National Route Numbering

System

This discussion was created from comments split from: BusConnects Dublin - Likely phasing of new routes.

AngryLips

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123646168#Comment_123646168

Wasn't the NTA originally intending for all bus route numbers to be unique in Ireland? Have they given up on that intent?

cgcsb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123646844#Comment_123646844

Yes that's long gone

AngryLips

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123647118#Comment_123647118

Just out of curiousity, why did they abandon it?

cgcsb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123647394#Comment_123647394

It was a bit silly to begin with, post recession reductionism really. Way too hard to maintain in the face of a dramatically expanding service and just not necessary. The town bus for Balbriggan B1 will never be anywhere near the Dublin Bus B1 so there's no point.

PlatformNine

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123646844#Comment_123646844

It might have started that way but they definetly have given up since. I would say that the goal became "don't repeat numbers in the same region" but even that they haven't done very well. For example 3 BC networks repeat numbers from BE long distance service in the same region, the 22 and 23 in Dublin, 13 and 14 in Limerick, and the 4 in Waterford.

Truthfully, as nice as it would be to have unique numbers across the whole island, I think the main goal should just be to keep numbers within a region unique (by province perhaps), and then give unique designations to cross region services. At the end of the day there are only so many numbers unless we want to start pushing buses into 4-digit numbers (which at the moment I think are only used for Door-to-Door services).

At the very least they may be on track to removing some of the more obvious conflicts, the 1-letter town and county services. the Navan town services pre-fixes are changing from N to NV, probably because of their conflict with the N orbitals in dublin. I am hoping it means the plan on removing conflicts of the A-, B-, C-, and D- spines with the Athlone, Balbriggan and Drogheda town services, and the Cavan county services, as well as the S orbitals with the Sligo town services. Especially since newer town services use two letters.

bk

MOD: I though this subject deserved it's own thread, so I've separated it out from the BusConnects Phasing thread, thanks.

bk

It is pretty annoying that they started moving to nationally unique route numbers and then stopped. Cork use to have routes like the 1, 2, 3, etc. and then it pissed everyone in Cork off when they moved them to the 201, 202, etc.

To see them not follow up elsewhere is annoying.

I do think nationally unique numbers is useful, it helps with apps like the TFI Live app or if the TFI website had a unique page for every route in the country, with timetables for the route, etc. (which it really should have).

Enter the unique number and go straight to the route and timetable on the app/website, rather then having to pick from a list of similar numbered routes.

At the very least they may be on track to removing some of the more obvious conflicts, the 1-letter town and county services. the Navan town services pre-fixes are changing from N to NV, probably because of their conflict with the N orbitals in dublin. I am hoping it means the plan on removing conflicts of the A-, B-, C-, and D- spines with the Athlone, Balbriggan and Drogheda town services, and the Cavan county services, as well as the S orbitals with the Sligo town services. Especially since newer town services use two letters.

Very glad to hear that.

PlatformNine

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123647463#Comment_123647463

I agree with you to an extent. Even in a good system I think there will always be some amount of duplicates, but I think it is important to reduce the amount of "pointless" duplicates.

I think "pointless" is a strong word to use but I am really not sure what else to call it in relation to the town services, as they simply don't need be duplicates. Many town services are already launched with (or proposed to have) 2-letter prefixes, and considering long term there will be a lot of town services, it's good standardisation. It would also let the 1-letter prefixes be used for city spines, orbital routes, etc, where I think they are better suited anyways.

PlatformNine

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123648224#Comment_123648224

It is pretty annoying that they started moving to nationally unique route numbers and then stopped. Cork use to have routes like the 1, 2, 3, etc. and then it pissed everyone in Cork off when they moved them to the 201, 202, etc.

To see them not follow up elsewhere is annoying.

They kinda did though? The Limerick and Galway city routes are the 300s and 400s, it was Waterford that strayed (for the cities) being the Ws rather than the 500s. Eitherway it doesn't matter much now as its all going back to 1 or 2 digits now with BC, and in the case of Cork they are making some routes L and X prefixed.

mikeybhoy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123647532#Comment_123647532

Those are Expressway routes which officially speaking are commercial routes the same as Aircoach or Citylink officially speaking nothing got to do with NTA PSO routes.

D8 boy

We're not a big country so I don't think it's unreasonable to aim for unique route numbers of both PSO and commercial services.
The duplication of Expressway route numbers with Dublin city services could be resolved by prefixing the Expressway routes with zeros, e.g. 030 for Dublin-Donegal.

