Dublin - BusConnects

Dats me

cgcsb wrote: »

Bus Connects is basically one big traffic calming measure, a large amount of car commuters will have their driving routes diverted and heavily down graded.

No it's not, have you looked at the maps? Everywhere they've prioritized keeping 2 for general traffic. When space is missing 95% of the time it's cyclists who get diverted not cars - they've but in a few one ways for short stretches but there's next to no traffic calming

cgcsb

Dats me wrote: »

No it's not, have you looked at the maps? Everywhere they've prioritized keeping 2 for general traffic. When space is missing 95% of the time it's cyclists who get diverted not cars - they've but in a few one ways for short stretches but there's next to no traffic calming

Lots of traffic calming involved:
-South Richmond st to be bus only
-Stoneybatter/Old Cabra road to be local access and bus only
-Kilmainham road bus gate, outside James' hospital
-Rathmines to be 1 way to accommodate cycling

I agree it isn't a perfect solution and there are areas that needed to be more ambitious in handing over road space from cars to sustainable modes. But I think that this is politically achievable. If BusConnects were more extreme in it's curtailing of cars it'd likely have been abandoned by now.

Also remember bus connects isn't the for-all-time solution, no doubt there will be future schemes to further improve PT and cycling
Come 2030 I guess the Oslo model will be the gold standard, and car commuting will be gone anyway.

By then the option to stop run away man-made climate change will have expired so we should have our house in order in Europe so that we can just lay the blame with China and the USA when our extinction events begin.

yermanoffthetv

L1011 wrote: »

Ryan is more concerned with retaining a few votes than retaining gardens.

Eamon Ryan is an absolute disgrace. He played a large role in politicizing the Metrolink route and turning the plan into the disjointed mess that it is now. No doubt it will revert to the original plan 5-10 years after its open and cost several billion to rectify a la M50 widening. All for a few cheap votes.

Now hes doing the same with Bussconects? FFS! This isn't constructive input or sensible alternative solutions. its nimby vote grabbing parish pump politics. How on earth can he lead the Green party with a straight face when he is actively hobbling the most important public transport/carbon reducing projects the capital will see for 50 years. Shame on any media outlet that gives this clown the opportunity to communicate his brain farts.

Markcheese

He's right in one way, removing car would mean more space for buses.... But can you imagine the amount of bitching from leafy suburban dwellers when they can't drive the same as they always did...
(and most urban front gardens are hardly wildlife preserves, but if that were an issue that could be rectified in reinstatement works, by planting native and fruiting plants that support wildlife, bird and bat box's, bug hotels)

Markcheese

Also there'll be bitching and ranting if there's gridlock and no one gets anywhere, the same if they close some streets to cars and prioritise busses, probably the least number complaining (but making the loudest noise) will be those loosing garden space...

matrim

Markcheese wrote: »

He's right in one way, removing car would mean more space for buses.... But can you imagine the amount of bitching from leafy suburban dwellers when they can't drive the same as they always did...
(and most urban front gardens are hardly wildlife preserves, but if that were an issue that could be rectified in reinstatement works, by planting native and fruiting plants that support wildlife, bird and bat box's, bug hotels)

I was at a local residence meeting for my area last year and someone seriously suggested that people should be allowed to drive in bus lanes during rush hour as they were mostly empty while cars were sitting there not moving. I honestly think they didn't understand the purpose of bus lanes and just wanted to get home faster.

CatInABox

yermanoffthetv wrote: »

Eamon Ryan is an absolute disgrace. He played a large role in politicizing the Metrolink route and turning the plan into the disjointed mess that it is now. No doubt it will revert to the original plan 5-10 years after its open and cost several billion to rectify a la M50 widening. All for a few cheap votes.

Now hes doing the same with Bussconects? FFS! This isn't constructive input or sensible alternative solutions. its nimby vote grabbing parish pump politics. How on earth can he lead the Green party with a straight face when he is actively hobbling the most important public transport/carbon reducing projects the capital will see for 50 years. Shame on any media outlet that gives this clown the opportunity to communicate his brain farts.

