BusConnects Dublin - Bus Network Changes Discussion

PlatformNine

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122800181#Comment_122800181

Do we know if any EWs will be fitted with luggage racks?

p_haugh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122808013#Comment_122808013

Doubt it

Geog1234

Good to see the night service for routes E1 & E2 which will be helpful for very early-morning journeys.

Disappointing that the direct peak-time link which Finnegan's provide on route 143 Southern Cross - Bray - Shankill - N11 - Brewery Rd - Sandyford Luas is being axed.

This was a commercial route until approximately a year ago and is now a TFI PSO route. As such this route neither appears to have been considered when the revised network was being drawn up nor featured in the public consultation.

loyatemu

is it definitely being axed? I've seen others saying as much but nothing official. I think it's basically an extension of their terrible Southern Cross service, which is presumably no longer viable with the arrival of a proper L service there.

LXFlyer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122809134#Comment_122809134

Yes the 143 and 144 are both being cancelled.

They are in the list of cancelled routes halfway down on the page below and Finnegans have confirmed this on their social media.

https://www.transportforireland.ie/getting-around/by-bus/phase-6a-e-spine-launching-08-12-24/

Cabo86

The loss of the direct connection to the Luas provided by the 84 (84A) from heavily populated areas such as Kilcoole, Greystones, Bray, Shankill and even Cabinteely is lamentable. They really should have considered either extending the new L12 or L14 from Bray Station/Palermo to Bride's Glen or possibly both.

LXFlyer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122809452#Comment_122809452

While I agree that the loss of the direct link is a shame, bear in mind that you’d need extra buses and drivers to do that - you’d have to allow about 40 mins for the round trip from Bray Station to Brides Glen LUAS (including standing time at the terminus).

FYI Alternative connections to walking up to the LUAS from the N11 from the E2 are:

• L27 at Cabinteely Cross (to Carrickmines)
• L26 at Cornelscourt Cross (to Carrickmines)
• S8 at Whites Cross (to Sandyford)
• L25 at Stillorgan Cross (to Dundrum)
• S6 along Stillorgan Road between Mount Merrion Avenue & UCD (to Dundrum).

Ireland trains

There’s a claim in a Facebook group that all off-peak 84Xs are to be scrapped. Has anyone else heard anything about this, wouldn’t exactly be my go-to place for info.

Cabo86

Thanks..these are useful connections but if you wish to travel from Newcastle, Kilcoole or large parts of Greystones to Dundrum (and return) off peak or at weekends, as many people currently do with the 84, you now seem to me to have to make at least two changes making the journey much more difficult and dependent on those connections going smoothly etc. The uphill walk to the Luas from the N11 at Cherrywood is hard enough in normal conditions and very unpleasant in inclement weather. Even worse if you are a wheelchair user or have young kids in buggies.

LXFlyer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122809689#Comment_122809689

The L25 is probably the best option for Dundrum - it’s every 15 mins all day and stops beside the Dundrum Town Centre.

haulier

The X2 was meant to keep the connection to Cherrywood Luas from the Greystones area by operating via the M50 into C/wood - then back out on to the N11. This may have been changed, of course. There may have been also proposed changes in the "84x" routeing outbound via Westland Row.

Taisteal Éireann

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122809556#Comment_122809556

According to the original plan, it will be a peak only route (like all other P/X routes) and the plan hasn't changed the last I heard. The service according to the latest plan was:

• X1 (Kilcoole via Loughlinstown) - 6 services to Dublin in the morning, 6 services from Dublin in the evening.
• X2 (Newcastle via Cherrywood) - 3 services to Dublin in the morning, 3 services from Dublin in the evening.

The L2 will be every 30 minutes to Kilcoole and every 60 minutes to Newcastle, so an improved service for Kilcoole over the current 84, but much the same for Newcastle.

p_haugh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122809742#Comment_122809742

Going by the map in the announcement, the X2 is still set to go via Cherrywood. They dont mention the X1/X2 frequency in the announcement, so we'll have to wait for the timetables to go live to see what the situation is there

loyatemu

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122809935#Comment_122809935

Newcastle is a very small place, but it would have had a much better service if the original loop service plan had gone ahead.

What I don't understand is why the "short" L2 isn't going to serve the industrial estate and secondary school in Kilcoole when it seems the obvious route for it to turn around.

Similarly they've missed a trick not having the L3 loop around Delgany village and Delgany Wood to reverse.

patrickbrophy18

The L15 could do with being more frequent. While a constant hourly service all week is not exactly bad, it could be more frequent than that at peak times. I realise the outbound terminus is way out in the boonies. However, a few extra services could begin and terminate in Enniskerry.

mikeybhoy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122810959#Comment_122810959

It's the exact same frequency as the 185 which it's replacing. Should be more reliable now it's not serving Palermo at all. I'd say hourly frequency is perfect for it. There's the 185t aswell that provides extra service up there during school term.

