St Patricks transport nightmare

Beats

We (My girlfriend and I) had a great day enjoying the parade, followed by cupla scoops, a fine stew, walk along boardwalk, before heading over to friends in Ballsbridge. We decided to head home early at midnight.

First mistake, legged it to catch last Luas, which was inexplicably running a Sunday service. Hello? There were 700,000 people attending the parade and yet no service after 11.30? Connex missed a golden opportunity, and no doubt every Luas before 11.30 was crazily packed. Just checked their website. (http://www.luas.ie/document/index.asp?head=2 ) Public holiday Sunday service. Wished we had known.

Decided to walk around the green and catch a taxi returning to town. Second mistake. I'm I totally naive or what! I was under the assumption that empty taxis are available for hire! Not in the case of the numerous cabs that went by during a fruitless fifteen minute attempt. Of course even though they were empty, none of them had their light on. Very clever!

Not to worry it's a busy night, let’s walk back to the taxi rank. Third mistake. Friendly, quiet, no trouble queue, yet where were the taxis? All 10,000 of them? The rank was averaging a taxi every ten minutes. Yet I could see numerous taxis turning down Dawson street. Is the top of Grafton street the worst place to wait? , and if so Why? What's the point of a rank if it's not being served? Rang some cab firms. No answers. Following fifty minutes of idle banter with fellow sufferers, with little sign of the queue improving, we decided to try Dame street.

No chance. The queue was a lot worse and was extending quickly. Walked up to Molly Malone and tried to hail a taxi. A few did stop but we weren't fortunate. Again every empty cab had its light off, even the ones that stopped to pick up fares. Also saw a rogue Hackney, picking up a fare which had not been ordered.

It was now just 2am, and the city was heaving. But there was a saviour, in the form of Dublin Bus, who as if by magic suddenly offered a night service. Was this scheduled? Finally we bordered a bus at 2.30 and arrived back home after 3 am. We'd still probably have been there only thanks to the night bus and driver. Cheers .

A minimum 2 ++ hours to get out of the city. What was the point of deregulation when we are still left without any reasonable service when we need it most? Why are there ranks if they are not being served? Why do taxi drivers who are free insist on leaving their light off? Are there any rules involved in picking up a fare? On the biggest festival day in the city, why does public transport run a Sunday service? God help any visitors who made the mistake of having accommodation outside of the city. I guess we won't be seeing them again.

Sadly this isn't my first bad experience of getting out of the city on a holiday. I remember Xmas and numerous others too painful to relate. You'd think I'd just give up and not bother. Maybe next year. In the meantime what's the story Mr. Gerard Deering, the appointed taxi regulator? I wasn't even able to find a website or address to complain. Anyone have similar experience ?

Zaph0d

Beats wrote:

Sadly this isn't my first bad experience of getting out of the city on a holiday. I remember Xmas and numerous others too painful to relate. You'd think I'd just give up and not bother.

Patrick's day is one of the worst days of the year to get a taxi -the drivers naturally don't like working it as the punters are so drunk and troublesome.

One way to get a taxi on a busy night is to walk out along the main routes that the taxis use to return into town. You're pretty much guaranteed a car by the time you reach the Burlington going south, Annesley bridge going north or Arran Quay going west. About 20 mins walk.

The ranks are the worst places to wait.

dmeehan

used to live on Arran Quay and always walked friends up the quays who were getting taxis. always got one by the time we reached the ha'penny bridge

BrianD

A few comments:

It's a public holiday so one would expect a Sunday service or reduced service. No different to anywhere else in the world.

You should have researched your transport options before you left home then you would have had any surprises.

Finally, there will never be enough taxis in Dublin primarily because of our attidude to alcohol. We all stay drinking as long as possible and all sense and reason evaporates. We stagger out of the boozer and want to get home NOW and IMMEDIATELY and who cares about the price and only door-to-door delivery is acceptable. Timing our departure to conicide with a nitelink or any other form of transport is a non runner once the booze kicks in.

HelterSkelter

BrianD wrote:

It's a public holiday so one would expect a Sunday service or reduced service.

Totally stupid commend to make BrianD. There was a big event on in town, most people would expect an increase in service, not a reduced service. The fact it was a public holiday has nothing to do with it. In any other case when there is an event taking place that results in a large amount of people looking to get home (e.g. Slane, Witnness Festival, etc) there is always extra public transport put on.

murphaph

BrianD wrote:

It's a public holiday so one would expect a Sunday service or reduced service. No different to anywhere else in the world.

It's our national holiday and one of the biggest socialising days in the year. Other cities actually cater for such festivities with lots of EXTRA services, nevermind reducing the service!

HelterSkelter

The Government are trying to encourage people to use public transport, plus they are trying to stop people from drink driving, so er, helloooooooo, is this not a golden opportunity to show people how effective public transport is. By having buses/trams/trains running on a frequent timetable that people could depend on to get home they could win a lot of new customers. But no, some genius decided to reduce the service and f*ck the customers, let them walk home.