Every time I've voted, I'd always give the local green candidate a high preference, just because I assumed that their policies were, you know, kinda green.

The more I've paid attention to them, the more disgusted I am. They won't be getting any preference from me, and I'm the kind of voter that fills out down to 19 or 20. Utterly appalled at their actions, and I really really hope that one of their candidates comes calling to the house.

Dats me

CatInABox wrote: »

Every time I've voted, I'd always give the local green candidate a high preference, just because I assumed that their policies were, you know, kinda green.

The more I've paid attention to them, the more disgusted I am. They won't be getting any preference from me, and I'm the kind of voter that fills out down to 19 or 20. Utterly appalled at their actions, and I really really hope that one of their candidates comes calling to the house.

I think in fairness, they had a motion in front of the Dáil two days ago to mandate transport spending to be 2:1 Public Transport:Roads spending. Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin all voted against it.


In terms of transport issues I've become very disillusioned with politics in general - it's all putting their 10,000 voters first above the country. But at least the Greens start off very pro sustainable transport, and then we get angry when they bend to the NIMBYs - the other parties start off in favour of the NIMBYs and don't shift. Sinn Féin are opposing the Royal Canal Greenway now!


I've been extremely critical of Eamon Ryan here, on Twitter and on Facebook but from what I've seen (MetroLink fiasco aside - that was utter sh*te) they are still by far the best party on transport issues. In fact, they're the only party that have any vision at all on transport.


I hate Eamon Ryan for what he did to MetroLink, but I will give the Green Party my number 1 again because of the lack of alternatives.

cgcsb

Dats me wrote: »

I think in fairness, they had a motion in front of the Dáil two days ago to mandate transport spending to be 2:1 Public Transport:Roads spending. Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin all voted against it.


In terms of transport issues I've become very disillusioned with politics in general - it's all putting their 10,000 voters first above the country. But at least the Greens start off very pro sustainable transport, and then we get angry when they bend to the NIMBYs - the other parties start off in favour of the NIMBYs and don't shift. Sinn Féin are opposing the Royal Canal Greenway now!


I've been extremely critical of Eamon Ryan here, on Twitter and on Facebook but from what I've seen (MetroLink fiasco aside - that was utter sh*te) they are still by far the best party on transport issues. In fact, they're the only party that have any vision at all on transport.


I hate Eamon Ryan for what he did to MetroLink, but I will give the Green Party my number 1 again because of the lack of alternatives.

Mandating a 2 to 1 spend though is pure theory though, in practice the greens are opposed to public transport and high density living, more so than fine gael are. If the spend happened to be that way one year then the following year it was the opposite way around beause (let's say) the M20 and M28 projects kicked off at the same time, does that really matter? you'd have to delay the country's 2 remaining motorway projects of note, not because of a real competing interest but because the budget is mandated that way. Also on the public transport side the 'have to spend X' mentality can often lead to waste.
Lot's of money spent on so called 'leap cards' which are now 10 years old and have failed to provide Dublin with integrated ticketing, one can only assume that politics stands between us and integrated ticketing since the technical challenges were overcome in the rest of Europe during the inter-war period.

Dats me

cgcsb wrote: »

Mandating a 2 to 1 spend though is pure theory though, in practice the greens are opposed to public transport and high density living, more so than fine gael are. If the spend happened to be that way one year then the following year it was the opposite way around beause (let's say) the M20 and M28 projects kicked off at the same time, does that really matter? you'd have to delay the country's 2 remaining motorway projects of note, not because of a real competing interest but because the budget is mandated that way. Also on the public transport side the 'have to spend X' mentality can often lead to waste.
Lot's of money spent on so called 'leap cards' which are now 10 years old and have failed to provide Dublin with integrated ticketing, one can only assume that politics stands between us and integrated ticketing since the technical challenges were overcome in the rest of Europe during the inter-war period.

