BusConnects Dublin - Bus Network Changes Discussion

BlueSkyDreams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123026169#Comment_123026169

Are they offering work permits outside of the EU?

Are they disussing housing options with local councils to secure tenancies for drivers that move here, in advance of their relocation?

Have they applied to the govt for funding to purchase/rent accommodation under a key worker initiative?

Private firms are buying up housing for workers, govt key worker employers really need to be doing the same.

LXFlyer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123026169#Comment_123026169

Quite correct.

It’s worth noting that the bus companies have, I believe, recently hired mechanics from abroad and part of that package included providing accommodation for them.

BlueSkyDreams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123026214#Comment_123026214

Thats what they should haven been doing all along, so why has it taken them this long and where is the accountability for failed recruitment planning?

LXFlyer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123026226#Comment_123026226

Going to those lengths is very much a last resort - this is a failure of the State to provide affordable housing - not the bus companies.

BlueSkyDreams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123026241#Comment_123026241

It is a failure on both parts. Housing is there, not in the numbers we would like to see, but it is there.

The onus is with key worker employers to lobby for prioritisation on housing and it looks like they are finally doing it, based on the mechanic housing.

They could have done it a long time ago, just as the private sector did.

mikeybhoy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123026169#Comment_123026169

That's more been used by private operators like Dublin Coach as opposed to Dublin Bus or Bus Eireann. DC had drivers coming in from South Africa and were putting them up in accommodation.

ITV2

Dublin Coach seem nice to work for -

https://www.kfmradio.com/news/localnews/exclusive-dublin-coach-driver-blows-whistle-over-alleged-safety-failures-warns-of-potential-disasters/

ITV2

• https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2024/07/17/dublin-coach-driver-claims-he-was-fired-for-complaining-about-seriously-unsafe-vehicles/

Daith

You can't just magic up drivers, even if they have housing.

Also the bus corridors are probably far more important to the overall customer benefit, but they're incredibly slow in rolling out too

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123026948#Comment_123026948

If the infrastructure works move buses faster, we should need less drivers. If even some of the corridors had been built, we could be rolling out the phases faster.

mikeybhoy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123026873#Comment_123026873

There is no driver shortage there's a shortage of people willing to be treated like sh1t for crap wages

bk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123027249#Comment_123027249

Nope, there is a major EU (and UK) wide bus and truck driver shortage. 100,000 bus drivers and approaching 500,000 shortage if you include truck drivers!

It is due to a combination of record low unemployment levels across Europe, while Europe has an ageing population which is reaching retirement age, but not being replaced by younger people. An inverted pyramid and it brings all sorts of problems.

It is a fundamental issue and it isn't just hitting driving but is also hitting almost every sector of the economy. It is looking to be a fundamental, long term problem and one that we will have to take other approaches to deal with (larger buses, convert bus routes to Luas/Metro, more passengers per driver, etc.).

Burt Renaults

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123027816#Comment_123027816

There's a shortage of people willing to do it (especially that type of bus driving) for the money currently being offered. Everyone has a price though.

bikeman1

I've said this before. Dublin Bus need to move away from their old style of rostering. It needs to become a lot more driver friendly than it is.

Part time work would also be a huge benefit for them. I know of delivery companies, hauliers and even coach operators who hire people for one or two shifts a week. Yes, you would need to have certainty for their availability, but there would definitely be a cohort of people who would work a Saturday or Sunday shift as an extra job.

Also people who are available to work at different times during the week, but not necessarily be available 7 days a week / 24 hours a day with no exact knowledge of what you are doing until a few days before.

Airlines do this very well. They have 33% / 50% / 75% hours. Publish rosters well in advance or have set patterns or allow for a bidding process. This then allows the individual to do the job around their life and helps relieve pressure on the main roster.

I am aware they have part time drivers offer in place -

https://www.dublinbus.ie/careers/part-time-professional-bus-driver

But, this is to work every Sunday and one day during the other 6. This isn't good enough. I may care for my mother of a Tuesday and then they say, you have work a shift. Or whatever personal reason. They need to highlight that they will work with employees to fit their shifts in to suit them. It is the part time drivers that are digging them out of a hole, not the other way around.

thomasj

To be fair i do think the part time option is good , and I'm sure some people would be willing to work weekends and the odd evening here or there.

