Kilkenny City Bus Service

Stevek101

There is a tender out by NTA for bus services for Kilkenny. 2 routes frequent routes operating 7 days a week. Great to see public transport being developed outside of Dublin as well.

The National Transport Authority requires an operator to operate two reliable and punctual bus services in Kilkenny City: • Green Route – 8.5km long with 13 stops between termini; • Red Route – 8.7km long with 19 stops between termini. It is envisaged that each route will operate a service every 30 minutes Monday to Saturday and an hourly service on Sunday. Departures between routes will be coordinated so that a 15 minute service is maintained on the trunk section of the routes in the city centre. Services are envisaged to run from 07:00 to 22:00 on weekdays, with a slightly later start and finish time on Saturdays. Sundays will have a shorter operating day. Further details of the indicative routes can be found in Appendix A of the attached Information Memorandum.

Stephen15

Is there demand?

road_high

Stephen15 wrote: »

Is there demand?

Not sure. I live in kilkenny and it's very car dependent and will be hard to get people out of cars. Not a huge working clsss population to be frank that would traditionally use buses. Also no 3rd level facility to boost demand.

cgcsb

https://www.kilkennypeople.ie/news/home/372331/city-bus-routes-revealed-with-work-to-start-on-kilkenny-s-new-bus-stops.html

Apparently work on the stops has started. I'd be curious to see what bus priority measures will be in place. To be attractive, it must offer a time saving.
I'd suggest the best way to do this is:

-Make the main bridge bus only
-bus only at the bottom high street, from the Left Bank junction up to the turn to Friary St
-Bus only on Parliament St from James' st to the Bank of Ireland.

Then see how it works, throw in some more bus gates as required, Kilkenny and continuous stretches of bus lane probably wont mix so a series of short bus gates would be a better solution. Will be interesting to see in action, Kilkenny is quite a small urban area so achieving some modal shift there will be a great test case for the rest of the country.

Gael23

There is absolutely a need for a service linking all the factories and offices in Loughboy into town.

Qrt

That Sunday service is shocking but I guess it's to be expected. Is it true Waterford only got a Sunday service with the recent revamp?

Gael23

Yes there was never a Sunday service in Waterford up to this year

cgcsb

Would be great if the buses were electric and there were a number of busgates in KK, nice quiet streets, lots people and bikes going around, the current urban environment is hectic with cars.

Gael23

Who is going to operate it!

Qrt

Gael23 wrote: »

Who is going to operate it!

That’s what the tender is all about... BÉ might get it if they apply, which I’m guessing they will. Alternatively, I can see JJ Kavanagh bidding considering it’s their ancestral homeland. I doubt the big players would apply, but I think the likes of Go-Ahead, Transdev and even RATP applied for the Waterford tender.

Qrt

cgcsb wrote: »

Would be great if the buses were electric and there were a number of busgates in KK, nice quiet streets, lots people and bikes going around, the current urban environment is hectic with cars.

I think the bus in itself will reduce a fair bit of that. I’d love to see the Dunnes Car Park turned into a park but a boy can dream.

holliehobbie

Elderly people who have free travel will use it!

cgcsb

holliehobbie wrote: »

Elderly people who have free travel will use it!

That's great. Hopefully everyone will use it as often as possible, and the infrastructure required will make cycling around Kilkenny much more pleasant also.

Stephen15

Are the operators themselves expected to provide their own buses for this service similar to the 139 and 197 contracts or are the NTA providing buses for it themselves similar to the buses for GAI, DB and BE. I would imagine if the latter they'd probably get Streetlites the same as BE got in Waterford, Athlone, Sligo and Dundalk recently to run on this service.

I'd say JJK would be best placed to win this contract as they are the only company with a depot in the vicinity. BE on the other hand don't have any depot located near Kilkenny and would probably have to base the buses in Waterford or set up an outstation in Kilkenny.

Gael23

Qrt wrote: »

That’s what the tender is all about... BÉ might get it if they apply, which I’m guessing they will. Alternatively, I can see JJ Kavanagh bidding considering it’s their ancestral homeland. I doubt the big players would apply, but I think the likes of Go-Ahead, Transdev and even RATP applied for the Waterford tender.