I don't think that's true - Fine Gael have halved the Metro, their TDs oppose BusConnects and Varadkar objected to a 4-storey apartment - all this while in Government!



MetroLink and BusConnects were in their own National Development Plan and they won't support them locally

L1011

cgcsb wrote: »

Lot's of money spent on so called 'leap cards' which are now 10 years old and have failed to provide Dublin with integrated ticketing, one can only assume that politics stands between us and integrated ticketing since the technical challenges were overcome in the rest of Europe during the inter-war period.

Its known for some time now that the old ITS concept was thrown out and is being replaced with a timed transfer, all modes flat fare system (like Rome has) - the last two years of fare adjudications have been flattening out the fare system across all modes with this aim - and the narrative alongside has specifically said this. I don't know if they intend to do another year before unification or whether we'll see the final unification in December.

This was to prevent farebox shock to the operators - if you disagree with that approach that's perfectly fine; but they have clearly been working on a definite plan for integrated ticketing.

Shedding peak fares on the Luas, cutting Irish Rail season tickets, removing Dublin Bus fare levels every year has all been part of this. Work has absolutely been done.

bk

It is worth nothing that last year they already made the Child Fare (under 19) a flat fare *, which doesn’t require any driver interaction. It is also clear that they are working to do the same with the adult fare.

* strictly speaking there are different fares for school time versus the rest of the day. But both are flat and handled automatically by the ticket machine.

I can’t wait for the 90 minute flat fare that is mentioned as part of BusConnects

Sam Russell

bk wrote: »

It is worth nothing that last year they already made the Child Fare (under 19) a flat fare *, which doesn’t require any driver interaction. It is also clear that they are working to do the same with the adult fare.

* strictly speaking there are different fares for school time versus the rest of the day. But both are flat and handled automatically by the ticket machine.

I can’t wait for the 90 minute flat fare that is mentioned as part of BusConnects

I thought that the NTA got the full fare box, so wha does i matter what it is?

Qrt

Sam Russell wrote: »

I thought that the NTA got the full fare box, so wha does i matter what it is?

Pretty sure NTA just get GAI and Luas fare, and that the fares of the others are retained by them as per the direct contract thingymajiggy, could be wrong but I am too lazy to check.

cgcsb

L1011 wrote: »

Its known for some time now that the old ITS concept was thrown out and is being replaced with a timed transfer, all modes flat fare system (like Rome has) - the last two years of fare adjudications have been flattening out the fare system across all modes with this aim - and the narrative alongside has specifically said this. I don't know if they intend to do another year before unification or whether we'll see the final unification in December.

This was to prevent farebox shock to the operators - if you disagree with that approach that's perfectly fine; but they have clearly been working on a definite plan for integrated ticketing.

Shedding peak fares on the Luas, cutting Irish Rail season tickets, removing Dublin Bus fare levels every year has all been part of this. Work has absolutely been done.

10 years after the implementation of leap, which in its self was many years over due. If we have integrated tickets after 11 years we can have back patting for the slowest such change over in history

L1011

Sam Russell wrote: »

I thought that the NTA got the full fare box, so wha does i matter what it is?

Old direct award contracts use the farebox as a substantial part of the operator income; DB in particular were already suffering some shock from the move to Leap and the introduction of capping so they really had to decide whether to bankrupt them or not...

LXFlyer

cgcsb wrote: »

10 years after the implementation of leap, which in its self was many years over due. If we have integrated tickets after 11 years we can have back patting for the slowest such change over in history

That’s all well and good, but the reality is that implementing that would have resulted in a significant economic shock to the operating companies’ finances.

Remember that the country went through a very bad recession during that period, and the CIE Group companies had balance sheets that were on the verge of pushing the companies into insolvency. You can’t simply bury your head in sand and ignore that.

There are very good reasons for the slow pace of change.

