'The NTA Journey Planner is a complete mess'

Banjoxed

The Rail Developments Blog reviews the NTA Journey Planner for a trip between Dublin and Belfast, and finds a useless mess of a journey involving changing between trains and buses at Newry as a result. Is it an overegged bus bias creating garbage in, garbage out? Looks like those settings can't be tweaked that easily. In the meantime, you'll still look in vain for accurate bus times on the planner between East Inishowen and Derry.

https://irishrailwaydevelopments.wordpress.com/2017/09/11/the-nta-journey-planner-is-a-complete-mess/

Wheety

Google maps is all I use. Put in where you leaving from and where you're going to and you get driving/cycling/walking/public transport options with estimated journey times for each.

Banjoxed

Wheety wrote: »

Google maps is all I use. Put in where you leaving from and where you're going to and you get driving/cycling/walking/public transport options with estimated journey times for each.

I personally would have no confidence in the presumably expensively maintained a-b.ie if it gets really basic things wrong. I'll give Google Maps the once over regarding my local buses and see if it gets that right.

devnull

Banjoxed wrote: »

The Rail Developments Blog reviews the NTA Journey Planner for a trip between Dublin and Belfast, and finds a useless mess of a journey involving changing between trains and buses at Newry as a result. Is it an overegged bus bias creating garbage in, garbage out?

Route planners by their nature offer very specific and very detailed route planning options and the information that they give out will be more accurate the more detailed information that someone puts in to them.

Unfortunately it seems in this case it seems the author of that article has not put very specific information into the journey planner and has instead inserted simply Dublin into the from part and Belfast into the to part which is pretty ambigious.

Therefore with very vague information inserted in by the user, the system has to have a guess at where the user means, so a fair guess of that would be the middle of each city center because of the lack of information being supplied by the user.

The fact that the walk through Belfast Central to what could be deemed as the city center takes approx 15-20 minutes means that once you add this in, the option it suggests with changes actually is quicker when basing the start of the journey at Dublin City Center to Belfast City Center.

As for the reason that the Translink journey planner does not show the same bus, easy answer. The Translink Journey Planner does not show all services operated by Bus Eireann cross border.

devnull

Banjoxed wrote: »

I personally would have no confidence in the presumably expensively maintained a-b.ie if it gets really basic things wrong. I'll give Google Maps the once over regarding my local buses and see if it gets that right.

If you try puttng specific information in rather than a vague name of a city, you'll find that it works much better.

'Dublin' or 'Belfast' is hugely ambigious, it's a journey planner and by journey it means door to door, so best type in where your journey starts and where your journey ends, rather than simply a city name which could mean anywhere in the whole city.

It's called a journey planner, not a stop to stop or station to station planner so it just goes for the fastest possible route between two places, since normally people will always want to see the fastest route rather than the one with fewest changes.

If you want one with the fewest changes, then there is an option for that - the one thing I would like to see changed on the journey planner however is that the advanced options pane allowing you to select fewest changes / fastest route etc, is open by default.

Victor

The NTA is dependent on the operators providing accurate data.

Banjoxed wrote: »

The Rail Developments Blog reviews the NTA Journey Planner for a trip between Dublin and Belfast, and finds a useless mess of a journey involving changing between trains and buses at Newry as a result.

The others have addressed this. The author there appears not to understand how journey planners work.

Is it an overegged bus bias

There is no bus bias. The journey planner returned the fastest journey, based on the information it had. That information (not the journey planner) appears to be wrong.

creating garbage in, garbage out?

Garbage data in, garbage data out. The problem here would seem to be a Bus Éireann problem - they seem to have added the Cullingtree Road stop to route 160, even though the 160 doesn't go anywhere near it. This is an operator problem, not an NTA problem.

Looks like those settings can't be tweaked that easily.

Just select "Trip options" and de-select bus.

In the meantime, you'll still look in vain for accurate bus times on the planner between East Inishowen and Derry.

Have you reported this? Which operator(s)?

devnull

Wheety wrote: »

Google maps is all I use. Put in where you leaving from and where you're going to and you get driving/cycling/walking/public transport options with estimated journey times for each.

Good luck with that.

Google calculations work exactly the same as the NTA Journey Planner, it won't recommend the train for 9:15 in the morning departure if you specify simply Belfast because again city center to city center the bus is quicker.

If you specify somewhere somewhere specifically nearer the train station than the city center it will recommend the train however over the bus.