TranslatorPS

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123648808#Comment_123648808

In reality it was publicising that which existed already – the city routes already had three-digit numbers for internal scheduling purposes… for example, to avoid duplicity in IBIS, which sounds funny enough considering that BÉ uses garage codes in their diagram numbers.

Waterford is an oddball on many levels, the scheduling codes for its city routes were 601…605 (which I think has stayed through), so those routes wouldn't have matched anything out of the regional numbering in the area, considering that it's a primarily 350-399 zone.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123649164#Comment_123649164

Which, might I remind you all, could be seen in the old timetables – although the tables were headed with, say, "4", the "SERVICE NUMBER" row always listed them as 004, etc. I've seen the odd coach display a zero-headed number in service too, but it was rare enough.

bk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123648808#Comment_123648808

You are correct, which is why I think it is a mistake to revert them now as part of BusConnects Cork. They should stay in the 200 range.

The issue is when you use nationwide apps and website like the TFI ones.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123649022#Comment_123649022

Yes, but on the other hand all those commercial operators have what seem to be standardised route numbers in the 700’s, 900’s, etc. Like the Aircoach 700 route, 702, etc. or Citylink 707, 760, etc. Expressway is a little bit odd man out there, though as others say above they are really 004, etc.

D8 boy

I've created a spreadsheet of all bus services in the Republic of Ireland. It includes all PSO routes, including Bus Connects Dublin routes which have not yet been rolled out. It also includes all routes classed by the NTA as Commercial - Regular except those which do not appear to be operating.

There are not, in fact, many duplicates. Some of those will cease as the Bus Connects routes replace the current legacy routes, eliminating clashes like the 4, 111 or 270. On the other hand, Bus Connects numbers duplicate with some town bus services and some Waterford city routes. The BÉ Waterford city routes could be publicly numbered in the 60x series as TranslatorPSsuggests: this would also align them with the JJ Kavanagh city services. And a standard two-letter code for town services (e.g. CN1 etc. for Cavan) would remove other clashes with Bus Connects.

bk

That is amazing work @D8 boy great info, thanks.

icdg

I see you’ve classed the 139 (that odd hybrid of “city” and “outer suburban”) as its own thing on that spreadsheet - an acknowledgment that it is effect sui generis? I’ve often wondered whether the NTA thought of it as a “city” or “country” route and whether its number was meant to fit in the Dublin Bus or Bus Eireann series. Up until recently it had its own unique white livery though it’s fairly recently switched to the normal green and yellow TFI livery.

LXFlyer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123668341#Comment_123668341

The 139 is a hybrid city and regional route.

Regional fare structures apply between Maynooth and Sallins and city fares on the rest of the route.

D8 boy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123668341#Comment_123668341

Routes 139, 197 and 975 are all operated under individual contracts with the NTA, so I have categorised each uniquely.

Glaceon

The 173 town service in Drogheda is very confusing to an outsider. It's actually two separate routes - one goes on a loop towards the northern side of the town, scrolled as Moneymore, while the other goes on a loop towards the south, scrolled as Ballsgrove. The stops aren't very clear either, some have no visible signage.

D8 boy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123685813#Comment_123685813

Looking at the TFI map of Drogheda town service, that 173 looks mad. I know Drogheda is hilly but do both both north and south branches have to have such complex loops and branches ?

The simplest solution seems to be to renumber the existing Dn series to DAn to avoid conflict with the D-spine in Dublin and also renumber the 173S to DA3 and the 173N to DA6.

Geog1234

The 173 is essentially the original Drogheda Town Service and broadly reflects the original urban area of the town. Before it became hourly it was quite common to see a fair amount of usage of the buses to the likes of Clogher, Ardee, Navan, Duleek etc…to make short journeys from the bus station to locations in the suburbs. It would be good if both the northside and southside route could operate in both directions.

AngryLips

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123689018#Comment_123689018

I'm surprised the NTA haven't phased out looping bus services. The ones in Dundalk and Drogheda are particularly bad in that they only operate in one direction and, as result, for anyone living near the beginning or end of the loop, the service only really provides any real utility in one direction …because to travel in the opposite direction is the equivalent of taking an open-top bus tour around the entire town every time you want to get home.

