BusConnects Dublin - Bus Network Changes Discussion

Charles Babbage

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123922055#Comment_123922055

Cover it over now then.

thomasj

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123922809#Comment_123922809

Are you sure it's as easy as that ?

The area in question you're talking about is part of a planning process made by Irish rail for electrification and has been approved by an bord planola. You'll need to examine if planning permission will need to be amended for this ?

Also need to examine is there room to roof the area factoring in the height required for the overhead wires in this case?

Charles Babbage

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123923267#Comment_123923267

If wires go under the bridges then the they can go under the roof, which could be a little higher than Whitworth road if needed.

Kiteview

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123922326#Comment_123922326

The problem with congestion charges can be in large part be resolved by using exponential pricing.

If you only enter the congestion zone on very rate occasions (eg once or twice a month over the course of a year), the price you pay can be a small nominal amount (or even free). If, however, you systematically enter the congestion zone, then the price could start to increase sharply as you continue to repeatedly enter the congestion zone - and, for most people, there is a “price point” at which they’ll decide they’ll either switch to public transport or just avoid the congestion zone altogether.

BlueSkyDreams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123923329#Comment_123923329

Those that cant afford the congestion charge and cant commute via public transport could quit their jobs.

For lower paid jobs, would we be able to replace those workers?

Its not true that everyone driving into the city centre could use public transport instead.

We would need a lot more housing for workers in the city to make a congestion charge work, meaning those commuters could walk or cycle to the office and not have to rely on public transport.

Kiteview

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123923339#Comment_123923339

Congestion charges have been introduced in lots of cities around the world at this stage so I don’t think that argument holds up. People can and do make adjustments when congestion charges are introduced.

Also, my post was largely in response to another poster who made the point that a (flat rate) congestion charge would not be a deterrent to the wealthy, so you’d effectively have two-tier access to the congestion zone. A non-flat rate and rapidly rising congestion charge for “repeat offenders” would address that.

Lastly, please remember that there is a “price” to the current system we have (ie not having a congestion charge) and that is air pollution (which negatively impacts health) and major traffic congestion (which directly results in massive slow downs of public transport thus delaying people who use it).

LXFlyer

Delete please.

LXFlyer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123921939#Comment_123921939

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123922641#Comment_123922641

OP I would strongly recommend taking a taxi. The bus service is demolished on Marathon Day. It just cannot cope with it.

Despite the notices saying that the Green Line will be operating normally, they will have to hold trams either side of the race course on Harcourt St and on St Stephen’s Green when each wave of the race starts.

So don’t expect “normal” operations.

Daith

Ah I thought the 7.20 F3 from Charlestown might be fine today. Seems to be ahead of schedule (at least before Whitworth Road). But we've been told there isn't a bus driver available to take over and the last stop will be Parnell St.

john boye

The 725 from Limekiln was a no show too.

Daith

A big issue is now people might have a 30 minute wait if one bus is cancelled.

The spine concept is fine if you're living along the spine and can avail of multiple buses.

oneilla

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123923552#Comment_123923552

It's just like the old days of standing at a bus stop and praying that something shows up!

OscarMIlde

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123922313#Comment_123922313

What makes it worse is that a lot of the TFI leap app bus stop tracking is missing lots of buses. I find there are X25 and X31 buses running in the evening, that don't show at all on any bus stop RTPI. It makes it hard to figure out when to leave or whether to get on a different bus to try to connect with a service that goes to your location downstream. I've got on an X27 once or twice only to find an X25 pass me by and then face a long wait at the Spa hotel to get on a Leixlip bound bus.

OscarMIlde

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123923776#Comment_123923776

I find I'm not only praying that a bus shows up, but that it is actually letting passengers board. Busconnects reduced the number of city-centre to Leixlip buses from four an hour to three an hour, and it is just not sufficient. They got away with it only because of the shift towards work from home from Covid.

L1011

Leixlip was also originally going to have all the C4s run through it too (via the old HP site); but that was changed back to the old 67 route without other matching changes

LXFlyer

From what I can see, the fundamental problem here is the same as happened with the G-Spine - the scheduled running times are totally unrealistic.

This means that buses are not arriving at their destination (or driver handover point) on time, and as a result the following departures are being cancelled or curtailed to start further down the route.

It’s a real mess by the sounds of it and it’s going to take time to resolve it, as more buses and drivers are going to be needed to deliver the planned schedules.

To sort it, they will need completely revised rosters to be prepared based on corrected running times and that won’t happen overnight.

The fact that the live positions of buses operated by Dublin Bus hasn’t been working for over a week now on any of the apps isn’t helping, nor are the ongoing cancellations across the network due to lack of drivers.

Ironically, I’m not seeing too many complaints online about the GAI operated route 73 so far!

bikeman1

Is it really that hard to work out how long a bus is going to take to make its journey. They could literally drive a bus along the routes planned, peak, busy and off peak.

I mean even the revised 27B timetable has glaring mistakes after 2 minutes of going through it! And this is the same route they have been running for decades!

They have had multiple launches and still can’t get it right.

Daith

I did wonder before the launch with the driver resourcing issues, if they should have just had a F1 and F2. I don't know enough about the southside but at least on Northside, the F1 could have covered McKee Ave and Finglas Main St, Finglas Road, and the F2 could cover Finglas North and South.

Probably unrealistic, but they are struggling with three routes.

mikeybhoy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123923989#Comment_123923989

I blame the NTA for pushing changes that weren't needed or wanted

p_haugh

Percentage of cancellations for the new routes just for yesterday, taken from https://buscancellationsdublin.eu/

F-spine routes not looking great, especially almost 16% for the F1! Good to see no issues with the L89.