Banjoxed

Victor wrote: »

The NTA is dependent on the operators providing accurate data.

The others have addressed this. The author there appears not to understand how journey planners work.

There is no bus bias. The journey planner returned the fastest journey, based on the information it had. That information (not the journey planner) appears to be wrong.

Garbage data in, garbage data out. The problem here would seem to be a Bus Éireann problem - they seem to have added the Cullingtree Road stop to route 160, even though the 160 doesn't go anywhere near it. This is an operator problem, not an NTA problem.

Just select "Trip options" and de-select bus.

Have you reported this? Which operator(s)?

I have - Last year. Never acted on. Foylecoaches.com and Inishowen Rural Transport have accurate information though.

rebel456

Issue seems to be where the location of the 'Belfast' marker is as it appears the bus drop off is closer thus giving those options. It could also be that some local services in NI are not loaded as well as Dublin Bus.

I did input Dublin to Albert Clock it gave me a route taking the Enterprise and walking.

Another issue might be that the train is not that frequent so it looks departures sooner via bus.

I think it's a decent journey planner but 99% of time I use Google Maps.

Banjoxed

This journey is a bizarre mess.

The Squealin' Pig in Muff, Co. Donegal is a public transport marker on a-b.ie.

Doing a straight forward enough journey via Derry to Leixlip has some fictitious elements to it, specifically BÉ route 64 which now appears to have a non-stop extra leg to the Falls in Belfast.

Banjoxed

There is another impossible bus routing.

There is a frequent bus from Newry to Belfast that stops in the Falls, and takes half an hour to Belfast from Newry - via Dundalk.

Is this test data that was left in the live data?

Bit sloppy if it was.

devnull

Bad data supplied by Bus Eireann it seems, a lot of their timetables that are in the database have random Falls stops in them that make no sense and in some cases impossibly short journey times.

As Victor said, bad data in, bad data out, the journey planner is going on the data it has which seems to be incorrect, in fact a lot of cross border routes by Bus Eireann appear to have stops in their dataset which they don't actually serve. Doesn't seem to effect other operators.

It's like someone was using a template file for the data and forgot to remove the details from the template file rather than creating a new file from scratch.

This for example is the data that it's working off for the 64 route. Note the random stop in Belfast.

Victor

Banjoxed wrote: »

There is a frequent bus from Newry to Belfast that stops in the Falls, and takes half an hour to Belfast from Newry - via Dundalk.

That's the same route and dud stop as on Irish Railway Developments blog. There are actually 3 spurious Belfast stops added to that route.

The common factor appears to be Bus Éireann.

Banjoxed

devnull wrote: »

Bad data supplied by Bus Eireann it seems, a lot of their timetables that are in the database have random Falls stops in them that make no sense and in some cases impossibly short journey times.

As Victor said, bad data in, bad data out, the journey planner is going on the data it has which seems to be incorrect, in fact a lot of cross border routes by Bus Eireann appear to have stops in their dataset which they don't actually serve. Doesn't seem to effect other operators.

It's like someone was using a template file for the data and forgot to remove the details from the template file rather than creating a new file from scratch.

This for example is the data that it's working off for the 64 route. Note the random stop in Belfast.

Thanks very much for that. I recall seeing a phantom Dublin Bus route 86 on the data before - but it seems to be gone now. There must be a number of glitches on the data, especially on the cross border routings.

As an aside, Translink offers links to ROI travel data on the turn of a button on their planner, but it is a module off the Transport for Ireland site. Interesting to see the accuracy of that..

devnull

Victor wrote: »

That's teh same dud stop as on Irish Railway Developments.

The common factor appears to be Bus Éireann.

160 route has weird extra stops in Belfast too

See here and note the weird orphaned 3 stops in Belfast.

If you go to the route maps tab, and type the route number in, you can see the route as it is in the database.

ED E

That one in east belfast

http://journeyplanner.transportforireland.ie/nta/XSLT_DM_REQUEST?std3_mapDMMacro=true&itdLPxx_template=tooltip&name_dm=10011404&nameArea_dm=[B]0[/B]&nameKey_dm=231&plSpec_dm=1&_=1505161042640

Another belfast

http://journeyplanner.transportforireland.ie/nta/XSLT_DM_REQUEST?std3_mapDMMacro=true&itdLPxx_template=tooltip&name_dm=10011244&nameArea_dm=[B]0[/B]&nameKey_dm=214&plSpec_dm=1&_=1505161042642

Newry Bus Centre

http://journeyplanner.transportforireland.ie/nta/XSLT_DM_REQUEST?std3_mapDMMacro=true&itdLPxx_template=tooltip&name_dm=10000574&nameArea_dm=3&nameKey_dm=15515&plSpec_dm=1&_=1505161042641

See bold text. Could this be the tyranny of the default?

