City Busses (Rant)

billy the squid

Something seriously needs to be done with the local busses in this bloody city. Was waiting 40 minutes for city centre-raheen bus this evening and when it did decide to show up it was packed beyond capacity. Then when it got as far as the Crescent shopping centre, instead of going straight on towards the industrial estate it went on a magical mystary tour passed the new County Council building and through a maze of houses in raheen going over speedbumps and everything. before emerging beside the church before the industrial estate.

The bus usually passes the regional hospital and there were several people going to visit relatives on the bus at the hospital. They did not find out they were not going towards the hospital until the driver decided to make his little detour.

The journey was made longer making me late for work.

I mean the busses are too damn small for this route to begin with. If they are not going to get bigger busses they should at least run every ten minutes instead of every twenty minutes. but making them run every ten minutes is no good if they are not going to show up when they are supposed to like they did today.

And passengers should have been notified if the route had been changed.

It is typical of Bus eireann in this city to be useless. only weeks after they stopped the number 6 bus entering southill because of scumbags what do they do, they change the route of the Rathbane bus to go into Carew Park.

Metallicababe

Its hard sometimes to understand the logic of the service which is being offered to the raheen area. Why is there not a double decker bus or better still why not a more regular service (say every ten minutes)

Funny once i had a broken leg it was very difficult trying to get aboard!!! well anyway i stood the whole way no one would offer me a seat I was crying i was in so much pain standing.... at once stage i even fell.........god bless any person is who disabled attempting this route..........

Downtime

Try living in Dublin with the bus service!!!

billy the squid

It is a damn site better than what you have here to be honest. although it depends which part of dublin you are living.

ishnid

Downtime wrote:

Try living in Dublin with the bus service!!!

I've lived in both and, believe me, the Dublin Bus service is positively blissful in comparison.

LB6

Just got the Limerick Post - big write up on bus services in Raheen/Dooradoyle.

The jist of it being.

First service - leave city centre on the half hour and serve Fr. Russell Rd, Southcourt, Upper Church Rd, Ballycummin Village, Church Hill Meadows (that's me covered) and the new estates along the Dooradoyle rd. This service will depart from Ballycummin Village on the hour and will run from 8am to 7pm.

Second service - will start at 7am and run from UL through the city to the Regional Hosp.

They (bus eireann) are hoping that this new service will be up and running in the next couple of weeks.

Hope this helps and keeps you out of the bosses bad books.

Shar.

billy the squid

I read the article this evening but was unsure whether or not there would still be a bus to the raheen iindustrial estate.

LB6

didn't actually mention the industrial est. just that it would be going past it for ballycummin village. prob use the stop at the shop there. Could always make a phone call and find out!

billy the squid

I hope they do. when they changed the rathbane route the made a complete cock up of it.

1huge1

I was in Dublin yesterday coming from the airport,right away I noticed a bus saying city centre,heuston or whatever I was heading for Heuston
What im trying to say is that Limerick should have a system like Dublin were the route is always the same and theres loads of bus lanes and they run on a regular basis 365 days a year rather than our one in Limerick
Come on Limerick!

sceptre

Metallicababe wrote:

Its hard sometimes to understand the logic of the service which is being offered to the raheen area. Why is there not a double decker bus or better still why not a more regular service (say every ten minutes)

It's a few years ago that the service to Raheen included double-deckers. That's the only reason the long City Centre-Castletroy-City Centre-Raheen route goes up Old Clare Street rather than out the Ballysimon Road - the buses wouldn't fit through the low railway bridge on the Ballysimon Road but would fit under the Singland bridge. These days of course all the double-deckers are gone but the route is still the same. Service is still crap though.

billy the squid

http://www.limerickpost.ie/dailynews.elive?id=6061&category=Daily-Fri

there is the full detail on the new services being offered to raheen in the near future.

Am actually old enough to remember there being double decker busses on the rathbane and greenfields busses.

