few occasions I've found myself standing at the front door area , or even unable to get on the bus as there was no room.

The 39a is not a great route and the times they run every 20 minutes such as evenings and weekends, you find buses to be packed to capacity. 6.30pm is too early for it to running at a 20 minute frequency from the city.

I've emailed Dublin bus and they have said that they are reviewing plans on increasing services at the weekend, but they haven't got the resources to resolve the evening issues.

Anyone have any experience on this on other routes?

Forward it onto the NTA maybe?

CIARAN_BOYLE

On my route there is a problem that every so often a gang of 70 foreign students will get on one bus from city centre to the terminus and there will be no availability for anyone else to get on so they must wait til the next bus.
You could add capacity but that's not needed most of the time. There should be a way to incentivise dublinbus into adding flexible capacity to the route. That is to say adding the ability to run an unscheduled service when the route is overlaoded. The problem is they don't get the farebox if they do that so theres no point.

Dyr

CIARAN_BOYLE wrote: »

On my route there is a problem that every so often a gang of 70 foreign students will get on one bus from city centre to the terminus and there will be no availability for anyone else to get on so they must wait til the next bus.

Problem is that the cheap skate language schools are using public transport as private hire and causing chaos in the summer. Dublin bus are happy enough as they're making coin off it

Only public transport system that can handle those numbers is a metro

ArmaniJeanss

thomasj wrote: »

Anyone else finding this occuring more and more often given the increase in passenger numbers and increasing pressure on limited resources?

Last night at 8.30pm both the 39 and 39a coming from the city had to skip stops after the quays due to being too full.

This is happening though more often than not and I've found in the recent weeks that on quite a few occasions I've found myself standing at the front door area , or even unable to get on the bus as there was no room.

The 39a is not a great route and the times they run every 20 minutes such as evenings and weekends, you find buses to be packed to capacity. 6.30pm is too early for it to running at a 20 minute frequency from the city.

I've emailed Dublin bus and they have said that they are reviewing plans on increasing services at the weekend, but they haven't got the resources to resolve the evening issues.

Anyone have any experience on this on other routes?

I was on that 39 last night got on around 8.30 stoneybatter, annoyingly overcrowded for an offpeak journey. Theres a hole in the timetable between 8pm and 8.20 from stoneybatter area, never seems to be any 39/39a/70 due around then, so the next one that does arrive is overcrowded and travelling slow. I always try to get to the stop around 7.50/7.55 when there tends to be 3 or 4 buses.

punisher5112

Bambi wrote: »

Problem is that the cheap skate language schools are using public transport as private hire and causing chaos in the summer. Dublin bus are happy enough as they're making coin off it

Only public transport system that can handle those numbers is a metro

Not so as anything over 45 in numbers must hire out or be split up. Its around that number.

CIARAN_BOYLE

punisher5112 wrote: »

Not so as anything over 45 in numbers must hire out or be split up. Its around that number.

Doesn't happen in practice. Bus drivers have no problem letting 70 people on at the one stop who all pay with separate travel leap card. It doesn't matter that they all get on at the one stop and all get off at the same stop. As far as the bus drivers are concerned they are all individual separate paying customers.

Dyr

punisher5112 wrote: »

Not so as anything over 45 in numbers must hire out or be split up. Its around that number.

Never happens though. It all works out fine for Dublin Bus and said schools. Only the tax payer who gets screwed.

schemingbohemia

Bambi wrote: »

Never happens though. It all works out fine for Dublin Bus and said schools. Only the tax payer who gets screwed.

They're customers just like you. It's just unlucky that they all get on the one bus.

Dyr

schemingbohemia wrote: »

They're customers just like you. It's just unlucky that they all get on the one bus.

No matey they're not. I'm a taxpayer who is subsidizing public transport and also shelling out four figures on a yearly card. They are companies who've figured out that its cheaper to buy leap cards en masse and game the system than to pay for private hire coaches for their groups.

bk

Bambi wrote: »

No matey they're not. I'm a taxpayer who is subsidizing public transport and also shelling out four figures on a yearly card. They are companies who've figured out that its cheaper to buy leap cards en masse and game the system than to pay for private hire coaches for their groups.

I'm sorry, but that is a terrible attitude!!