Victor

ED E wrote: »

That one in east belfast

[noparse]http://journeyplanner.transportforireland.ie/nta/XSLT_DM_REQUEST?std3_mapDMMacro=true&itdLPxx_template=tooltip&name_dm=10011404&nameArea_dm=[/noparse]0[noparse]&nameKey_dm=231&plSpec_dm=1&_=1505161042640[/noparse]

Another belfast

[noparse]http://journeyplanner.transportforireland.ie/nta/XSLT_DM_REQUEST?std3_mapDMMacro=true&itdLPxx_template=tooltip&name_dm=10011244&nameArea_dm=[/noparse]0[noparse]&nameKey_dm=214&plSpec_dm=1&_=1505161042642[/noparse]


Newry Bus Centre
[noparse]http://journeyplanner.transportforireland.ie/nta/XSLT_DM_REQUEST?std3_mapDMMacro=true&itdLPxx_template=tooltip&name_dm=10000574&nameArea_dm=3&nameKey_dm=15515&plSpec_dm=1&_=1505161042641[/noparse]


See bold text. Could this be the tyranny of the default?

[noparse]

[/noparse] doesn't allow bold

Victor

Banjoxed wrote: »

I have - Last year. Never acted on. Foylecoaches.com and Inishowen Rural Transport have accurate information though.

There may be a licencing disagreement with Foyle Coaches: http://foylecoaches.com/service.htm doesn't agree with https://www.nationaltransport.ie/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/040817CurrentLicences.pdf Previous operators with licencing disagreement weren't listed in teh journey planner.

As of August, they seem to have licences for:
Greencastle-Muff
Moville-Muff
Moville-Letterkenny

XPS_Zero

You have to put in the name of specific stations or areas of the city.

Try "Dublin Connolly to Belfast Central" or street names. That said it is a pretty hopeless app, I have had it give me some really really absurd options, ignoring obvious shorter bus routes or rail routes in favor of 2-3 totally unnecessary changes, so I just deleted it and I use the Irish Rail or DB or Translink app

The Translink app is actually better in my experience as a frequent traveler in the north. It will allow you to plan trips from Dublin to beyond Belfast or to stations like Lisburn whereas the Irish Rail or NTA planner will just get confused and tell you those stations don't exist...even though Irish Rails own ticket machines have codes for them and can sell you a ticket for them in the booking office.

Which brings up another stupid anomaly, I can get a Dublin Connoly to Bangor train ticket in Connolly Booking office but I can't buy one online. I can get a complete journey ticket from my local DART station to Bangor or Lisburn...but I can't buy it online. This day in age it's absurd that the same options available at the ticket desk are not available online.

devnull

XPS_Zero wrote: »

You have to put in the name of specific stations or areas of the city.

Try "Dublin Connolly to Belfast Central" or street names. That said it is a pretty hopeless app, I have had it give me some really really absurd options, ignoring obvious shorter bus routes or rail routes in favor of 2-3 totally unnecessary changes, so I just deleted it and I use the Irish Rail or DB or Translink app.

It's not designed to give the shortest route, it's designed to give the quickest route even if that may involve a few more changes to make it quicker. Note that the Dublin Bus, Bus Eireann information is based on historical information gathered from actual bus running rather than what the timetable says, for this reason it will make the appropriate allowances for peak traffic etc.

The Dublin Bus one is awful, it's not even a journey planner, it's a stop to stop planner and the Irish Rail one also isn't a journey planner, it's a station to station planner which is a very different thing, the idea with journey planners is to take someone all the way from where they are down to a road name exactly to the place they want to go to, not just tell them how to get from one bus stop or train station to another.

Victor

XPS_Zero wrote: »

You have to put in the name of specific stations or areas of the city.

Try "Dublin Connolly to Belfast Central" or street names. That said it is a pretty hopeless app, I have had it give me some really really absurd options, ignoring obvious shorter bus routes or rail routes in favor of 2-3 totally unnecessary changes, so I just deleted it and I use the Irish Rail or DB or Translink app

Click on "Trip options", then "Public transport" and at "Route options" you can select "routes with fewest changes", but this won't always be the fastest route.