As L1011 states the switchover to LEAP resulted in significant additional back office costs for the CIE Group operating companies and the annual fares determinations have been very clear that the initial switchover to significant LEAP discounts, and then the subsequent switch to time based ticketing would be a gradual process to avoid financial shocks for the companies (drops in farebox revenue that could make them insolvent) and the customers too (some rail fares increased).

No it’s not ideal, but what is affordable has to be considered.

bk

L1011 wrote: »

Old direct award contracts use the farebox as a substantial part of the operator income; DB in particular were already suffering some shock from the move to Leap and the introduction of capping so they really had to decide whether to bankrupt them or not...

It was the recession and the resulting collapse in passenger numbers that almost bankrupt the CIE companies, not Leap or capping.

I would agree though that Leap was putting the cart before the horse. I see this time and time again with government IT projects. Some process is broken and they think that just by throwing technology at it, you can fix it. It never works, not unless you also fix the underlying process issues.

Leap is a good example of this. You don't need technology to introduce flat fares and cross mode timed fares. They have existed for more then 60 years all across Europe without the need for Smart cards.

- Buy book of tickets in shop
- Board bus/tram/metro and put ticket in validator, it prints date/time on ticket
- Travel on as many bus/tram/metro's as you want with the 90 minutes.

This is all doable with or without smart cards.

The real problem was that until now it seems that the government simply weren't interested in forcing these companies to move to this model and subsidising any resulting loss in the fare box. It seems they now are and it is finally good news.

Not that all the blame lies with the government/NTA. Most of it lies with DB/CIE management. Afterall the real root of this problem was the way the model they decided to follow in the 1980's when they got rid of conductors. They choose the worst fare model possible.

It was DB/CIE management in the 80's who decided when they got rid of the conductors, to also get rid of the second door on the bus and to force everyone to buy their ticket from the driver. It was a complete disaster.

At the time, had they any sense, they could have followed the mainland European model instead. Kept the second door and move to a ticket validation model with no interaction with the driver.

Much of what the NTA have been doing over the last 10 years is slowly undoing these stupid mistakes of the past. Re-introducing dual door buses and now moving towards a cross mode flat fare.

I think we are lots more to do and it is taking excruciatingly long time, but at least movement in the right direction.

LXFlyer

bk wrote: »

It was the recession and the resulting collapse in passenger numbers that almost bankrupt the CIE companies, not Leap or capping.

I would agree though that Leap was putting the cart before the horse. I see this time and time again with government IT projects. Some process is broken and they think that just by throwing technology at it, you can fix it. It never works, not unless you also fix the underlying process issues.

Leap is a good example of this. You don't need technology to introduce flat fares and cross mode timed fares. They have existed for more then 60 years all across Europe without the need for Smart cards.

- Buy book of tickets in shop
- Board bus/tram/metro and put ticket in validator, it prints date/time on ticket
- Travel on as many bus/tram/metro's as you want with the 90 minutes.

This is all doable with or without smart cards.

The real problem was that until now it seems that the government simply weren't interested in forcing these companies to move to this model and subsidising any resulting loss in the fare box. It seems they now are and it is finally good news.

Not that all the blame lies with the government/NTA. Most of it lies with DB/CIE management. Afterall the real root of this problem was the way the model they decided to follow in the 1980's when they got rid of conductors. They choose the worst fare model possible.

It was DB/CIE management in the 80's who decided when they got rid of the conductors, to also get rid of the second door on the bus and to force everyone to buy their ticket from the driver. It was a complete disaster.

At the time, had they any sense, they could have followed the mainland European model instead. Kept the second door and move to a ticket validation model with no interaction with the driver.

Much of what the NTA have been doing over the last 10 years is slowly undoing these stupid mistakes of the past. Re-introducing dual door buses and now moving towards a cross mode flat fare.

I think we are lots more to do and it is taking excruciatingly long time, but at least movement in the right direction.