Sunday for comparison is looking better, but also shows how much the 23 is affected by the poor running times. It is mostly partial cancellations, with only a few full cancellations.

(Note - not sure if this data is also affected by the real-time issues on the data feed, so I'm not taking these numbers as gospel)

Arhanedus

I decided to take the 73 from Eden Quay to Marino today just before 10am and it seemed okay. The main issue with those buses is that for some godforsaken reason the buses are given just two minutes to go from Ormond Quay all the way to Eden Quay, which threw the real-time predictions out the window.

The bus I got on arrived to Eden Quay 15 minutes late, but timetable issues plague the rest of the F spine routes too anyway. At least the bus showed up and it was fairly peaceful the rest of the way. After reaching Marino, the bus departed back to Walkinstown on time, so at least the 73 gets enough time at the terminus to account for regular delays.

FionnB

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123922231#Comment_123922231

23/24 are definitely not a replacement for the 83, which has not been replaced at all on the southside. The 82 replaces some of the route, but does not go northside any more, big loss. F3 is supposedly also a replacement for the 9.

OscarMIlde

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123923845#Comment_123923845

To be honest, I think Celbridge bound people have a long enough commute, I think that was an unnecessary detour for them.

The issue is genuinely just not enough buses for the number of commuters. The fact the buses come from Ringsend or UCD means they get full of Palmerstown/Lucan bound passengers meaning downstream Leixlip/Celbridge/Maynooth people can't get on.

bikeman1

Any reports on the 73 in the direction of Walkinstown?

From what I could gather on Bus Times, it is predictably taking an age from its left turn after Summerhill, down Gardnier Street, around to the quays. There is no bus priority along this section.

john boye

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123923989#Comment_123923989

I thought the same thing first thing yesterday morning about the running time. The fact that the 27B timetable change has gone tight on some departures suggests that they tried to get this whole spine and related changes through without enough drivers. Quite reckless really to go back to that when the E-spine seemed to be launched with ample recovery time in schedules.

It's also quite absurd try it at a time when many existing routes are having to have their timetables/duties updated to give them more time.

ShagNastii

It'd be an incredible turn of events if a massive public transport re-jig like this drove more people into their cars. 30 mins plus onto your normal bus commute is a total own goal.

Is there any real good news stories coming out of this?

cgcsb

Indeed Finglas is very much being encouraged to switch to car.

TranslatorPS

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123924008#Comment_123924008

You don't even need to burn fuel to get timings.

All you need is exact distances between individual stops and a set of timings for distance bands. I had something like this devised a while back for timings in bands of 15 seconds: one set of timings for stops doable in under 20 seconds from the previous one (yes, there are some like that!), then 21-35", then 36-50", then 51"-1'5", then 1'6"-1'20", etc. based on average speeds. The average speeds were something like 25 km/h for your average driving, then 32 km/h for when you have bus lanes available, or drop down to 18 km/h for inner city where you're dragging along anyway. If 25 km/h is just under 7 m/s, that means that the bands were for distances of under 140 m, then 141-245 m, then 246-350 m, then 351-455 m, then 456-560 m, etc. Then all you have to do is identify stops which tend to have longer loading times in certain directions at certain times, bump them up to account for the passengers, as well as identify traffic lights along the route and add buffer time for junctions covered in directions more likely to be held by lights. Draw up the running times in 15" accuracy, but drop the seconds for public release. Adjust running times based on predictable speeds during certain times of the day (heavier traffic = slower bus = drop down a speed band) and voila, you should have a respectable enough schedule.

Then, when integrating routes, start with the longest route first – especially in terms of layover times – and make the shorter routes slot into that. The 23 should be laid to match the 24 on that account. On the F-spine, the F2 and F3 should be slotted into the F1. Similarly:
southbound E1 should slide into the E2, northbound E2 should slide into the E1 (yeah, an oddball in that aspect);
the 87 should be inserted into the 88 schedule;
northbound the B4 should be laid first, then the B3, then the B1+B2; southbound the B2 or the B3 first, then the other, then B1, then B4;
southbound first the A4, then the A2, then the A1, then the A3; northbound it should be the A2 first, then the A4, then the A1+A3;
northbound first the D3, then the D2, then the D1 and lastly the D4; southbound you can oddly enough keep the same order;
it looks like the 34 and the 37 have matching enough frequencies, but its route is more common with the 35, so I'm just going to say that all three should be integrated from Burlington Road outbound and along Navan Road inbound;
on the 20+21 it will make little difference;
the 58 timetable should be slotted into the 57.

The love for lovely rounded departure times from termini needs to go away. There's no point in making an aesthetically pleasing timetable with departures all lined up at 00/20/40 when there's a 7' holding time sneaked in halfway down the road, because at that point all that it becomes is an aesthetically pleasing timetable, which is useless – timetables aren't meant to be aesthetically pleasing, they're meant to be practical. There's little difference if your bus departs at 00/20/40 past the hour or if it's at 07/27/47, as long as it's uniform enough.

Daith

It appears at least some Northbound F buses are starting from Parnell Sq.

Not sure how widespread but does explain a few of the oddities I've seen

BlueSkyDreams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123923361#Comment_123923361

Congestion charges work in cities that have viable public transport.

You cant drive into london without paying the charge but thats ok, you can get the Tube instead.

Someone living in Dublin, Meath, Wicklow or Wexford but working in an industrial estate in Dublin wont be able to get to work via multiple bus changes, even if the buses were running to schedule, which they are not.

You have to have excellent public transport in place before you can roll out a congestion charge.

We are a long way from that.