Banjoxed

Victor wrote: »

There may be a licencing disagreement with Foyle Coaches: http://foylecoaches.com/service.htm doesn't agree with https://www.nationaltransport.ie/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/040817CurrentLicences.pdf Previous operators with licencing disagreement weren't listed in teh journey planner.

As of August, they seem to have licences for:
Greencastle-Muff
Moville-Muff
Moville-Letterkenny

Well they certainly seem to be running buses past my house.

devnull

Victor wrote: »

There may be a licencing disagreement with Foyle Coaches: http://foylecoaches.com/service.htm doesn't agree with https://www.nationaltransport.ie/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/040817CurrentLicences.pdf Previous operators with licencing disagreement weren't listed in teh journey planner.

As of August, they seem to have licences for:
Greencastle-Muff
Moville-Muff
Moville-Letterkenny

For cross border services they are subject to EU regulations and a route license does not need to be issues, instead they need to apply for a community authorisation and these would therefore not be listed on the NTA list of licenses, just like the Aircoach 705X isn't.

To get a community authorisation you have to agree to the EU legislation and get a member state to validate it, it can be at either end of the route. It is entirely possible that Foyle got the validation at the NI end for the other routes and the only thing they need to arange in ROI is access to stops which is done through the local authority.

However if they had this set-up they would still need a route license for the portion within the ROI to pick up and set-down passengers within ROI that are not being carried cross border.

XPS_Zero

devnull wrote: »

It's not designed to give the shortest route, it's designed to give the quickest route even if that may involve a few more changes to make it quicker. Note that the Dublin Bus, Bus Eireann information is based on historical information gathered from actual bus running rather than what the timetable says, for this reason it will make the appropriate allowances for peak traffic etc.

The Dublin Bus one is awful, it's not even a journey planner, it's a stop to stop planner and the Irish Rail one also isn't a journey planner, it's a station to station planner which is a very different thing, the idea with journey planners is to take someone all the way from where they are down to a road name exactly to the place they want to go to, not just tell them how to get from one bus stop or train station to another.

Yes but in these cases I'm talking about they were absurd, irrational changes like diverting you miles out of your way in the wrong direction. In one case it suggested I get an aircoach to the airport then switch busses to go to swords from Killiney but the easiest fastest option, a DART to Sutton or Malahide and a 102, wasn't even on the menu.

This was a year ago it may have improved since but I remember thinking how totally irrational it was, even just based on time (not to mention cost)

devnull

XPS_Zero wrote: »

Yes but in these cases I'm talking about they were absurd, irrational changes like diverting you miles out of your way in the wrong direction. In one case it suggested I get an aircoach to the airport then switch busses to go to swords from Killiney but the easiest fastest option, a DART to Sutton or Malahide and a 102, wasn't even on the menu.

You have to remember that the journey planning is real time journey planning based on the time and date that you put into it, it is not a general planner for how to get to somewhere at any time of day, it's based on the time you put in.

For example if you put in 9.00am the clock starts counting at 9.00am according to the journey planner. If you can get a bus at 9:05 via a number of connections and arrive at 10:15 it will suggest you this over a faster method that leaves at 9:25 and arrives at 10:25 because it arrives sooner.

The journey planner's logic is that if you insert a time into it, it finds the earliest that it can get to your destination based on your start time. This may involve longer trips but ultimately means that you arrive at your destination earlier.

Victor

XPS_Zero wrote: »

Yes but in these cases I'm talking about they were absurd, irrational changes like diverting you miles out of your way in the wrong direction. In one case it suggested I get an aircoach to the airport then switch busses to go to swords from Killiney but the easiest fastest option, a DART to Sutton or Malahide and a 102, wasn't even on the menu.

This was a year ago it may have improved since but I remember thinking how totally irrational it was, even just based on time (not to mention cost)

That may have been dependent on where in Killiney and time of day.

ED E

Victor wrote: »

[noparse]

[/noparse] doesn't allow bold

Oh [B]yes[/B] it [B]does[/B]

(Its just not as clear)

dfx-

Victor wrote: »

The NTA is dependent on the operators providing accurate data.

