Bus services getting worse due to improved network

G-Man

So we built the motorways and bypasses but why are bus services not been kept in check.

When I was a teen I had 5-6 times per day 1hr bus service from Edenderry Co Offaly to dublin. Now many years later I need to visit again and and thought about taking the bus. Same jorney now takes 1.40 or 1.55 while car transport has got quicker.

What with increased congestion, calling at more villages and more stops, and waiting for more connections from other rural bus, the timings have got a lot worse. I asked around and find out anyone who depends on the bus for work, has stopped using it and drives or takes expressway bus from Enfield instead.

Surely someone should have had a goal to improve or maintain a fast connection.. Yes please have more connections, but please have express or limited stop buses aswell..

munchkin_utd

when I was young my local town had 1 bus a week to the county town on a Tuesday late morning, from an unspecified location (I presume pensioners and the unemployed knew where it went from) and on one revision of the timetable it didnt even come back!

Now since about 3 or 4 years ago after literally decades of normal families needing 2 or 3 cars to function because bare bones public transport literally was for people with nothing going on in their life, theres 5 return journeys per day with locallink at sensible times to allow people to get to work or further education, and another few services over the week which even go down lanes to pick up pensioners in rural areas who arent near the standard route.

From the sounds of it you need an odd express bus, maybe at peak commuting time, so you should suggest that to the NTA and see what happens.

bk

Well some bus journeys have massively improved.

Take Cork to Dublin as an example. The old BE Expressway could take up to 5 hours making the journey and only left every 2 hours and finished at 6pm!

Now the route has a coach leaving almost every 30 minutes, runs almost 24 hours and only takes 3 hours, plus they have wifi, power plugs and toilets on board. A vast improvement.

Of course not every town has been so lucky, but the core intercity routes have certainly vastly improved and the likes of Local Link are gradually improving smaller towns and villages too.

BlueSkyDreams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058336084/bus-services-getting-worse-due-to-improved-network

Some of the intercity routes are much improved but i guess the small rural towns like Edenderry havent yet been prioritised.

I am sure there will be an improved serivce in time, but we are struggling even in Dublin to get enough drivers to staff services and the BusConnects roll out is delayed on an unknown timescale as a result.

You cant really blame folks for not giving up the car just yet.

LXFlyer

There are actually 3 services in each direction that don’t serve Straffan or Celbridge (120e and 120x).

OP there are now 21-23 PSO buses each way between Edenderry and Dublin, Monday to Friday, 18 on Saturday and 13 on Sunday.

That is a massive change in service level.

There has to be a balance - how many people would you get from Edenderry alone on the services, and how many are going from there to intermediate points.

Clearly plenty of people do use them but it is a balance between journey time and serving the various points along the routes.

Kearns Transport offer a feeder service route 820 from Edenderry into their commercial Tullamore-Dublin route 845 service at Enfield each weekday which offers a faster connection of 1 hour 10 minutes to O’Connell Bridge.

The 120 routes are PSO subsidised - their job is provide a service where it is not otherwise commercially viable to do so.

If the demand was there as you suggest, don’t you think that the likes of Kearns would provide more services?

zell12

Bus services are infinitely better compared to ten years ago. One of the successes of the Greens in Govt.

G-Man

Thanks for the hint about 820 bus.. I can see the network has improved and there are more services, but this could stil be done and add some limited stop services..

Cookie_Monster

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121766597#Comment_121766597

Is great and all but this route in particular should be taken care of by rail to that standard or above allowing for buses to better fill gaps where rail already doesn't go, rather than out compete the current, reasonably poor, rail setup.

LXFlyer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121782582#Comment_121782582

That's really the job of commercial operators though, when it comes to regional or intercity transport.

PSO is about providing services where they would not otherwise be commercially viable, in an efficient a manner as possible.

There are two 120e/120x services that bypass Straffan and Celbridge as I posted above. That's probably as much as you're going to get from the PSO network.

bk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121782998#Comment_121782998

Why though? Competition is good, competition drives better service. The reason why rail and BE were so poor is because they had a monopoly in the past. These new coach services have forced IR to improve, cheaper ticket prices and forced them to install wifi and USB plugs, etc.

And hopefully in the long term it will force IR to invest in new nicer trains and high speed service to truly compete.

Also IR don't really offer the same service, their service is only hourly, versus every 30 minutes of the coach, the coaches run almost all night, unlike IR, IR dumps you in Heuston, rather then the more central location near O'Connell Bridge and of course the coaches continue on to Dublin Airport unlike the train, so they aren't really the same route.