BobTheBeat

I know exactly how you feel man. I used the service five days a week for over four years while at college, and was subject to the same pathetic service. I just ended up having to ask the bus driver every time I got on, where was the bus bound for. Like your own experience, he would pull up in town (when the bus would be designated for the Caherdavin route) and then roar "All off!". Jesus, I dunno how many nights I walked for over an hour in the freezin cold solely because of this lack of a proper controlled bus service.
I always maintained, the biggest customers for Bus Eireann are students, and they are the first group they will sh*t on everytime. As far as Im concerned, Limerick doesnt have a bus service.. just a couple of clowns driving around in tin cans following routes and schedules that suit them. :mad:

PlasseyMinstrel

I'm in Plassey and can never rely on buses to show up when I need them. Supposedly one of the Raheen or Caherdavin buses will pass through every 20 mins heading for the city centre via one of those routes. A few times I've waited up to 45mins for a bus - there could've been 2 other buses in that time - or 3 if one had showed up at the start of the 45 min period, as was scheduled. Once I was waiting at the UL main gate with about 8 other people when the bus came along with maybe 7 people on it - it slowed down beside us and then motored off - WTF???

I've taken to going to the bus stop 40 mins before the time of the bus I should be taking is due if I need to be somewhere at a specific time.

Damomanye

just to let you know , The Bus you got that goes out by the new county council office has been running for over 15 years. Every Day of the week. At 12.20 and 5:30pm it goes up that way. I use every day.

Tons of busses go out the norm way(by the hospital)....we only get 2 a day.

So lay off the That route!

limerick_man

Yeah, what are ye all on about, I'm not sure about all the other routes but the bus service to Raheen is great!

It's (pretty much) a bus every 20 min's normal times and 15 min's at peak times
And then at Christmas they lay on extra buses!
It's all on the timetable!

A great service that Bus Eireann do is that, on the UL - Raheen route, when they have a sedualed sevice that the bus leaves at 9.20 from UL, that if they're is a basketball game on in the sports arena (they usually end around that time) the driver will wait until the people pour out and then they can get on! Believe me that dosent happen in Dublin!

And if a driver sees you running for a bus, he'll wait for you! In Dublin it's almost a sport to piss people off by closing the door and driving off. I much prefer the service here!

1 thing that does annoy me is that when the buses are doing there turn around at the Raheen Roundabout they pull in just before the first stop on the route and the driver seems to just pull out a paper and read until its actually the time to go to the stop! Why cant they just pull up and collect people who are standing in the freezing cold!

And the other bad thing about the service was that they only served a few people in Raheen, in fact most people on the Raheen bus got off at the cresent. But thats changing now with those two new bus services.

The Original Raheen bus routes will remain
: UL - Industrial Estate (via Childers Road)
: UL - City Centre - Industrial Estate
: City Centre - Industrial Estate
: City Centre - Industrial Estate (via Mulcar Drive)
: Pineview - City Centre - Industrial Estate

Plus the new routes
: City - Ballycummin Villiage - City
(Return to Raheen via Fr. Rusell road)
(Return to city via Dooradoyle road)
: UL - Hospital

The Original Service will become more frequent and the new services will run every hour on the half hour from City Centre.

From City Centre You can go anywhere in Limerick!

Plus if you live in Castletroy or live in city and go to UL! The "€1 coach" (i think thats what its called) is cheaper than bus eireann for adults (not for kids).

billy the squid

1 thing that does annoy me is that when the buses are doing there turn around at the Raheen Roundabout they pull in just before the first stop on the route and the driver seems to just pull out a paper and read until its actually the time to go to the stop! Why cant they just pull up and collect people who are standing in the freezing cold!

actually I have had this in the pouring rain happen to me. bus waiting in front of that new building at the roundabout, ask can you get on, no you have to cross the road and wait for it at the bus stop.

so after nearly getting killed by the traffic crossing the road you have to wait for fifteen minutes while the driver has a read of the paper and a smoke where he is nice and dry on the bus, while your soaking wet.

Im all for new routes on raheen but they should consider double decker busses for it, the busses as they are now are standing room only if your lucky enough to be able to get onto the bloody things.

LB6

Quick Update.

Just got notification in post today from Niall Collins. The new bus routes are as stated above, AND - the city centre to Raheen route will soon be moving to a ten-minute interval frequency. Hence - no double deckers!

Again there's no mention of when all this is supposed to come into force all it says is these new services will commence very shortly.

Hope this alleviates some of the travelling pressure.

Suggestion - buy a motorbike - it's faster, more fun, and you might get your gear wet, but it's your choice not the bus drivers! And its a great social outlet.

Shar.

limerick_man

billy the squid wrote:

the busses as they are now are standing room only if your lucky enough to be able to get onto the bloody things.

