Dublin bus service enhancements

Thrashssacre

With the confirmations of the split of route 76/A and 18 Dublin bus have now confirmed enhanced services for the following services:

70
http://www.dublinbus.ie/Your-Journey1/Timetables/All-Timetables/7031/

39
http://www.dublinbus.ie/Your-Journey1/Timetables/All-Timetables/3931/

39a
http://www.dublinbus.ie/Your-Journey1/Timetables/All-Timetables/39a-312/

38
http://www.dublinbus.ie/Your-Journey1/Timetables/All-Timetables/38-1/

38a
http://www.dublinbus.ie/Your-Journey1/Timetables/All-Timetables/38a-11/

25
http://www.dublinbus.ie/Your-Journey1/Timetables/All-Timetables/251/

25a
http://www.dublinbus.ie/Your-Journey1/Timetables/All-Timetables/25a-1/

25b
http://www.dublinbus.ie/Your-Journey1/Timetables/All-Timetables/25b3111/

13
http://www.dublinbus.ie/Your-Journey1/Timetables/All-Timetables/131/

And the introduction of the a new route 155
http://www.dublinbus.ie/Your-Journey1/Timetables/All-Timetables/181/

noelfirl

Thrashssacre wrote: »

25b
http://www.dublinbus.ie/Your-Journey1/Timetables/All-Timetables/25b3111/

Jaysus lads, they need to do some tidying up with some of those links. We're not far away from hexidecimal routes... :pac:

devnull

The timetable for the 38A has this gem of a footnote.

cc Route 38b from Damastown to O'Connell Street via Blanchardstown Bypass
b Route 38b from Damastown towards Burlington Rd. via Blanchardstown Bypass
v Via Ballycoolin
c To City Centre

Indicating a service on the 38b with the letter c is pretty confusing.

Had a look a bit more and a lot of those new timetables have a fair number of route variations and they are not always very easy to understand.

39a

c To city centre
f From Ongar and departs College Street at 23:30
v From Ongar via Corduff, Blanchardstown Village, Constitution Hill, North King Street, Queen Street, South Quays, Heuston Station, North Quays to Belfield
b From Castleknock at 05:10 to Ongar and departs Ongar at 05:20 via Corduff, Blanchardstown Village, Constitution Hill, North King Street, Queen Street, South Quays, Heuston Station, North Quays to Baggot Street

KD345

devnull wrote: »

f From Ongar and departs College Street at 23:30

I’m guessing this needs to be updated to Westmoreland Street. The 39a hasn’t stopped on College Street since before the tracks were laid.

cherryghost

The 27 'enhancements' have been a bit torrid, the bunching up is incredible. I've seen 4 27s in a row at one point on Dame St. The 13 will end up doing exactly the same.

thomasj

KD345 wrote:

I’m guessing this needs to be updated to Westmoreland Street. The 39a hasn’t stopped on College Street since before the tracks were laid.

I think you mean D'olier street , Westmoreland street would be heading outbound to Ongar.

sharper

cherryghost wrote: »

The 27 'enhancements' have been a bit torrid, the bunching up is incredible. I've seen 4 27s in a row at one point on Dame St. The 13 will end up doing exactly the same.

I haven't looked at the total list of changes (and DB don't make it easy because you have to compare the timetables yourself) but a lot of the enhancements in general seem to be off peak.

The DART improvements mostly benefit off peak as well.

Improving the service generally is great but I'd really like to see the commute experience get a bit better. Aside from my own needs that's when people are going to decide to give up and get a car.

Dravokivich

Off peak services can be improved with more drivers, so less buses parked up during those slumps. But to improve peak services they'll need more buses.

StreetLight

Dravokivich wrote: »

Off peak services can be improved with more drivers, so less buses parked up during those slumps. But to improve peak services they'll need more buses.

That's why they're building a new bus depot at Broadstone.

thomasj

sharper wrote:

I haven't looked at the total list of changes (and DB don't make it easy because you have to compare the timetables yourself) but a lot of the enhancements in general seem to be off peak.

What do you define as peak these days?

Dravokivich

StreetLight wrote: »

That's why they're building a new bus depot at Broadstone.

I didn't know what the work was for up there. But if short term they can add services with drivers, theres no point advertising services that would need extra buses they don't currently have.

sharper

thomasj wrote: »

What do you define as peak these days?

Based on the timetables Dublin Bus seems to consider peak to be around 7-8:30am and 5-6:30pm.

My understanding is the DB fleet effectively increased by 10% since the routes transferred to Go Ahead but not the buses (or if they did they were replaced) or drivers.

I'm thinking of West Dublin here so I guess a factor is the depot layout and what drivers can operate where.

devnull

sharper wrote: »

My understanding is the DB fleet effectively increased by 10% since the routes transferred to Go Ahead but not the buses (or if they did they were replaced) or drivers.

Not quite right, a number of DB vehicles transferred to Go-Ahead towards the end of last year that were then replaced by brand new vehicles in Dublin Bus.

When routes went over to Go-Ahead, the Dublin Bus vehicles and staff formerly operating these routes were redeployed onto retained and new Dublin Bus routes to provide additional capacity.

The Dublin City bus network fleet has increased by approx 125 vehicles over what it was last year, when you take the combined Go-Ahead and Dublin Bus vehicles together, which is about a 15% expansion.

thomasj

sharper wrote:

Based on the timetables Dublin Bus seems to consider peak to be around 7-8:30am and 5-6:30pm.