Also they're one of the few employers that pay their staff weekly, so for someone who does 9-5 mon-fri who has just spent all of their last monthly paycheck on Christmas presents and clothes etc and haven't got a dime for another 3 weeks , the option of an additional income and optional monetary overtime may tempt people into the job.

But if it does , they (DB) need to make it work. We've heard about people walking away at the training stage .

bikeman1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123028985#Comment_123028985

Well they should have budgeted accordingly within their means. €45,000 divided by 12 is the same as 52. Some people in Ireland should have more financial cop on and cut their cloth to match their circumstances. That’s a side story.

People walk away because of the uncertainty in their roster and late notice of what time they will be working bar late, middles or earlier, which have huge variances within them.

They have to manage their situation that they are getting paid very well to manage. Come up with innovative solutions instead of banging the same drum that nobody wants to hear.

MOH

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123008466#Comment_123008466

Here's an idea. Maybe put some information on the bus stops? You know, the ones where people regularly stand for ages while multiple buses fail to turn up on time.

Might have more chance of people being aware of proposed changes that affect them then.

Particularly ones that reduce the frequency of buses and greatly reduce connectivity

bk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123032619#Comment_123032619

Lots of info was posted on bus shelters at the time.

LXFlyer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123032619#Comment_123032619

There were ads on the sides of buses, and ads on bus shelters all over the city at the time publicising the consultations.

trellheim

With < 4 weeks to go, there is still no information on bus stops for the E spine/46a removal/other route changes.

The website itself (https://www.transportforireland.ie/getting-around/by-bus/phase-6a-e-spine/) does not currently give a date apart from "Jan 25".

Still think it'll be deferred myself.

MOH

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123032746#Comment_123032746

There were specific targeted ads in affected areas indicating proposed significant changes that would affect those areas?

And yet the first I heard of the changes to the 46a/145/15 was that RTE Bagatelle story I randomly stumbled across a few weeks ago.

The same for anyone I've spoken to who uses any of those routes. Nobody was aware of upcoming changes. There's nothing on any of the local stops advertising the imminent changes. There's nothing on the TFI website right now indicating when the changes are coming in. There's minimal details apart from a list of bus route IDs being removed/added and one laughably large-scale map.

There's massive loss in connectivity to the Phoenix Park, Heuston Station, and Pearse station.

There's an indicative frequency of 8-10 mins for the E1 and E2. These are replacing the 46 and 145 which already have a claimed 8-10 minute frequency. and the 155 with a 20-minute frequency. All of which is laughable, since there are already regularly 25+ minute gaps with no buses, any time of day. (Or no in-operation buses, but out of service buses which pass suspiciously close to the time a bus was due). That's only going to get worse with one less service.

The restructuring also completely ignores the insane amount of development that's happened over the past 7 years. e.g. the dozens apartment blocks being built around Shanganagh, the load of apartments going up in Stillorgan, the developments all along the N11. However it's dressed up it's a significant reduction in service.

Then again, being fit for purpose has never been a core requirement for Dublin public transport.

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123033101#Comment_123033101

The Bus Connects consultation was more than well-advertised. That somebody expects that a particular ad will target them and that they have to be spoon-fed the changes is a ridiculous expectation. This was the most comprehensive full-scale review of bus services that got huge coverage and huge consultation.

I know that there are people who ignore mainstream media news, but there were advertisements on social media as well. You would nearly have to be deliberately avoiding the news not to know.

LXFlyer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123033101#Comment_123033101

I really have better things to do than go over this again. There was massive publicity at the time across all of the media about the consultations. End of story.

Once they finally decide on an implementation date we should see detailed route timetables appear on the operating companies’ websites several weeks in advance of the changes taking place, and the timetables uploaded into the NTA journey planner.

The NTA also produce information booklets for each phase along with social media publicity and will ramp the publicity in general up about the forthcoming changes ahead of the implementation date.

As of today there is no date publicly decided so it’s a moot point.

As to the frequencies etc., I’ve my own concerns about that, but at this stage we will have to just wait and see how it all pans out.

It’s a completely revised network - that by its very nature means that people will lose and gain direct connections with different places. The time to object to that was back in 2018 and 2019 when the consultations took place.

trellheim

Just want to add that I've no connection to the other poster there but am heartened to see others have the same views - that there was not "massive publicity". There's no point going over it again as people have their own entrenched views of what was essentially 7 years ago.