Bear in mind that the DoT had a veto on fare changes and they did veto the proposal from Dublin Bus at the time of the Euro changeover for a flat fare.

You have to bear in mind too that the degree of political and civil service interference in the day to day management of the CIE Group pre-NTA was enormous, and the companies' ability to implement real change was fairly limited.

Sam Russell

LXFlyer wrote: »

Bear in mind that the DoT had a veto on fare changes and they did veto the proposal from Dublin Bus at the time of the Euro changeover for a flat fare.

You have to bear in mind too that the degree of political and civil service interference in the day to day management of the CIE Group pre-NTA was enormous, and the companies' ability to implement real change was fairly limited.

I also think the unions had an element of blame in the day to day management of the CIE companies, and not in a good way.

It was not DB management that refused to use the second doors on buses fitted with them.

LXFlyer

Sam Russell wrote: »

I also think the unions had an element of blame in the day to day management of the CIE companies, and not in a good way.

It was not DB management that refused to use the second doors on buses fitted with them.

The truth is probably rather wider than what you post Sam.

The unions objected to operating the centre doors on safety grounds.

While I don’t agree with the widespread lack of use of the centre doors, they did have a point with regard to the very poor bus stop design (insufficient space at many stops for buses to align themselves at the kerb correctly), the fact that with the older bus models that the centre doors could trap people if they closed on them (they didn’t reopen automatically), and probably most of all a court ruling that drivers would be responsible personally if something happened to a passenger exiting the centre doors.

I’d suggest that the latter focussed union minds significantly.

Since then there has been significant change that has allowed more widespread operation of the centre doors:

- some stops gaining larger bus stop cages that facilitate the safe operation of the centre doors

- the widespread rollout of Kassel kerbing at stops dissuading cars from parking illegally and blocking the bus entrance and egress to and from the kerb.

- probably more relevant that the centre doors opening outward is far safer than the previous situation

bk

I find the safety excuse around the rear door laughable. For decades, DB used dual door buses, and as you mentioned, a much less safer form of rear door. Yet DB get rid of the second door for just a couple of years and suddenly there is some big safety issue with using the rear door on newer buses and in a much safer form! :rolleyes:

I also find it a bit hypocritical that the same drivers have no issue with people going up and down the stairs on a moving bus. Something quiet tricky and something I've seen plenty of people fall and trip on.

I bet if we traditionally only had single floor buses and people were suggesting we moved to double deckers, the unions would lose their mind because of the perceived safety risks of people going up and down stairs on a moving bus.

LXFlyer wrote:

Bear in mind that the DoT had a veto on fare changes and they did veto the proposal from Dublin Bus at the time of the Euro changeover for a flat fare.

True, though also worth noting that this proposed fare would only have applied to Dublin Bus and not the much more impressive, cross mode and cross operator 90 minute ticket being proposed now.

LXFlyer

bk wrote: »

I find the safety excuse around the rear door laughable. For decades, DB used dual door buses, and as you mentioned, a much less safer form of rear door. Yet DB get rid of the second door for just a couple of years and suddenly there is some big safety issue with using the rear door on newer buses and in a much safer form! :rolleyes:

I also find it a bit hypocritical that the same drivers have no issue with people going up and down the stairs on a moving bus. Something quiet tricky and something I've seen plenty of people fall and trip on.

I bet if we traditionally only had single floor buses and people were suggesting we moved to double deckers, the unions would lose their mind because of the perceived safety risks of people going up and down stairs on a moving bus.



True, though also worth noting that this proposed fare would only have applied to Dublin Bus and not the much more impressive, cross mode and cross operator 90 minute ticket being proposed now.

I think that if you were told that a court decided that you’d be personally liable for someone being injured at your workplace it would cloud your judgement somewhat, let’s be honest. That was the crux of the union’s objection.

There is a valid safety argument at many stops where the stops are badly designed with the cage not being large enough to allow buses align with the kerb or where they simply aren’t large enough for the volume of buses.