Public transport isn't just for regular commuters! It is also for irregular commuters, tourists and foreign students.

As long as they are paying a fare, then they are perfectly entitled to use the service.

Tourists and foreign students bring incredible amounts of revenue to our country every year. Many peoples jobs are completely reliant on such visitors and allowing them to use our public transport is a very small price to pay in return.

After all, any time I've been to Spain, etc. I've used their highly subsidised public transport and I'm sure you have too!

BTW Fortunately the NTA and government don't have the same attitude as you and they do a lot to encourage visitors use of public transport with tourist leap cards and for foreign language students the Dublin Trainee LEAP Card which offers foreign students 1 to 4 weeks of unlimited travel in the Dublin short hop zone.

BBTW I've been really impressed by the few times I've seen these foreign students boarding DB buses with this card, with it's flat fare. I've seen 40 students board quicker then the 4 to 5 local travellers who boarded at the same time with mixture of cash and driver interaction leap. It shows how good things could be if we move to zero driver interaction, leap only, flat fares.

Dyr

bk wrote: »

I'm sorry, but that is a terrible attitude!!

Public transport isn't just for regular commuters! It is also for irregular commuters, tourists and foreign students.

Its not for private companies to use as their own shuttle service.

if I was piling a thousand students a day onto a spanish bus route you might have a point. But I'm not and you don't.

CIARAN_BOYLE

schemingbohemia wrote: »

They're customers just like you. It's just unlucky that they all get on the one bus.

As the person who brought up foreign students can I just say that the only reason that I brought it up was because I feel that dublinbus need more dispatchable capacity. Its all well and good to run a bus every 20 minutes, but if one doesn't let anyone on because there is 70 foreign students and the second is full because it has all the people that missed the first it means I could be waiting an hour for the third bus to come.
This should be fixed by having a dispatchable reserve of busses (perhaps sitting in city centre) that can be added onto a route as needed.
Problem is there is little incentive for Dublin Bus to do this at the moment as the NTA gets the fare box and won't offer a bonus for extra services.

thomasj

Same story tonight! 8.30ish , 39a skipping stops along the quays due to being too full.

Thankfully the 39 after it had room .

bk

CIARAN_BOYLE wrote: »

Problem is there is little incentive for Dublin Bus to do this at the moment as the NTA gets the fare box and won't offer a bonus for extra services.

Actually that isn't true, Dublin Bus gets the fare box. The subsidy that the NTA gives to Dublin Bus is for all services overall, not for a certain number of departures, etc.

bk

Bambi wrote: »

Its not for private companies to use as their own shuttle service.

if I was piling a thousand students a day onto a spanish bus route you might have a point. But I'm not and you don't.

You don't get to choose who does and doesn't get to go on public buses, it is as simple as that. If they pay the fare, then they have every right to be there.

And clearly both DB and NTA are happy for them to be there as they go out of their way to make it easier for them with a dedicated Leap card.

CIARAN_BOYLE

bk wrote: »

Actually that isn't true, Dublin Bus gets the fare box. The subsidy that the NTA gives to Dublin Bus is for all services overall, not for a certain number of departures, etc.

Really? I thought dublin bus and the luas worked on the same system. Surprised it's two different systems. Then again dublin bus was around before NTA and luas.

bk

CIARAN_BOYLE wrote: »

Really? I thought dublin bus and the luas worked on the same system. Surprised it's two different systems. Then again dublin bus was around before NTA and luas.

Yes, as you say, it is because DB/BE/IR (it is the same for them all) were all around for far longer then the NTA and this is how they always operated, so the NTA had to accept it.

I do think the NTA will gradually move to this model, as then tender out routes, but that is for the future.

n97 mini

Got the 21.15 67 tonight. Standing room only by the Workmans. Parkgate St was a push to get everyone on.

thomasj

n97 mini wrote:

Got the 21.15 67 tonight. Standing room only by the Workmans. Parkgate St was a push to get everyone on.

So much for no demand for Sunday evening maynooth line services.

I love Sean nos

Bambi wrote: »

Its not for private companies to use as their own shuttle service.

if I was piling a thousand students a day onto a spanish bus route you might have a point. But I'm not and you don't.

Does your employer provide a private bus?

