Go-Ahead Dublin City Routes - Updates and Discussion

prinzeugen

There was hardly anything else on the road but still drove ridiculously slow. A DB 18 would have taken about 20 mins for my journey in those conditions.

This bus took 35 mins. My record for walking from the Aviva to my house is 37 mins!

You could fail a driving test for going as slow as this guy. "Failure to make significant progress" or something similar.

Edit- post I was replying to deleted.

devnull

I'm a little confused.

Here you seem to suggest that a bus that left 40 minutes after yours caught you up.

prinzeugen wrote: »

Dont think thats the case. The 18 I got was crawling and was overtaken by another 18 on Appian Way and there was another 18 behind us when we eventually got to Northumberland Rd.

Our driver must have been going that slow that the two buses behind caught up and one was able to pass us!

But here you state that the bus journey only took 35 minutes.

prinzeugen wrote: »

There was hardly anything else on the road but still drove ridiculously slow. A DB 18 would have taken about 20 mins for my journey in those conditions.This bus took 35 mins. My record for walking from the Aviva to my house is 37 mins!

Reason being if your trip took 35 minutes it wouldn't be possible for the bus that left 40 minutes after yours to catch you up because your journey was complete before it would have left where you initially got on.

This would be possible however if they were running extra departures on route 18 for the match, which some people have told us did not happen. Seems they may be wrong from what you are saying.

Qrt

prinzeugen wrote: »

Dont think thats the case. The 18 I got was crawling and was overtaken by another 18 on Appian Way and there was another 18 behind us when we eventually got to Northumberland Rd.

Our driver must have been going that slow that the two buses behind caught up and one was able to pass us!

I kept humming the theme music from Driving Miss Daisy!

Go-Ahead’s new drivers (so the vast majority) are very to the book and extremely careful. First time I got the 175, the driver took approximately 30 seconds to pull into every stop, and at a few stages I thought he was stopped!

BonnieSituation

Interesting observation in Ballyfermot while I was in a construction traffic queue @ 2157 tonight:

RTPI at Bus Stop No. 2689
Ballyfermot Rd, Blackditch Drive

showed the following:

Bus 1: 76 CHAPELIZOD 4min
Bus 2: 18 SANDYMOUNT 17min
Bus 3: 18 SANDYMOUNT 17min
Bus 4: 40 CHARLESTOWN 18min

Why is the 76 showing as 4min when the bus itself is 4 vehicles ahead of me in the queue?
Why is the 18 duplicated?

Stephen15

Qrt wrote: »

Go-Ahead’s new drivers (so the vast majority) are very to the book and extremely careful. First time I got the 175, the driver took approximately 30 seconds to pull into every stop, and at a few stages I thought he was stopped!

Not always true I was on a GAI bus there a few weeks ago and the driver was booting it. Most I've been on have driven to the speed limit only once or twice the driver was going particularly and I got the impression this was to keep to the schedule as I had come across this particular driver on a previous occasion and he was going at a regular speed.

Stephen15

BonnieSituation wrote: »

Interesting observation in Ballyfermot while I was in a construction traffic queue @ 2157 tonight:

RTPI at Bus Stop No. 2689
Ballyfermot Rd, Blackditch Drive

showed the following:

Bus 1: 76 CHAPELIZOD 4min
Bus 2: 18 SANDYMOUNT 17min
Bus 3: 18 SANDYMOUNT 17min
Bus 4: 40 CHARLESTOWN 18min

Why is the 76 showing as 4min when the bus itself is 4 vehicles ahead of me in the queue?
Why is the 18 duplicated?

The 76 could be running ahead of schedule or there could be bunching. The two 18s could be an error as there have been lot's of problems with the TFI RTPI on GAI buses since the changeover.

BonnieSituation

Stephen15 wrote: »

The 76 could be running ahead of schedule or there could be bunching. The two 18s could be an error as there have been lot's of problems with the TFI RTPI on GAI buses since the changeover.

I think Stephen, I was being more than rhetorical. And be realistic, you'd need a miracle to bunch the 76s.

Re the 18s, yes, that is the case, but how is this still an issue at this stage of a handover?

Stephen15

BonnieSituation wrote: »

I think Stephen, I was being more than rhetorical. And be realistic, you'd need a miracle to bunch the 76s.

Re the 18s, yes, that is the case, but how is this still an issue at this stage of a handover?

I've seen 63s and 45as bunched together so a 76 wouldn't surprise me.