Garbage data in, garbage data out. The problem here would seem to be a Bus reann problem - they seem to have added the Cullingtree Road stop to route 160, even though the 160 doesn't go anywhere near it. This is an operator problem, not an NTA problem.

It's the NTAs problem. Why isn't the NTA checking the accuracy of the data? It seems you've spotted it in that short paragraph, why can't they?

Victor

dfx- wrote: »

It's the NTAs problem.

Maybe their problem, but the operators' fault.

dfx- wrote: »

Why isn't the NTA checking the accuracy of the data?

They do, but it's a lot of data, some of which changes regularly. There is only so much that a team of 3-4 can do to balance the quality control vagaries that emit from CIÉ.

dfx- wrote: »

It seems you've spotted it in that short paragraph, why can't they?

They do, but note that outside the operators and the journey planner team, I'm probably the person most familiar with the journey planner.

Victor

ED E wrote: »

That one in east belfast

http://journeyplanner.transportforireland.ie/nta/XSLT_DM_REQUEST?std3_mapDMMacro=true&itdLPxx_template=tooltip&name_dm=10011404&nameArea_dm=[B]0[/B]&nameKey_dm=231&plSpec_dm=1&_=1505161042640

Another belfast

http://journeyplanner.transportforireland.ie/nta/XSLT_DM_REQUEST?std3_mapDMMacro=true&itdLPxx_template=tooltip&name_dm=10011244&nameArea_dm=[B]0[/B]&nameKey_dm=214&plSpec_dm=1&_=1505161042642

Newry Bus Centre

http://journeyplanner.transportforireland.ie/nta/XSLT_DM_REQUEST?std3_mapDMMacro=true&itdLPxx_template=tooltip&name_dm=10000574&nameArea_dm=3&nameKey_dm=15515&plSpec_dm=1&_=1505161042641

See bold text. Could this be the tyranny of the default?

What does that code mean, do you know?

Carawaystick

devnull wrote: »

Bad data supplied by Bus Eireann it seems, a lot of their timetables that are in the database have random Falls stops in them that make no sense and in some cases impossibly short journey times.

As Victor said, bad data in, bad data out

A poster referring to bad data using bad data to refer to a transport company.
There is no such thing as Bus Eireann.

I presume Bus Éireann was the company the poster meant.

Norrie Thomas

The dodgy 160 BÉ route with those ghost stops in Belfast is still on the Journey Planner at the time of writing. One wonders what sort of quality control is in place at the NTA.

devnull

Norrie Thomas wrote: »

The dodgy 160 BÉ route with those ghost stops in Belfast is still on the Journey Planner at the time of writing. One wonders what sort of quality control is in place at the NTA.

Maybe you should email then and let them know?

Besides, it's possible that they are waiting for Bus Eireann to send them a correct data file to upload to the system with everything specified correctly in.

Banjoxed

devnull wrote: »

Maybe you should email then and let them know?

Besides, it's possible that they are waiting for Bus Eireann to send them a correct data file to upload to the system with everything specified correctly in.

NTA have no responsibility for inaccurate data? There should be a disclaimer visble to all users.

Banjoxed

devnull wrote: »

Maybe you should email then and let them know?

Besides, it's possible that they are waiting for Bus Eireann to send them a correct data file to upload to the system with everything specified correctly in.

I emailed the NTA in March 2014 about the errors in its Donegal data. Never corrected.

devnull

Banjoxed wrote: »

NTA have no responsibility for inaccurate data? There should be a disclaimer visble to all users.

It's not some simple to make spreadsheet that you change a couple of lines in and everything works out of the box, it's a much more sophisticated system where a software package will output a file in a format that Google Transit and the Journey Planner can understand which essentially is a glorified batch of text files all cross referencing each other which in turn build the data for the journey planner and also Google Transit.

For example, the Bus Eireann data alone in GTFS format is well over 100MB and the largest file has approx 900,000 lines in it and that is before you even start including the other half a dozen files that also have massive amounts of entries, are you really going to expect someone to go over and review that line by line manually from the raw data?

Far more sensible to tell the provider to go into their software package and make an edit that will take a few minutes in the softwares interface do a fresh export and send it to the NTA than get someone searching through text files which have well over a million lines in them, all with confusing references because they're generated in a way to suit things like Google Transit and Mentz who produce the journey planner not to be looked at in raw form by human eyes.,

Here's the raw data:
https://www.transportforireland.ie/transitData/PT_Data.html

Download the Bus Eireann files and see if you can spot where it's coming from, from the raw data. I wish you the very best of luck.