Also the main reason it goes up to Shop River is to serve Kilgarron a small council estate just beyond Enniskerry. Shop River just happens to be handy place to for a bus to turnaround.

mikeybhoy

https://www.newstalk.com/news/dublin-bus-drivers-and-controllers-feuding-over-bullying-phone-calls-1780919

dublinman1990

Does this feuding between the bus drivers & controllers take place more often on BusConnects routes or on the older routes?

tom1ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122801210#Comment_122801210

Are these ANPR cameras?

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122789500#Comment_122789500

They are completely clapped out, effectively derelict buses; and fleet capacity is not the limiting factor anyway.

CatInABox

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122811130#Comment_122811130

It's only BusConnects routes that have these schedules, all other routes have a start time for the route, and that's it. If the traffic is light, then a bus driver could finish a route far, far faster than expected, which would throw the interval between buses on the route into chaos.

That's the idea behind the schedule, to make the service predictable for users. I'm not sure if the drivers complaints are reasonable, but to immediately go to throwing their toys out of the pram, rather than engage on improving the methods of comms is a bit over the top.

EDIT: Apologies, I've been corrected on the above, see the posts below, with LXFlyer being quite in depth! Thanks all!

stephenjmcd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122811378#Comment_122811378

It's not just bus connect routes that this occurs on.

For example 145 and 155 aren't bus connect routes and regularly if ahead of time have to stop and wait. There are timing points on all services.

Only this week for example I was on a 145 that stopped at Nassau street for 5 minutes with the passenger notice played that there would be a short delay to get the bus back on schedule

mikeybhoy

I see the EAs are popping on the 39a and other routes out of Phibsboro now

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122811660#Comment_122811660

16 and 41s also do it (usually during school holidays), often at the Omni as there's longer bus bays there but I've been at other wait points too.

LXFlyer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122811378#Comment_122811378

That has not been the case for several years now.

Every bus route in the city has a full stop by stop timetable. I've posted about this repeatedly and explained how RTPI works.

Sure how else could a journey planner work? That's the point of this - to facilitate connections and to allow people plan their journeys.

You can see the timetables for every route on the links below

https://bustimes.org/operators/dublin-bus

https://bustimes.org/operators/go-ahead

They just don't display them at bus stops for non-Busconnected routes.

Even where they do though, Dublin Bus change running times (they call them "route profiles") reasonably often to try and reflect traffic conditions, but the individual timetable posters at bus stops are not updated to reflect this which rather makes them pointless.

The real question that is not being asked here is how reasonable the schedules are in the first place?

Are they too generous or are they too tight?

It is a balancing act - all that can be done is come up with something that will work in average traffic conditions. It should be achievable, but not impossible. Until we get proper bus priority measures in place, it will never be 100% accurate, and you will have buses waiting on occasion along the route.

The problem is that the bus companies are measured for punctuality at every single stop along the route (the norm would be to have several timing points along the route) and then penalised if buses are more than one minute early or more than six minutes late.

You then have the issue of mid-term breaks - do you implement a revised schedule for one week only that reflects reduced traffic? It's an awful lot of work to come up with them in the first place.

coylemj

They've finally posted an official version of the PDF file annnouncing Phase 6A. Taisteal Eireann posted an earlier version in this thread, it had a launch date in late November.

The route map is in a separate PDF file, also available at the link below. You had to rotate the map when viewing it in the earlier file so it probably made sense to put it in it's own file, in portrait mode.

Scroll down to 'Route Map', the booklet links are just below the map…

https://www.transportforireland.ie/getting-around/by-bus/phase-6a-e-spine-launching-08-12-24/

thomasj

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122811958#Comment_122811958

yeah they're supplementing peak hour services , usually find one come behind another 39a so its handy for the extra capacity.

better off using them as extra capacity until the O route is launched.

halfpastneverr

3 days Dublin Bus live vehicle tracking has been down now, rendering bustimes, transit and the like useless. Incredibly frustrating this isn't a priority for DB/NTA. Wasted 20 mins at a stop this evening because I've no idea if my bus actually was running. Usually, I check the live tracking before leaving work when bus is on the quays, but had to stand there in hope instead, eventually gave up and crammed on a luas and walked the 40 mins home instead. Go Ahead live tracking is working fine, as are other operators. The fact we cannot get very basic stuff like this right in 2024 is a bloody joke.

LXFlyer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122813576#Comment_122813576

The predictive times do appear to be based on the live positions of the buses, based on my own experiences using the Transit app over the past day or two, but you can’t see the live locations of the buses on any of the apps which is annoying.

GAI tracking was down for several days until earlier this week.

Tusky

Is the 46A being completely scrapped when the Spine E launches next month? The E route does not seem to service Infirmary Road → North Circular Road → city centre. Is another route going to be introduced here?