Anytime there's been a handover of routes so far there's been issues with the RTPI.

ax586

sugarman wrote: »

76 was a joke this evening, first bus either didnt show or came really early. 2nd was a single decker that was full and didnt stop and the bus I caught was 20mins late! Was over an hour waiting. 2hrs to get home.

They are putting single deckers on the routes that are not meant to be is cause there is a shortage of buses believe it or not someone in the NTA couldn't count by the looks of it there was even a single decker on the 45A aswel

ax586

Stephen15 wrote: »

I've seen 63s and 45as bunched together so a 76 wouldn't surprise me.

Anytime there's been a handover of routes so far there's been issues with the RTPI.

NTA is in charge rtpi unfortunately GAI wanted to take control of there routes just like Dublin bus does sure GAI are not allowed to have there own app like DB ridiculous

Stephen15

ax586 wrote: »

They are putting single deckers on the routes that are not meant to be is cause there is a shortage of buses believe it or not someone in the NTA couldn't count by the looks of it there was even a single decker on the 45A aswel

Thought the 18 and 76/a weren't due to move until GAI have got 8 more double deckers.

AlmightyCushion

ax586 wrote: »

NTA is in charge rtpi unfortunately GAI wanted to take control of there routes just like Dublin bus does sure GAI are not allowed to have there own app like DB ridiculous

The Dublin Bus app is gone, at least on Android. It's no longer in the Play Store

Yer Da sells Avon

When a passenger complains to me about the bus not showing up on the stupid, user-unfriendly app, or on the RTPI display, I advise them to disregard the so-called 'live timing' altogether because it's not fit for purpose. Until the NTA get their act together (which won't happen any time soon, because in addition to being worse than useless at every possible aspect of their job, they also appear to be completely unaccountable), it's a case of 'timetable and hope for the best'.

ax586

Stephen15 wrote: »

Thought the 18 and 76/a weren't due to move until GAI have got 8 more double deckers.

They only 3 in service 1 still hasn't entered and the other 4 hasn't been delivered as of yet..strong rumour going around that another 8 from Dublin bus aswel but take that with a pinch of salt

ax586

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

The Dublin Bus app is gone, at least on Android. It's no longer in the Play Store

Christ never noticed that

prinzeugen

devnull wrote: »

I'm a little confused.

Here you seem to suggest that a bus that left 40 minutes after yours caught you up.



But here you state that the bus journey only took 35 minutes.



Reason being if your trip took 35 minutes it wouldn't be possible for the bus that left 40 minutes after yours to catch you up because your journey was complete before it would have left where you initially got on.

This would be possible however if they were running extra departures on route 18 for the match, which some people have told us did not happen. Seems they may be wrong from what you are saying.

There are more 18s now (which is a good thing). The online realtime showed 3 x No 18 arriving at my departure stop within 30 mins at one point (Sandymount direction)

Using it again on Sat and will be getting a bus earlier. Just made it into work on Tue on time.

The RTI is bollox also. I look upto the RDS for an 18 on the way home, no sign and I walk up to Waterloo Rd as that stop has a RTPI display.

It went from Due - 3 mins - due - 1 min - vanished (Dart tracks) - 1 min... For 15 mins. The next 18 was "allegedly" 5 mins behind that one?

The only upside to this is that there is a more frequent service (on paper) and the drivers are pleasant. Poor otherwise.

prinzeugen

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

The Dublin Bus app is gone, at least on Android. It's no longer in the Play Store

There is an older version that I use. Does not show the Go-ahead bus services though.

I uninstalled updates and it still works..

Qrt

Are the NTA buying these single deckers for use on the future O route? I feel that would be a contributing factor.

dfx-

Stephen15 wrote: »

Could be a newly trained driver but I'd say it was more likely that the driver was driving slow to keep on time and not run early as unlike Dublin Bus Go-Ahead drivers are not allowed run ahead of schedule and various timing points not sure if that's NTA policy or internal GAI policy.

It's also happened me on a GAI bus where the driver pulled in at a stop for about 5 minutes as he was running early.

Nothing that complicated. It was just slow.

But at least it was a double decker. Single deckers should not be on the 76/18 (or most of their other routes). Is there anywhere we can find out the service requirements that the NTA set out for them?

I presume it's less expensive to run a single decker from what was a double decker five days ago..who makes the saving? Who is checking?

dublinman1990

I was in a taxi passing Blackrock yesterday evening. I saw two 17's stopping at the bus stop outside the old toilets at Blackrock park.

Stephen15

dfx- wrote: »

Nothing that complicated. It was just slow.