Norrie Thomas

devnull wrote: »

It's not some simple to make spreadsheet that you change a couple of lines in and everything works out of the box, it's a much more sophisticated system where a software package will output a file in a format that Google Transit and the Journey Planner can understand which essentially is a glorified batch of text files all cross referencing each other which in turn build the data for the journey planner and also Google Transit.

For example, the Bus Eireann data alone in GTFS format is well over 100MB and the largest file has approx 900,000 lines in it and that is before you even start including the other half a dozen files that also have massive amounts of entries, are you really going to expect someone to go over and review that line by line manually from the raw data?

Far more sensible to tell the provider to go into their software package and make an edit that will take a few minutes in the softwares interface do a fresh export and send it to the NTA than get someone searching through text files which have well over a million lines in them, all with confusing references because they're generated in a way to suit things like Google Transit and Mentz who produce the journey planner not to be looked at in raw form by human eyes.,

Here's the raw data:
https://www.transportforireland.ie/transitData/PT_Data.html

Download the Bus Eireann files and see if you can spot where it's coming from, from the raw data. I wish you the very best of luck.

This is really useful stuff so thank you Devnull.

The three Belfast stops that should not be associated with the 160 route are;

1:Cloverhill Park
2: Cullingtree Road
3: Workman Avenue

Will have a delve into the data and see if I can find them.

devnull

Norrie Thomas wrote: »

This is really useful stuff so thank you Devnull.

The three Belfast stops that should not be associated with the 160 route are;

1:Cloverhill Park
2: Cullingtree Road
3: Workman Avenue

Will have a delve into the data and see if I can find them.

The same issue is also shown here:
https://bustimes.org.uk/services/buseireann-10-303-e16

Note that bustimes.org.uk says on it's data sources pages that Irish data is sourced from the files located on the page that I gave you, so the incorrect information has to be in those files somewhere.

Norrie Thomas

devnull wrote: »

The same issue is also shown here:
https://bustimes.org.uk/services/buseireann-10-303-e16

Note that bustimes.org.uk says on it's data sources pages that Irish data is sourced from the files located on the page that I gave you, so the incorrect information has to be in those files somewhere.

I did have a delve into the data in so far as I could access it. The bus Éireann bus stops data doesn't seem to have the three bus stops in it but I was using excel and notepad in my lunch break to review it today so didn't spend a whole lot of time on it. I can't access data other than CSV or XML so was restricted to that.

devnull

Has to be in there somewhere since Bustimes.org.uk is using that as a source and it has the same problem, I couldn't find anything in the MDV files either for it, I didn't even bother looking at the GTFS because some of those text files for BE have close to a million lines in.

Victor

Route 160 and the Dublin-Belfast trip have been fixed.

Norrie Thomas

Victor wrote: »

Route 160 and the Dublin-Belfast trip have been fixed.

Thank you Victor. I notice though that the walking journey to Connolly from the GPO is longer than it should be. I realise this is driven by Google Maps. Google Maps places the marker for Connolly Station up by the Dart platforms rather than the Amiens Street station entrance facing onto Talbot Street. I estimate this pads out the walking time to Connolly by at least seven or eight minutes. An Intercity traveller is more likely to access Connolly from the Luas ramp or the Amiens St front entrance.

devnull

Looks like Bus Eireann supplied updated data to fix the issues.

There is a newer version of the Bus Eireann GTFS data on the TFI download page with a filestamp as of the 14th September.

Victor

Norrie Thomas wrote: »

Thank you Victor. I notice though that the walking journey to Connolly from the GPO is longer than it should be. I realise this is driven by Google Maps. Google Maps places the marker for Connolly Station up by the Dart platforms rather than the Amiens Street station entrance facing onto Talbot Street. I estimate this pads out the walking time to Connolly by at least seven or eight minutes. An Intercity traveller is more likely to access Connolly from the Luas ramp or the Amiens St front entrance.

I'm not sure this is a problem. Google do have several markers for Connolly Station, but the walk times seem to be about right. Note that for any journey, you did need to allow some leeway - while a journey planner will include transfer times at stops, users need to allow this at either end of the journey. If I am leaving the Spire 12 minutes before my train leaves Connolly, I would be pushing things.

Marking any station that combines through and terminal platforms will be a problem for any journey planner.