AngryLips

Bambi wrote: »

Its not for private companies to use as their own shuttle service.

if I was piling a thousand students a day onto a spanish bus route you might have a point. But I'm not and you don't.

I too have always felt that what Dublin is lacking is an apartheid bus service.

antoinolachtnai

Same thing happens with DART services and the Number 4 if there is a reduction in service, for example at the weekend. Their customers move over to the No. 4 bus during a stoppage and the regular passengers are left high and dry.

There is plenty of spare capacity in terms of buses and drivers available at that time of day. There is no reason why it can't be dispatched when needed.

Off-peak services on these types of routes are (or should be) highly profitable. You should be able to operate a bus service for 60 euros an hour and really for less for extra services. If you have more than forty passengers on the bus, it is certainly all profit after that. There is no reason (other than bad operations) not to find a way to cope with this type of demand.

dublinstevie

antoinolachtnai wrote:

Off-peak services on these types of routes are (or should be) highly profitable. You should be able to operate a bus service for 60 euros an hour and really for less for extra services. If you have more than forty passengers on the bus, it is certainly all profit after that. There is no reason (other than bad operations) not to find a way to cope with this type of demand.

antoinolachtnai wrote:

There is plenty of spare capacity in terms of buses and drivers available at that time of day. There is no reason why it can't be dispatched when needed.

antoinolachtnai wrote:

Same thing happens with DART services and the Number 4 if there is a reduction in service, for example at the weekend. Their customers move over to the No. 4 bus during a stoppage and the regular passengers are left high and dry.

NTA rules dictate that DB cant do that,the company want to add extra capacity on busy corridors but are constantly refused permission to do so from the NTA

antoinolachtnai

Providing extra services off peak is not an example of adding capacity.

If Dublin Bus management isn't able to deal with their financier and customer, then they need to sort that out.

I find it hard to believe that NTA has refused permission to operate profitable off-peak services. Maybe it's true, but I would want to see some documentary evidence before I would believe it.

And surely Dublin Bus could just refuse to honour Irish Rail tickets, if they don't have the capacity to cope with their own passengers for some regulatory reason.

The reality is that it is just chaos on wheels. There is no rhyme or reason to it.

dfx-

n97 mini wrote: »

Got the 21.15 67 tonight. Standing room only by the Workmans. Parkgate St was a push to get everyone on.

Sunday evenings through the college term is crush loads on a lot of routes. The 4, 7, 11, 39s, 46A, 145, 15, 16 (though that's a 24/7 problem), 27, 40, 13.

But if it doesn't happen between 7-9am on weekdays on the major routes, there's no desire to do anything about it.

bk

dublinstevie wrote: »

NTA rules dictate that DB cant do that,the company want to add extra capacity on busy corridors but are constantly refused permission to do so from the NTA

That isn't true at all. The NTA has no problem at all with relief services being offered when needed due to demand and in fact encourage it.

Just look at the large number of reliefs Aircoach and the other privates are putting on at the moment due to the strikes.

Some people have some really weird about what the NTA does, they often seem to get blamed for the failings of others that has nothing to do with them!

punisher5112

bk wrote: »

That isn't true at all. The NTA has no problem at all with relief services being offered when needed due to demand and in fact encourage it.

Just look at the large number of reliefs Aircoach and the other privates are putting on at the moment due to the strikes.

Some people have some really weird about what the NTA does, they often seem to get blamed for the failings of others that has nothing to do with them!

They have to run at the same departure time.

bk

punisher5112 wrote: »

They have to run at the same departure time.

Yes on commercial routes, but not on PSO routes like DB.

punisher5112

bk wrote: »

Yes on commercial routes, but not on PSO routes like DB.

Db doesn't have enough vehicles or drivers even with all the new recruits.

antoinolachtnai

There are plenty vehicles off-peak. When you have a pool of drivers you should be able to schedule extra journeys outside the peak time. I would be very surprised if all drivers have their full working week utilised at present.

There are 2500 drivers for 850 buses, after all. This represents 39*2500 = 97500 hours of labour a week, allowing for holidays, training and absence. That is enough to operate every single bus in the fleet for 114 hours per week which is 16 hours a day. You can run a lot of services and make a lot of money with that scale of operations.