Why are we Irish so critical, a few years ago getting a bus from Raheen to the city centre was considered the lazyest thing, I've been told that these services where set up for the eldery!

Now its like Oh My God I have to stand up, the one thing i hate is when people take seats rathar then offer them to an elderly person.

You must remember in most countries there are no seats on the buses, it's all standing room. Here we are privilaged.

billy the squid

have you ever walked from the city centre to the raheen industrial estate. its over four miles!!

I cant drive or cycle as I don't have enough eyesight to do this, I have walked from town to work on occasion it takes nearly an hour.

as for standing room only comment, on occasion the busses do be too full, meaning that you literally cannot move on them, surely there are safety issues involved here.

limerick_man

I hear what your saying about walking to town i get the bus the whole time too. Its just that every thrend on this site seems to be negitive. Anyway dont worry about the safety regulations coz soon there will be a bus every 10 minutes rathar then 15 - 20.

billy the squid

There is a saying. If you are happy with a service you will tell one person, if you are unhappy you will tell ten people. that might explain why posts on the site might seem negative. people come here to rant and rave about how bad things are, when they are not posting they are happy.

more busses on the route is a welcome change to the service though.

gaf1983

From my experience the only people that take the bus in Limerick are those that have to, i.e. the elderly, students, people that can't drive and people that can't afford cars. Given the choice between taking the bus and driving, most people in this city opt for the former it seems. If taking the bus means half-hour waits only for a dangerously overcrowded bus to pull up and reasonably refuse to take on any more passengers, coupled with really long walks from the bus stop to wherever it is you wanted to go (There is some statistic that everywhere in Paris is within 500m of a metro station. I doubt the same could be said for Limerick regarding bus stops - if people have really long walks after their bus journey, often in the wind, the wet, the rain, they will be discouraged from using the bus)....Bus Eireann have to get their act together so that people will choose the bus rather than the car. If they can convince more people that they are offering a good service, they will increase their revenue and then be able to invest in improving their service even further. I've a couple of suggestions of how they could improve their service:

1. Schedule the busses for every 10 minutes on the busiest routes, every 20 minutes on all other routes. People willl only choose the bus over the car if they know their bus will be at their stop when they want it, or at least if they know they won't have to wait all that long. This would involve buying more buses and hiring more drivers - good for employment then.

2. Establish a night service. Sure the taxi-drivers will be up in arms, but isn't competition good for the consumer? This could be run to some of the areas most in demand at night time but maybe only every 40 minutes.

3. If they feel that double-decker buses are too awkward what with bridges and that, why not invest in those single-storey buses twice as long as normal buses with the accordion type thing in the middle?

4. Give the public more incentives to use the bus. For example, in the town in France I lived in for a while, Besançon, nearly everyone that used the buses had weekly, monthly or yearly bus passes. This was made by making the bus passes much cheaper than buying single tickets - for instance my student monthly bus pass there was €21 whereas if I bought single tickets (each one costing a euro) I would have spent well over €50 on the bus per month. The bus passes were available in every newsagent, and also in the universities and schools. The bus company also had a shop in the centre of town to buy them. Encouraging the majority of people to have travelpasses is also good because it speeds up the time it takes to get onto the bus - there is no waiting for change, all you have to do is flash your ID.

5. The town also had a great idea to show car-users what life on public transport is like. If you brought your car into a mechanic in Besançon, the bus company alllows you to travel for free on the bus for the duration of your car being out of action.

6. Perhaps put park and ride facilities on the outskirts of the city, i.e. at Coonagh, Patrickswell, Annacotty etc. Make the use of these facilities much cheaper than city centre parking. Hopefully this would free up traffic so buses would run on time and make restore the public's faith that the bus would be on schedule.

7. The design of the current buses needs to be changed. There's too much seating on them for a start - it's fine when there are hardly any passengers on them but positively dangerous at 5 o'clock in the evening when passengers are squashed up against the front windshield. Remove some of the seating and replace it with areas to lean, bars to hold onto, and fold up seats.

8. Put 2 doors in the buses - one for going in at the front, one for going out towards the back/middle. Much time is wasted when everyone that wants to get off the bus has to be let off the door before the people waiting can get on.

9. At every bus stop put maps of Limerick showing all the routes highlighted in different colours. Don't have every route necessarily going through town - have more routes using orbital roads along the lines of the UL-Raheen via Childers Road route.