It seems to differ based on routes. I have stood at wood quay at 7.30 at night waiting for a 39a. At that time of the evening the frequency would be every 20 minutes and buses would be quite full.

It would be quite common at that hour of the night to see 6 or 7 145s pass by at that hour of the night.

thomasj

One thing I would say is that Irish rail , in conjunction with the NTA have changed the timetable of the maynooth line to every 30 minutes up to 9pm approx and the services are quite busy. The frequency change of this line has made it more popular.

Stephen15

thomasj wrote: »

It seems to differ based on routes. I have stood at wood quay at 7.30 at night waiting for a 39a. At that time of the evening the frequency would be every 20 minutes and buses would be quite full.

It would be quite common at that hour of the night to see 6 or 7 145s pass by at that hour of the night.

I get the impression that the reason are often busy well into the night is as a result of a lack of capacity rather than demand. If they ran more buses at that hour which there is plenty of room as if you pass by any DB garage in the city at that hour you would see many buses parking up for the night so there's plenty of capacity to put on well into the night.

I've been on the 145 a number of times late enough at night and it can be standing room only as late as 10pm at night on a week night so the 155 with an all day everyday frequency of every 20 mins is a welcome boost to frequency and capacity on that stretch of corridor. Bearing in mind the 145 itself is only every 20 mins after 9pm.

sharper

thomasj wrote: »

It seems to differ based on routes. I have stood at wood quay at 7.30 at night waiting for a 39a. At that time of the evening the frequency would be every 20 minutes and buses would be quite full.

It would be quite common at that hour of the night to see 6 or 7 145s pass by at that hour of the night.

The 39a has a 20 minute (edit:10-15 minute!) frequency throughout the day http://www.dublinbus.ie/Your-Journey1/Timetables/All-Timetables/39a-312/

Between 4:20 - 5:10pm in the evening and 7:30-8:20am am in the morning frequency is every 5 minutes.

The problem is Dublin Bus's peak capacity is very limited and doesn't match demand. Those peak numbers need to increase but the NTA seems very focused on the all day/all week service at the expense of commuters right now.

I have no idea if they even collect statistics on how often they skip stops. I very occasionally (maybe once every 18 months) see people in clipboards writing down the number of passengers but that's about it.

Qrt

cherryghost wrote: »

The 27 'enhancements' have been a bit torrid, the bunching up is incredible. I've seen 4 27s in a row at one point on Dame St. The 13 will end up doing exactly the same.

Six 27s passed me coming into their terminus at Jobstown while I was waiting for one 27, ten mins or so, absolutely insane stuff.

Xterminator

DB cannot really help bottlenecks along the 27 route.

the 27 has some awful choke points on the route, the whole section from connolly to dame st is designed to test the patience of a saint between
the luas merge, and traffic lights (where the odds are never in your favour!). Greenhills road is a car park at peak times. The bit from the square, tallaght hospital and tallaght village are choked up by traffic too.

IMO if your travelling at peak time, on that route the luas just beats the bus every time.

Polar101

Changing the 39a on weekday evenings from 20 minute intervals to 15 (and same on Sundays) is definitely needed, it gets very crowded when it runs every 20 minutes.

Not sure what is changing with the 39, looks pretty much the same to me (aside from 2-minute changes on Sundays).

Stephen15

155 up and running but no sign of it on TFI realtime only on DB real time
https://twitter.com/dublinbusnews/status/1109754360832102400?s=19

shanec1928

The new 25b time table is great..about every 7-10 mins.. surely it would have been easier to put times instead of putting that on the time table?

Qrt

shanec1928 wrote: »

The new 25b time table is great..about every 7-10 mins.. surely it would have been easier to put times instead of putting that on the time table?

It might be something to do with the massive variations in service, like they want to highlight how frequent it as at that time, instead of clumping it all together as times and people getting a skewed perception of its all-day frequency.

AngryLips

shanec1928 wrote: »

The new 25b time table is great..about every 7-10 mins.. surely it would have been easier to put times instead of putting that on the time table?

They’re just copying how it’s done in London for frequent services.

OldMrBrennan83

If the 70 had just arrived when it was meant to (or at all) on the old timetable then that would have been enough of an enhancement.

Stephen15

OldMrBrennan83 wrote: »

If the 70 had just arrived when it was meant to (or at all) on the old timetable then that would have been enough of an enhancement.

Wasn't the 70 very infrequent on Sundays though every 2 hours or something like that. I'm glad to see with these changes on the routes that went GAI and DBs remaining Dublin now finally has an acceptable level of service at weekends and particularly Sundays.

OldMrBrennan83

Stephen15 wrote: »

Wasn't the 70 very infrequent on Sundays though every 2 hours or something like that. I'm glad to see with these changes on the routes that went GAI and DBs remaining Dublin now finally has an acceptable level of service at weekends and particularly Sundays.

Yeah there's about 50% more on it now then there was. It remains to be seen how it holds up though. Normally standing waiting for a 70 is pot luck as to whether it'll arrive at all or not, especially outbound.

mickmmc

The 41 will operate a 24hr service before end of the year (Interview with Ann Graham from the NTA in the Sunday Independent).