But to be fair as I said the rollout of Kassel kerbing at bus stops has alleviated a lot of the illegal parking that did make the bus driver’s lot that by harder.

As for the flat fare proposal - no it wasn’t across all modes, but the decision by the Department was indicative of the mindset of the politicians and the civil service and their lack of ability to think outside the box, and also to restrict the company management’s ability to run the company as they saw fit.

Stephen15

London would have a fairly similar operating environment to Dublin but yet over there centre doors are used at all stops and that has been the case since the routemasters were being phased out and OMO started to take over. I dont think there were too many issues over there with unions but I could be wrong.

Things are improving and most drivers seem willing to use to them on GTs and SGs now when appropriate some open them more than others.

L1011

bk wrote: »

Leap is a good example of this. You don't need technology to introduce flat fares and cross mode timed fares. They have existed for more then 60 years all across Europe without the need for Smart cards.

- Buy book of tickets in shop
- Board bus/tram/metro and put ticket in validator, it prints date/time on ticket
- Travel on as many bus/tram/metro's as you want with the 90 minutes.

That requires non farebox recovery contracts also though - which comes back to the same problem

They could either develop a hideous complicated ITS system to retain the partial farebox system (which I believe they did look at some points in the very distant past - Garrett Fitzgerald had columns complaining about the lack of ITS in the late 1990s) or move away from it which is what is very, very, very slowly happening.

cgcsb

Why is it that passengers have to build a mini personality profile of their driver on their journey to work out whether or not s/he will open the centre doors at your stop? Why can't this be standardised, it would improve dwell times a lot but there's just no will to actually standardise this. Again something that is painfully archaic and not changing.

Spanish Eyes

cgcsb wrote: »

Why is it that passengers have to build a mini personality profile of their driver on their journey to work out whether or not s/he will open the centre doors at your stop? Why can't this be standardised, it would improve dwell times a lot but there's just no will to actually standardise this. Again something that is painfully archaic and not changing.

Totally agree, it is still hit and miss at the moment as to whether the driver will actually open the rear doors for egress. How many times have I stood at the rear door like a lemon, only to have to trudge up front to alight because driver did not open rear doors.

Then the next day, the back doors will open no problem. It's a gamble folks for the moment anyway, but hopefully will become standard in time.

I notice drivers are more inclined to open the back doors where the doors slide back on the outside. Don't know the make or model. But there are still far too many buses with NO rear door at all!

Ah just having a bit of a rant.

bk

LXFlyer wrote: »

I think that if you were told that a court decided that you’d be personally liable for someone being injured at your workplace it would cloud your judgement somewhat, let’s be honest. That was the crux of the union’s objection.

You say that like it isn't equally true for the driver operating the front door or someone tripping on the stairs.

The way civil law works in Ireland is that anyone can sue anyone for any reason. that isn't to say you will win, but your case will be heard and it is simply legally impossible for your employer to indemnify you against it. No matter what your employer says, given the way the our legal system works, you can always be personally sued, for literally anything.

It would seem that the unions misunderstood this fact and ran with it as an excuse not to operate the rear door.

The rear door gets used all day, every day in London, under the same English common law based legal system.

L1011 wrote: »

That requires non farebox recovery contracts also though - which comes back to the same problem

Much like Leap card topups can be bought from payzone in shops.

BTW buying the tickets from the shop in Poland, etc. was just one option. You could also buy the book of tickets from the driver or even buy an individual ticket from a ticket machine on the bus.

On the buses I was on in Poland, there normally was 3 or 4 small validator machines on the bus. But one larger machine, which you could both buy tickets from and validate on.

All of this been around 60+ years. Rocket science it isn't

bk

BTW Looks like the NTA have issued a contract for the Next Gen Leap account based ticketing. I've posted about it over on the C&T forum here:

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=110019543#post110019543

Exciting stuff.

annfield1978

A number of consultants appointed accross 4 lots to carry out engineering works of the various routes