10. Widen the Childers Road.

11. Publicity campaigns informing the people of great changes made and the ease of taking the bus.

12. More bus shelters.

13. Get property developers of ever expanding suburbs in places like Annacotty and Raheen contribute towards the extension of bus routes into their estates. We can't have everyone relying on the car, the roads just can't accomodate them all for a start.

14. Many of the less-used bus routes stop at 6 o'clock. I believe they should stop at 7 or 8 at the earliest, as this will give people who work until then to catch a bus home. Perhaps one of the reasons why some bus routes are so underused is because they are so infrequent)

15. Run loads of extra buses on big match days in Thomond Park and the Gaelic Grounds, especially from park and ride facilities. Perhaps include free use of public transport for the day of the match in the price of the match ticket.


To conclude, I believe that the solution of Limerick's bus problems (and, indeed, traffic problems) is to convince people that have the choice about whether to drive or not that the bus is a better option. I believe this could be achieved through implementing the 15 measures I have outlined above.

billy the squid

first off I wanted to compliment you on a thumping good read, great post and some great points made.

1. Schedule the busses for every 10 minutes on the busiest routes, every 20 minutes on all other routes. People willl only choose the bus over the car if they know their bus will be at their stop when they want it, or at least if they know they won't have to wait all that long. This would involve buying more buses and hiring more drivers - good for employment then.

I believe that this is being done in the not too distant future, on the raheen route anyway.

3. If they feel that double-decker buses are too awkward what with bridges and that, why not invest in those single-storey buses twice as long as normal buses with the accordion type thing in the middle?

We have had double-decker busses in the city before, dont really know why they got rid of them, probably due to lack of interest at the time. but now that people are coming to the country from abroad to work there are now more people using public transport .

I have seen the single decker busses you speak of on television, although I wonder would they be able to handle some of the hairpin bends in the city. particularly where mallow street meets Parnell street, and on to hyde road.. This is the route of the greenfields bus if I am not mistaken.

8. Put 2 doors in the buses - one for going in at the front, one for going out towards the back/middle. Much time is wasted when everyone that wants to get off the bus has to be let off the door before the people waiting can get on.

this would also benefit safety should the bus be in an accident there would be an extra exit. the current system is not very good to be honest.

I would also like to see childers road widened, it can be like a car park at times.

Dave

I think the routes are a bit ridiculous aswell. The routes in Limerick should encompass the whole of Limerick. As in you shouldn't have to get 2 buses if you're going from UL to Raheen or Caherdavin to UL. I know they throw on ones that do go that route 2 or 3 times a day but that's it. They should make the routes bigger and have the prices reflect the distance travelled.

gaf1983

Another thing I just thought of is that it would be good if city buses left from outside the bus and train station too. Perhaps they could leave from where the taxi rank is, and the existing taxi rank could be moved to within the train station car park. At the moment there aren't even signs in the train station directing visitors about where the city bus stops are located.

limerick_man

Dave wrote:

shouldn't have to get 2 buses if you're going from UL to Raheen or Caherdavin to UL. I know they throw on ones that do go that route 2 or 3 times a day but that's it.

The buses runn throughout the day on the raheen - Ul route!!!

gaf1983

Put 2 doors in the buses - one for going in at the front, one for going out towards the back/middle

They did have this but then they had the problem of people getting on the bus without paying. Besides it doesn't take u that much time the only stop (on the raheen route anyway) that takes more than 20 seconds would be the cresent shopping centre! which takes about a minute... its not exactly a lifetime!!!

gaf1983

Establish a night service.

But drivers would disagree to this for safety reasons... people might get on ride until they are on there own and then kick the crap out of the driver... and highjack the bus!!!

billy the squid

We have had double-decker busses in the city before, dont really know why they got rid of them

Because the driver couldn't keep conrol of what was happening up there... knackers where pulling the seats off etc...

Dave

If you read my post I state that they do infact have UL Raheen buses, but they are in no way regular and only operate about 3 times a day.

limerick_man

But they run throughout the day ( like i said in the post above)!!!

Dave

No they don't. I'm going to UL, and they do not run throughout the day.

billy the squid

only one way to put an end to this

http://www.buseireann.ie/site/your_journey/printed_timetable_pdfs/city/limerick2&8uni.pdf

you are both right there are busses throughout the day (apart from noon to 4pm approx) and they are indeed irriegular.