Worsening and Unacceptable bus service in Dublin

JupiterKid

Waited over an hour for my bus earlier today in the pouring rain. Never arrived at the stop so I ended up going home.

The new TFI app is a complete joke - the expected arrival times are completely out, busses are very unreliable, not adhering to timetables properly and are frequently packed full when trying to catch one at a bus stop in recent months. 

So much for Dublin City Council’s aspirations to make Dublin a “car free city centre” - people will not use the bus service if it is not reliable and dependable and they will not make the modal shift from cars to public transport until a viable and reliable alternative is available. Meanwhile, the city is bursting at the seams with population growth and public transport in Dublin is now ranked the worst of any capital city in Europe. 

BusConnects, as I see it, is only a short to medium-term “sticking plaster” solution for a serious lack of quality PT in the city which needs a full metro system and it appears in any case that it is not being rolled out as originally planned and is also not running properly. The reality of a declining quality of bus service completely flies in the face of the so-called “15 minute city” concept.

What’s the point in having close to full employment in Dublin when those employees have no place to live (as per the housing catastrophe) and cannot get around the city due to an appalling bus service? 

According to a Greenpeace study of European cities where the ease of purchasing and using public transport services was ranked, Dublin was ranked the very worst - and that’s not even taking into account the dire TFI app, “ghost” busses that never turn up and a generally inadequate and worsening level of service over the past few years.

Anyone else that thoughts on our very poor public transport in Dublin?

Link to article:

https://www.independent.ie/regionals/dublin/dublin-news/dublins-public-transport-has-been-ranked-the-worst-in-europe-how-can-we-get-it-on-the-right-track/a219437691.html

Trampas

What route and how many buses were due in that hour?

JupiterKid

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121026669#Comment_121026669

Route 37 - TFI app (which is appalling) stated three busses due to arrive in that hour, none did. I know that these things do happen occasionally due to accidents, delays etc but this is the fourth or fifth time this situation has happened in the space of a month.

Everyone at the bus stop was angry and disgruntled.

It’s just not good enough.

Ha Long Bay

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121026776#Comment_121026776

Here is a good alternative to the TFI app. Not sure if there is an IOS version but link for the android version below.

https://play.google.com/store/search?q=transit&c=apps&hl=en_US

appledrop

If you think bus service is bad in Dublin, you wouldn't want to see what's it's like outside it!

Moving routes from Bus Eireann to Go ahead has been an absolute disaster, buses not turning up and they might only run a few times a day so imagine how stranded people are there!

JupiterKid

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121026805#Comment_121026805

I have the Transit app also, it's usually quite good but it also was completely off on the expected arrival times today.

StreetLight

The big problem is lack of drivers. Dublin Bus has been short-staffed since the summer of 2022. Despite recruitment campaigns, the staffing level still hasn't improved.

A whole raft of changed work practices have been introduced to staff recently - and it's not going down well. Drivers who have been with Dublin Bus for years are leaving in their droves. It's no longer a career for life. The job has become much more transient in nature. That means because there aren't the levels of long-term staff that could be relied on, Dublin Bus is having to throw newcomers in at the deep end. New drivers are naturally going to be cautious and therefore may not drive buses as deftly as established drivers. This has inevitably led to service curtailments and cancellations.

For some time now, there have been many commentators on Boards calling for bus drivers to lose the working conditions they had fought for over the years and that they were paid too much. Well, now the chickens have come home to roost. You reap what you sow.

I've gone back to the car.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121026920#Comment_121026920

Marking in ensures that new drivers always go in at the deep end and the experienced drivers get the easiest, least risky and least stressful shifts. Thats about the only condition I've ever seen anyone suggest goes. It makes being a new driver a hideous prospect as the main cadre of drivers get to leave all the crap to you.

Both firms need to pay better, and there needs to be effective transport policing to improve driver [and passenger] safety - currently there's basically none and I've seen everything in terms of anti social behaviour up to heroin being cooked on the upper deck (driver stopped at a Garda station and had them removed); those are two obvious and fixable issues that would cause massive churn in driver numbers.