Buggy’s do a service from Kilkenny to Castlecomer so they are a possibility. Although they would need to get new vehicles

linny

Open to correction but think I read somewhere that the bus’s are bought already just waiting on them and operator to be appointed, see most of the kerbs where stops are goin have been replaced and raised,
just waiting on bus shelters be be put up

Stephen15

linny wrote: »

Open to correction but think I read somewhere that the bus’s are bought already just waiting on them and operator to be appointed, see most of the kerbs where stops are goin have been replaced and raised,
just waiting on bus shelters be be put up

The NTA did order 88 Streetlites so far 40 have entered service with GAI in Dublin, 17 with BE in Waterford and a number have entered service with BE in Athlone and Dundalk and are due to enter service in Navan and Sligo to replace the AM class so perhaps some of that order will also go to Kilkenny aswell but I'm not sure.

Quackster

Is this approach to be rolled out to other towns or are us misfortunates in Tralee stuck with our embarrassingly horrific 'service'?

I've always wondered how it is that a couple of random towns have a BÉ urban service.

questionmark?

Quackster wrote: »

Is this approach to be rolled out to other towns or are us misfortunates in Tralee stuck with our embarrassingly horrific 'service'?

I've always wondered how it is that a couple of random towns have a BÉ urban service.

Tralee has potential. The IT campuses are spread out and have demand potential to support the service.

Stephen15

Quackster wrote: »

Is this approach to be rolled out to other towns or are us misfortunates in Tralee stuck with our embarrassingly horrific 'service'?

I've always wondered how it is that a couple of random towns have a BÉ urban service.

Are they still running an old ex DB City Imp Mercedes minibus down in Tralee remember being down there years ago and seeing a city imp with DB and City Imp branding removed but still had the yellow and red livery down in Tralee running as a town service.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darren_hall/5486482359

john boye

Stephen15 wrote: »

Are they still running an old ex DB City Imp Mercedes minibus down in Tralee remember being down there years ago and seeing a city imp with DB and City Imp branding removed but still had the yellow and red livery down in Tralee running as a town service.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darren_hall/5486482359

They had two I think, an MA and an ME. They'd be pretty old now and were never the best to begin with.

Quackster

Stephen15 wrote: »

Are they still running an old ex DB City Imp Mercedes minibus down in Tralee remember being down there years ago and seeing a city imp with DB and City Imp branding removed but still had the yellow and red livery down in Tralee running as a town service.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darren_hall/5486482359

I haven't taken too much notice recently but I think the buses they're currently using are slightly newer but in the same sh*te condition.

cgcsb

Quackster wrote: »

Is this approach to be rolled out to other towns or are us misfortunates in Tralee stuck with our embarrassingly horrific 'service'?

I've always wondered how it is that a couple of random towns have a BÉ urban service.

The amount of towns with a bus service is definitely on the up. The thing is there needs to be bus priority measures to make the service fast at peak times. I'd imagine Tralee would have to be on the list. Cavan got a town service after all.

Vic_08

cgcsb wrote: »

The amount of towns with a bus service is definitely on the up. The thing is there needs to be bus priority measures to make the service fast at peak times. I'd imagine Tralee would have to be on the list. Cavan got a town service after all.

As mentioned above Tralee has a service run by a small local company.

http://traleeactivetravel.ie/public-transport/

Many other towns have similar services. Even a relatively small town like Conmel has a town bus service.

Most of these have very poor publicity, poor or no internet presence and roadside/stop presentation is often non-existant, they can be all but invisible to non-locals.

That is before we even mention things like accessibility as many are run with "breadvans" as in the above picture. As with the higher profile inter-city commercial sector it seems the NTA are unwilling to regulate or enforce any sort of standards that state and tendered operators are expected to abide by.

Kilkenny is also in this list as it has had a town service for ages, last time I checked it was run by Bernard Kavanagh or one of their brands. Looking now it is listed on their website with other local routs in the region they operate but no timetables listed for any of them.

Ring-a-link have a listing for a Kilkenny town service that may be the same service.

https://www.ringalink.ie/bus-services/bus-timetable/2402/