But at least it was a double decker. Single deckers should not be on the 76/18 (or most of their other routes). Is there anywhere we can find out the service requirements that the NTA set out for them?

I presume it's less expensive to run a single decker from what was a double decker five days ago..who makes the saving? Who is checking?

Well according to one of the OPs who appears to be a GAI driver the single deckers have ended up on the 18 and 76 because the NTA ordered a shortage of buses and GAI are still waiting on the a number of the 8 buses which they were meant to get.

I agree there shouldn't be single deckers on the 18 or 76 but most other routes which have switched to single deckers apart from the 102 and to a lesser extent the 184 and 270 can cope perfectly fine using single deckers the likes of the 33b, 104, 161, 220, 236, 238 and 239 etc. don't require double deckers and manage with single deckers. The savings may allow the NTA to increase frequency where nessecary.

sharper

prinzeugen wrote: »

There is an older version that I use. Does not show the Go-ahead bus services though.

I uninstalled updates and it still works..

I read somewhere the Dublin Bus app will be coming back eventually, I don't know if it'll ever show Go Ahead services though.

I find the TFI app quite clunky to use, Next Bus Dublin is far nicer and lets you select DB, TFI or both as data sources.

AlmightyCushion

sharper wrote: »

I read somewhere the Dublin Bus app will be coming back eventually, I don't know if it'll ever show Go Ahead services though.

I find the TFI app quite clunky to use, Next Bus Dublin is far nicer and lets you select DB, TFI or both as data sources.

I don't mind the Real Time Ireland one. It can be a bit shít but for looking checking buses at stops it's grand and that's what I mostly use the app for. I'll give that Next Bus Dublin a go though, see what it's like. I would love for an app that had a widget that would show the bus arriving at a stop to save you having the app open.

lil5

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

I don't mind the Real Time Ireland one. It can be a bit shít but for looking checking buses at stops it's grand and that's what I mostly use the app for. I'll give that Next Bus Dublin a go though, see what it's like. I would love for an app that had a widget that would show the bus arriving at a stop to save you having the app open.

Next Bus Dublin has a couple of stop widgets.
Well worth trying out.
And, if you have any suggestions for improvements, the developer is very helpful.

sharper

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

I would love for an app that had a widget that would show the bus arriving at a stop to save you having the app open.

In addition to what lil5 said you can also pick the bus you want to get and get a notification X number of minutes before it's due.

L1011

Qrt wrote: »

Are the NTA buying these single deckers for use on the future O route? I feel that would be a contributing factor.

No, these were got for the routes they're currently running on. It appears something went wrong in capacity planning for some of them; one suggestion on here that is plausible is that FTP users weren't always being recorded and hence they had an inaccurate idea of usage but I think there'd need to be more distortion factors than that

They may end up using them on the O due to needing to buy new double deckers for the overloaded routes though!

lil5

sharper wrote: »

In addition to what lil5 said you can also pick the bus you want to get and get a notification X number of minutes before it's due.

Yes, another brilliant feature of the app.
And shows up the operational shambles that are DB when buses go missing again and again.
Haven't tried it with the GAI buses yet.

A2000

Got 13.00 76 from tallaght today. Busy but not full. Took 10 mins to exit square at the institute. 55 mins to liffey valley. 1hr 2 mins to gala ballyfermot. Very slow. There was someone from go ahead in hi vis helping people on and off with prams and advising the driver. Hope the journey times improve as this was off peak.

KD345

lil5 wrote: »

Yes, another brilliant feature of the app.
And shows up the operational shambles that are DB when buses go missing again and again.
Haven't tried it with the GAI buses yet.

The Dublin Bus app remains the only app to show short working on routes. When a bus is curtailed, the TFI Real Time app does not show the change, neither does Next Bus Dublin.

See images - the next 40 due at Thomas Street is only running to Westmoreland Street but the TFI/NBD app shows it running to Charlestown. The Journey Planner app has a note that this service is curtailed but still displays ‘towards Charlestown’. The on street screens do show the curtailment.

I’m not sure why the apps show different destinations. At least with Dublin Bus you can get accurate information from their app, but you don’t have that with Go-Ahead. It would seem a lot of Go-Ahead services are just displaying timetabled arrival times at stops rather than Real Time.

Stephen15

dfx- wrote: »

Nothing that complicated. It was just slow.

But you mention that the bus was not late just slow so at a guess that would suggest that the bus was running on time. This would suggest if the driver was faster the bus would be early.