Wait ages for a bus and then ...

Trojan

... along come 4 together.

10:19am this morning at Killester village we got a 29, a 31A, a 31B AND a 32 (hope I got those right, it was hard to keep track of.

4 together - impressive. Pity about the 25 minute wait beforehand.

Dublin Bus drivers: this p!sses your passengers off no-end. Despite liking and using the service very often, I find it hard to condemn those people who criticise you when I see this.

enterprise

You don't really understand the reasons behind this.

I understand your annoyed - I would be to. Its not the driver's fault that his bus bunches up with other buses. One bus could have been late, therefore more people waiting at the stops = longer boarding times = buses behind have a faster run and catch up.

Also the timetable may be structured wrong if buses frequently bunch together.

Trojan

You're right, I hadn't thought deeply about it, but at first I was thinking that the root cause has to be a badly structured timetable. I see that the other factors do make a difference, but here's why I think it's simply timetabling (or unprofessional drivers, if it's not timetabling).

If 4 buses pass in 30 mins, then the ideal is to have one pass each stop every 7.5 minutes. That's an ideal world, ignoring heavy loads, traffic, etc. But there must be at least one person with half a clue in DB who can figure out that 4 buses over 30 mins should go (I'm guessing) at 0 mins, 5 mins, 15 mins, 22 mins. This is assuming there was not a bus just recently on the same route - lets say there was nothing for 30 mins beforehand. That kind of staggering should be applied to the route map taking into account the similar routing and route lengths, this is just an example.

Also, it should not be tolerated that drivers depart the depots late without serious and valid reasons.

Regardless of cause, the drivers are the ones who face the public, so it's in their interest to press for more intelligent timetabling, hence my post being addressed to them.

So, am I way off the mark here?

Zaph0d

Why do buses come in threes

chewy

i saw this thing to do with ryanair, where they set up a page where you can fill in a complaint form press submit, and it automatically faxes your complaint to the company, because thay don't reply to emails, could set one up for dublin bus...

enterprise

chewy wrote:

ibecause thay don't reply to emails, could set one up for dublin bus...

Any time I have had reason to email Dublin Bus regarding complaints I have always had a reply within 24 hours, one reply was back to me within 90 mins. Also my Girlfriend had a reason to email Dublin Bus after an incident just before Christmas, now she didn't email them until after the Christmas / New Period and got a reply back within 2 working days + a 5 day handypack free.

Therefore they do reply to email complaints!

cdebru

Trojan wrote:

... along come 4 together.

10:19am this morning at Killester village we got a 29, a 31A, a 31B AND a 32 (hope I got those right, it was hard to keep track of.

4 together - impressive. Pity about the 25 minute wait beforehand.

Dublin Bus drivers: this p!sses your passengers off no-end. Despite liking and using the service very often, I find it hard to condemn those people who criticise you when I see this.

4 buses
4 different routes with 4 different running times
coming from 4 different places
howth
sutton
donaghmede
portmarnock

meet in killester how is that the drivers fault?????

cdebru

Trojan wrote:

You're right, I hadn't thought deeply about it, but at first I was thinking that the root cause has to be a badly structured timetable. I see that the other factors do make a difference, but here's why I think it's simply timetabling (or unprofessional drivers, if it's not timetabling).

If 4 buses pass in 30 mins, then the ideal is to have one pass each stop every 7.5 minutes. That's an ideal world, ignoring heavy loads, traffic, etc. But there must be at least one person with half a clue in DB who can figure out that 4 buses over 30 mins should go (I'm guessing) at 0 mins, 5 mins, 15 mins, 22 mins. This is assuming there was not a bus just recently on the same route - lets say there was nothing for 30 mins beforehand. That kind of staggering should be applied to the route map taking into account the similar routing and route lengths, this is just an example.

Also, it should not be tolerated that drivers depart the depots late without serious and valid reasons.

Regardless of cause, the drivers are the ones who face the public, so it's in their interest to press for more intelligent timetabling, hence my post being addressed to them.

So, am I way off the mark here?

yes

cdebru

Zaph0d wrote:

Why do buses come in threes

there is a reason do a google
basically the first one takes more passengers and is slowed down which allows the 2nd one to catch up the third one is carring very little so it catches up as well
the 3rd bus is well ahead of were it should be because the 2 buses in front carried its passengers leaving a gap the next bus gets held up allowing the following 2 to catch up and it starts alll over again

jlang

Of course here there are four different routes so each bus has presumably travelled from a different location, met different traffic conditions, etc and may not even be routed by the same garage scheduler.

murphaph

Ya gotta love the integration!!