Dublin Bus - Proposed 5 Year Deal Retaining All Routes from 2019

markpb

cgcsb wrote: »

I wasn't aware this was so common. Maybe it's a case that all eyes were on them because they are new. In any case you'd think that the company would double down on preventing such hiccups.

There's only so much "doubling down" management can do, you can't stop people making mistakes, it's human nature.

dashcamdanny

The pressure of driving a bus in service for the first time upset my stomach for the first 6 months on the job.
It really feels like you are performing on stage and everyone is judging you. You are still not completely sure where each corner of the bus is in traffic, you are dealing with sometimes angry passengers and you are trying to remember where to go. I found it very challenging at the beginning. I know exactly how these new drivers feel. I also know it is short term.

It's like water off a ducks back now.

Bray Head

The NTA could proceed more aggressively with competitive tendering of DB routes.

This would probably mean disruption in the form of industrial action from DB staff.

At the same time the NTA has the huge objective of Bus Connects to deliver on. This will not occur without resistance from DB staff and management either.

Isn't this the case of the NTA sensibly picking one battle to fight at a time?

StreetLight

Bray Head wrote: »

The NTA could proceed more aggressively with competitive tendering of DB routes.

This would probably mean disruption in the form of industrial action from DB staff.

At the same time the NTA has the huge objective of Bus Connects to deliver on. This will not occur without resistance from DB staff and management either.

Isn't this the case of the NTA sensibly picking one battle to fight at a time?

You seem to have a chip on your shoulder about Dublin Bus. The staff have no problem with change, as long as it's done properly and fairly.

As has been pointed out numerous times within this forum, upcoming changes such as 24-hour services have already been agreed in principle.

Bray Head

Having been a customer of Dublin Bus since 1992, and watch it persist with practices long disappeared across Europe, I am realistic about the pace that change can be introduced.

patrickbrophy18

GM228 wrote: »

The NTA has recently published the report into the next DB contract aswell as submissions from interested parties.

It must be a typo. However, near the end of the document, the 8 bus is mentioned in Table A1. That route has been gone for over a year.

XPS_Zero

dashcamdanny wrote: »

The pressure of driving a bus in service for the first time upset my stomach for the first 6 months on the job.
It really feels like you are performing on stage and everyone is judging you. You are still not completely sure where each corner of the bus is in traffic, you are dealing with sometimes angry passengers and you are trying to remember where to go. I found it very challenging at the beginning. I know exactly how these new drivers feel. I also know it is short term.

It's like water off a ducks back now.

I often wondered this. I'm sure the power steering etc helps but I am baffled how they manage to maneuver those enormous double deckers through such tight spaces. Even on routes like the 45a you can see how tight some of the bends are around Bray and Shankill with oncoming traffic heading right towards you on the other side and not always enough space for both to round the bend.


I also don't know how the low attention span sleepwalking morons that pass as society now don't suffer multiple deaths by double decker bus each day as they cross red lights in the CC staring down at their phones or dashing across to gain that extra 2 seconds, thats what would scare the hell out of me starting out, not a fender bender.


I can see they are trained to be hyper aware of people around them though, I've noticed several times drivers watching me when I might have looked to them like I would dash out, and a few times when I was spaced out myself with earphones in, one of their beeps has made me aware they were there, and on one occasion stopped one of them hitting me because i looked up and saw the light had changed with the red man up right as i was about to dash out trying to make a train.






For two other points...staff often, in CIE, often DO have a problem with change that's why the RPA then the NTA and TII ended up existing, they didn't trust CIE with change. They often throw a spanner in the way of the simplest reform (or let their union do it for them). I wish people would stop taking this personally, as an attack on them and the way they personally do their job, this is not about you being lazy or unwilling to change it's a structural problem, a matter of how the system is set up and how people respond to that system and the incentives therein.
Those of us critical of that structure could also, I suppose, do with making it more clear that it is the system we are critical of not the individual personnel.





Yes there is more focus on GAI they are being held to an absurd standard, with people looking back at DB with rose tinted glasses making absurd claims every time a bus is 3 minutes late on the timer etc but they have to expect that, when you come in with the mantra of how you can take the heat of competition and do better than the existing company...well a hyper focus on your performance is inevitable, that's competition boys, deal with it. Lets just keep the criticisms in perspective a bit.

StreetLight

Might be of interest to some:

https://www.thejournal.ie/dublin-bus-airport-24-hour-service-4446031-Jan2019/