Moving on, the E Spine launch has now moved from 8 December to 26 Jan to "Jan 2025" and likely to push further.

Arhanedus

I think that regardless of whether or not you think people should have already been aware of these changes, the more information we have the better. The bus routes will be changing quite soon (whether it will be January or not), so notices on busy bus stops with something like "You will soon be getting the E1 instead of the 145" or "Your 4 bus will no longer go to Harristown" would be useful and hopefully reduce the number of people complaining about total confusion.

While I think that most people are aware that BusConnects exists and is happening - not a lot of people seem to know what is happening when. As others mentioned, it's been years since the project started. Some of us may have been too young to care about this back in 2018, others may have simply forgotten about it since the previous phases didn't affect them.

When the E spine webpage was published, I heard people on the bus discussing the changes on my commute from university, and a lot of my friends didn't seem to know exactly what was happening either. Lots of people were unaware about these changes at first, and while it may be too late to do anything about it, they should at least know that this is happening, and then they can figure out whether or not it will affect them.

JPup

The driver shortage longer term will be solved by autonomous buses. The new metro will be driverless within 10 years. Robo taxis already active in several countries. I'd guess Ireland will probably see autonomous bus routes get phased in gradually from the 2040s.

devnull

First in the UK have today announced they have withdrawn 30 BYD ADL Enviro 200MMC single deckers because of cracks found in the 'structure' of the vehicles. They are to have remedial work to take place by the manufacturer.

https://news.stv.tv/west-central/first-bus-pulls-30-electric-buses-from-service-over-cracks-in-structure

A note that all but one the EA class Electric Single deckers of the same model in service with Dublin Bus have been off service since mid December and there's been no sign of them returning.

Note: I'm not saying the DB ones have these issues since the Bus Eireann ones are still up and running, I'm just providing this note here as I know there was discussion about reliability of the vehicles and also that is seemed somewhat of a co-incidence.

devnull

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123033594#Comment_123033594

Sorry to go against you here, but my view would echo that of LXFlyer.

This was the biggest consultation in the history of the state and there were multiple rounds of consultation, many leaflet and booklet drops, many events in many different locations and lots of publicity at bus stops, and shelters over the years. I really don't think that this was a light touch consultation the way that you think it was. It is impossible for a consultation to reach every single person, believe me, but I fundamentally think that the NTA did a huge amount in order to get the details out there.

There has also been no shortage of publicity about the scheme in the press and as someone who is internet savvy enough to post here, I am sure that you would have been aware of the Bus Connects website which had all the relevant details on and as a long time poster of boards and contributor to this forum I'm sure you have seen the various threads that have been posted on it. One of the reasons for having a master thread is so that everyone could find everything in one place.

As has been pointed out they went to many different suburbs and areas of Dublin to ensure everyone had one within a decent range of them, but asking them to hold one in each suburb (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_towns_and_villages_in_County_Dublin) in Dublin was never going to happen in reality, but the list of places they picked should have covered the overwhelming majority of places. I didn't have one directly in my area but there were a few quite close and the fact they were open from 2pm to 8pm meant that they were accessible for most working people too.

bk

In my area, we had local politicians run meetings about the changes in the area. Some of the meetings with the NTA present, some without. The politicians plastered posters about these meetings all over the area, outside the church, local shops, etc. The meetings were very well attended and the changes in my area were relatively trivial!

You'd have to have your head buried in the sand not to be aware of the changes.

I'm pretty dubious when people claim they weren't "consulted". I believe often what they mean is that an engineer didn't call to their individual house, sit down with them at the kitchen table and go through the details.

And more to the point, I believe many mean that they didn't take their feedback that they didn't want any change. Many seem to think that being "consulted" means that if you say that you don't want the change, that it automatically won't happen. That if even one person says no, that nothing happens!

BusGuy

The current S4 service is really reliable and not reliable if you take a look at today's morning service. Like 5 S4's in under 2 minutes near UCD today

This leaves lots of people (and students) waiting 30 if not 40 minutes in the bitter cold with no bus to go to UCD if they get off at Milltown Luas.

This confuses me as to why GAI put most onto it's buses onto the S4 clearly proving that they only have just over 250 vehicles… (source: https://bustimes.org/operators/go-ahead-ireland/vehicles )

If they want buses every 8-10 minutes, 250 buses is definitely not enough, wonder why GAI wont place any order's for any PA's or anything like that…