In the end the goal is getting people out of their cars and onto public transport instead. It isn't such a big deal if it is a train or coach. The way I see it the more public transport options the better, trains and coaches can compete side by side, offering slightly different services and thus attracting more people out of their cars then either could on their on.

Consonata

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121785417#Comment_121785417

This seems like more about the inadequacies of the existing rail service. Hopefully these will be mitigated post Dart+ and Metrolink to reduce the need for these bus services.

bk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121786517#Comment_121786517

Sure, but those are about a decade away.

Having said that I honestly believe there will continue to be a place for the coach services and that they make public transport better and offer alternatives.

Lets be honest, if the coach companies disappeared tomorrow, the Irish Rail web promo fares would also disappear overnight and we would all be back to paying the maximum fare allowed by the NTA. That would not be good for public transport and just end up driving many people back to their cars.

I remember exactly what it was like back when you only choices was 3 hours on the train or 5 hours on BE. Irish Rail use to charge high prices back then, €80+ on the route wasn't unusual. I also remember how ridiculously overcrowded it often was, with people often having to stand in the aisles after paying €80 (and remember I'm talking 15 to 20 years ago). This route only became more affordable by train once the competition on the route heated up.

The €20 intercity coach fares has helped take so many people out of their cars on these routes.

Here is what I would like to see and could imagine for a decade from now, once Irish Rail have rolled out 200km/h service:

• 2 hours or less by train for €60 return
• 3 hours by coach for €20 return

An option for both the time sensitive travellers and one for the cost sensitive customers. That is best for getting people out of public transport, give them options and give them competition.

Economics101

This may not be 100% the right thread, but here goes.

To-say (April 9th), several services were curtailed due to demonsrtations at Merrion Square. The 15B normally operates from there, but to-day it was operating from Pearse St.

I turned up iat Redmond's Hill (Augnier St) to get a 15B to Rathfarnham. No 15Bs were indicated but there were 3 No 15s showing over the next 20 minutes or so. Howeve a 15B turns up unannounced just 2 minutes later. Driver daid it didn't show on the bus stop sign because of service disruption ("due to the new Taoiseach"!).

Assuming the bus was correctly inputted into the system (the onboard sinage was all ok), does the gps on the bus not indicate to the information system what bus it is and when it is ecpected? Disruption in Merrion Square should not affect this.

Or does Dublin Bus (or the NTA or TFI or whatever bureaucracy is responsible) use some other system? Surely not rocket science to get this right. As far as I am concerned, another NTA foul-up.

john boye

If the bus had to go off-route it would screw up the RTPI and it would take a little while for the bus to appear on it again.

halfpastneverr

If you use bustimes.org it will show live location of bus on map. This is better than the RTPI screens or (useless) TFI Live app. It even works late in the evenings when the majority of routes are finished and buses are heading back to the garage, not on their usual routes. The final 13 to serve Grange Castle shows as heading out the N4 and M50 to Harristown Depot most evenings after 12:30 as an example of this.

Economics101

So bustimes.org do better job than the NTA or DN or whover is supposed to run the show. In a way this a bad reflection on them.

AX636

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121997404#Comment_121997404

This Is caused by driver change over on Pearse Street, When the driver signs on it may take a bit before the AVL kicks in sometimes it's doesn't come on till Rathmines then all of a sudden it starts tracking again. I know as I drive this route.

bk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121999437#Comment_121999437

bustimes.org gets the location data from the NTA.

The same location data is available to view in the TFI app, Google Maps and Transit app. Basically select the actual route you are interested in and view it on the map view.

Economics101

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121999551#Comment_121999551

Thanks, this explains a lot. But I thought that once you had signed in and set things up, that the AVL should kick in more or less immediately.

LXFlyer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122000155#Comment_122000155

There does appear to be a systems glitch where it can take time after a new driver signs in for the bus to appear on RTPI. I’ve seen in on other routes as well.

TranslatorPS

It's a minor side effect of the GPS equipment relying on the ticket machines, whose data feed is driver-oriented rather than bus-oriented from the scheduling point of view (in Dublin Bus: GAI handles the data on the bus side of things, but it still suffers from logins). One has to wonder if the new ticketing system will fix that issue.

Red Silurian

Had an experience today in Limerick

13:35, bus due

13:33 bus arrives, driver changeover, everybody on, and then a 5 minute wait. Meanwhile a bus on the same route behind us overtakes

13:50 bus finally moves

14:15 bus arrives in a destination 2km away. If I'd walked it I could have made it sooner

€1.60 for the pleasure. This is why people drive FFS!