Glaceon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123689088#Comment_123689088

Exactly this for me. I find it handy to leave the town, especially when my knees are at me. But I'd never use it to go into the town because I'd probably be able to walk in and back by the time it got me there!

PlatformNine

Generally speaking the loop routes are on there way out. From what I can find there are 6 towns services as well as the Waterford city network still making use of them, mind you that is 6 of 12 currently active town services (at least that I know of). Of PSO town services (4 of 6 I think) the offenders are the 173 in Drogheda, 174+A/B in Dundalk, B1 in Balbriggan, and S1 in Sligo. The other two I am not sure if they PSO or commercial but they are the 290A/B in Tralee and WX1/2 in Wexford town. Additionally 4 of the 5 proposed/upcoming town networks I am aware of don't propose any loop services, with the last just not proposing any specific routes but all potential routings a town service could use.

The Waterford city network is of course being completely redone with BC, and no loop routes will remain after. The 174+variants are planned to be replaced when the new Dundalk town service is launched, although I don't believe there is a timeline for this yet. The S1 is a bit odd, as it seems that when the S3 was launched it was supposed to take over part of the S1 route so it would not have to operate as a loop, so they may still plan to extending the S3 eventually. We should be finding out the plan for the 173 when the new Drogheda LTP is published, hopefully later this year. The B1 however may be here to stay, as the Balbriggan Active Travel Strategy only mentions minor changes to the route and/or the introduction of a second route. The Tralee and Wexford town services also don't look they will be changing any time soon. The Tralee LTP seems to be suggesting similar changes as the Balbriggan LTP, and while the Wexford town LAP isn't published yet all the pre-draft information appears to make reference to minor changes at best.

So long term their naming really shouldn't be too much of an issue, though the obvious exception to all of this is the O in Dublin. Though the O being a stand alone route I think makes it's naming a bit more flexible than the town services, such as the easy option of just naming clockwise and counterclockwise service O1 and O2. I don't think that would work as well for the loop routes in towns, especially if they have a mix of loop and non-loop routes.

Mrs OBumble

Fyi, Galway also has partial loops, as in they cover part of the route only, on the 401 (Salthill end) and 404 (Oranmore end).

PlatformNine

Also related to my comment just above and related to how this thread started, one of the things I noticed while looking over the Dundalk LTP is that the proposed 2-letter prefix for the Dundalk town service is DN and to me that is a massive oversight. Especially being one of the most well known place names I just don't know who thought that was a good idea. That would be like if the Kilkenny town service used KL, or if the loosely reccomended Killarny town service (which didn't include a prefix) used KL. If I had to take a guess when they eventually go to launch the service it will use DD instead.

To be fair the only possible conflict would would be with Dungarvan, and just barely reaching 10K population last census I would be surprised if the upcoming LTP will propose a town service. But eitherway Dun is such a common place name I don't think the acronym should be derived from it

D8 boy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123689500#Comment_123689500

The 290A/B in Tralee and WX1/2 in Wexford town are both commercial licensed to David Culloty (Tralee People's Bus Service) and I.P. Passenger Services Limited (Wexford Bus) respectively.

I wonder if the presence of commercial operators hinders the enhancement of local bus operations? Suppose the NTA decides that Wexford town should have new and more frequent routes and puts the new service to tender, and Wexford Bus does not participate or is not successful in the tendering process. Could Wexford Bus take a case against the NTA for unfair state competition, similar to Swords Express a few years ago?

LXFlyer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123690101#Comment_123690101

There are strict guidelines now about how PSO and commercial services can operate, unlike back in the time when the DoT was in charge and absolutely farcical situations like that quoted by you in Swords and others in Castleknock and Lucan/Celbridge were let develop, and where the public were the real losers.

You are seeing some services currently commercially operated converting to PSO and that’s being done by working with the operators concerned. It would be in no one’s interest for the NTA to be riding roughshod over existing operators.

D8 boy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123690201#Comment_123690201

That's good to hear. It's interesting that CityDirect in Galway has become a PSO operator without drama.

I can't imagine that there's huge money running town services in Wexford or Tralee so hopefully cool heads will prevail and a good service provided with existing operators.

LXFlyer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123690880#Comment_123690880

Wexford Bus are a very shrewd operator - they wouldn’t be running them if they were loss making.

The NTA have town services in Mullingar, Ennis and Letterkenny to launch yet so anything else is well down the pecking order.