Strumms

And meanwhile, this shît, no metro, unreliable slow as fûck Dart and still the environmentalists bitch and whine about people driving or having to be relying on a private car.

Dublin public transport is the worst I’ve experienced in Europe… I’ll wholeheartedly agree with greenpeace on that..

Madrid, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Lyon Lisbon, London, Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Birmingham, piss all over Dublin and are perfect examples of effective and efficient and integrated public transport…

never mind relegation zone we are bottom of the table ….in terms of capital or major cities…

LXFlyer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121026825#Comment_121026825

Would you not use the map to see where the buses physically were?

cgcsb

I don't know is it deteriorating but it's definitely not good. The 46a is supposed to have a sub 10 frequency but in practice you could be waiting 40 minutes and that's a high frequency route. Any of the less frequent routes, forget about it. the 40E is supposed to be every half hour but usually they just turn off the real time for that route and you have to guess if it's going to appear or not.

That being said if you asked me do I think the bus service has improved in the last 10 years I would say yes, immensely so.

In terms of progress, climate change and sustainability, I think it's clear that all that stuff is just lip service from official Ireland. The GDA transport strategy of 2022 was just the same as it has been for the past 20 years and no projects proposed in it have been actually built. In fact that strategy has actually got less ambitious with some major projects dumped off it on every iteration, luas to coolock dumped, metro to tallaght dumped, metro west dumped and DART underground dumped. There is no serious effort at government level to implement change, you can see the plans for bus connects corridors online, which have incrementally become schemes aimed at promoting more car use and parking, all design guidance has been ignored and all policy goals are ignored, that's the way it is. DCC could also use their regular powers to greatly reduce traffic in the city but they simply will not.

Strumms

^ exactly, lip service is all it is. If you want people, sorry if you are demanding people are out of cars and using public transport you have to provide a viable public transport service….. it’s not rocket science….

cgcsb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121037651#Comment_121037651

Well there is also no serious effort to get people out of cars either, many streets in our city centre are 4 or 5 lane dual carriageways with ample cheap parking and de facto free parking in the bus and cycle lanes as a result of a zero enforcement culture. Talk of restricting cars remains just talk and all policy around it is also just talk, nothing will be actually done about it.

Capt'n Midnight

Are phantom buses still an issue ?

At this stage the most useful app would be one that tells you if a bus has been cancelled so you could make alternative plans.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121242788#Comment_121242788

Yes, yes they are. Neither opeetror has enough drivers for their existing services

ArcadiaJunction

Loads of drivers are either dead or dying. Same problem everywhere now.

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121242792#Comment_121242792

At this stage all I want to know is if a bus has been cancelled.

LXFlyer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121247121#Comment_121247121

Every cancellation requires the manual intervention by a controller - they do some but they certainly aren't doing them all, as happened to me earlier today.

I would suggest using the Transit app as that will show buses on the map that are definitely operating.

veryangryman

Metro really should have been built the second we hear the BS about a climate emergency. Imagine getting half the traffic gone. Youd hit the targets fairly quick then. And automatic metro too. Robots dont strike.

Meantime we get this sh1t.

Dial Hard

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121244526#Comment_121244526

Whut???

cgcsb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121254335#Comment_121254335

Governments don't really care about climate change its just a soundbite for them. Sure Cork and Dublin BusConnects got scaled back to encourage more car use and provide more parking. The busconnects plans are non compliant with the NTA's own design standards to maximise car lanes, in some areas footpaths have been reduced to the point that project will effectively ban wheelchair users from some streets in favour of multiple car lanes and in some areas existing cycling priority has been removed so its clearly not something they're actually concerned with

Beta Ray Bill

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121242792#Comment_121242792

I'll give you an even nastier statistic than that: The "Average" age of a HGV driver in Ireland is over 50/mid 50's. You think not having buses is bad, wait until there's no one to bring fuel to you local petrol station... I experienced this ins Scotland in September 2021, my first taste of range anxiety.

The future of HGV's in Ireland probably deserves it's own thread.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121254345#Comment_121254345

They're all getting older and retiring is what he means, when was the last time you got on a Dublin Bus or Go Ahead bus and the driver looked under 40?