PoloBroin

Jeez, do you think the casualties rostered the bare minimum cos it was a public holiday? Not a chance.

and as for the Luas, like wtf, arrived at Beechwood at 11.30 am to go into town just as the tram departed (as per) but there were still about 25 people on the platform, someone told me that only 2 people got on the tram that I had just missed,

at same time it was a lovely day for a walk into town, surprised more people weren't walking but that's Ireland for ya

unfortunately I had a heavy bag cos was heading for the hills so didn't enjoy the old walk as much, not to worry, you would (should) expect more though from the public transport on the one public holiday where everyone wants to get into the city

lynchie

PoloBroin wrote:

and as for the Luas, like wtf, arrived at Beechwood at 11.30 am to go into town just as the tram departed (as per) but there were still about 25 people on the platform, someone told me that only 2 people got on the tram that I had just missed,

lol only 25!

I was at the Red Cow depot at 11:20am waiting to get into town. It seems that everybody from laois who was going to Croker decided to park their cars in the depot and get the luas into town. Spent 20 mins queing for a ticket - that didnt really matter cause the trams that came while I was queing were all full as were the next 6. Was over 100 ppl on the platforms. Staff tried to stop ppl trying to get on the trams as they were all full but nobody cared - they kept barging their way in. Finally made it into town on the 7th tram, 1 1/2hr after arriving at depot. Bus would have been quicker!!

enterprise

A public holiday - a reduced service operates. LUAS operated a Sunday service, IE operated a Sunday DART and Commuter service. I think DB operated a Saturday service with major alterations due to the parade. They also operated a Saturday Nitelink service from 00.30 until 04.30.

As another poster said: check your transport options before you set out and you avoid getting into the sorry mess you got yourself into.

sliabh

I rode the Luas into town (from Milltown) around 14:45 without any difficulty. At that stage with the parade over the trams coming from the city centre were busy but not absolutely jammed.

And then I came back out again aroud 3 hours later and even got as seat as things were relatively quiet. So any rush from the parade did not affect the Luas for the rest of the day. What you ran into was the usual drunks going home rush at night.

BrianD

HelterSkelter wrote:

Totally stupid commend to make BrianD. There was a big event on in town, most people would expect an increase in service, not a reduced service. The fact it was a public holiday has nothing to do with it. In any other case when there is an event taking place that results in a large amount of people looking to get home (e.g. Slane, Witnness Festival, etc) there is always extra public transport put on.

Stupid? St. Patricks Day = Public holiday. What bit do you not understand?

A sunday service is sufficient to service the needs of the city on the day.

Slane and Witnness are private events with Dublin Bus operating a private service at a premium price. It's vastly different to St. Patricks Day in the city.

murphaph wrote:

It's our national holiday and one of the biggest socialising days in the year. Other cities actually cater for such festivities with lots of EXTRA services, nevermind reducing the service!

What do you mean by socialising? Getting so p***ed that you couldn't recognaise a bus if it was in front of you?? A sunday service does not stop you going into town, socialising and getting home. I know of no other city that lays on extra services on a public holiday.

HelterSkelter

BrianD wrote:

I know of no other city that lays on extra services on a public holiday.

Aaah come off it, are you trying to say that St. Patricks Day is the same as any other Public Holiday? It's our national holiday and a lot of people (700,000 people as one previous poster said) want to get into town to enjoy the day and get back home again. You can't say it is the same as any other public holiday. Do you think there will be the same number of people trying to get into town this Easter Monday??

murphaph

BrianD wrote:

What do you mean by socialising? Getting so p***ed that you couldn't recognaise [sic] a bus if it was in front of you??

Yes.

Beats

Thanks for the comments and advice. Was kind of hoping to hear a few more similar stories and get some opinions on taxi services.

Learnt one lesson, will check public transport times in future. Have in the past walked out of the city, just didn’t do it on this occasion.

I thought we were leaving early at midnight and would get a taxi without a problem. As for taxi drivers not willing to work on Paddys, I can understand but there did seem to be plenty of taxis just very few of them were picking up at the rank at top of Grafton st.

The whole Public transport issue. Luas did put on extra trams in the morning to get people into parade. So why not help us get home ? If Dublin Bus offered Saturday service, why not Luas !

As for everyone being slaughtered and expecting an instant trip home, we weren’t and most of the people at Grafton St rank seemed more than coherent, just tired and waiting patiently for transport home. By 2am Nitelinks seemed the only option. Plenty of people were making this choice whether they were sober or not.

I don’t really see your point BrianD. Surely we should be demanding better services regardless of occasion or time. All I expect is that the services offered, operate to provide an efficient, regular, safe way for everyone to make it home. The Nitelink provided this. The taxis were a joke!

seamus

BrianD has a point in that St. Patrick's Day busses have *always* run on a Sunday service, like every other Bank Holiday. That they again were doing it this year should have been no surprise.

The problem with trying to schedule extra services is that half of the bus terminii are closed for 4 hours due to the parade, and the traffic is nuts. It would probably be a good idea to run shuttle-like services (i.e. stop at a 1 mile radius from the City Centre), but at weekday frequency - at least until 9pm.

I left town at 10pm on the day, had no trouble getting a taxi. Town was jammers though. I think St. Patrick's day should be moved offiically from the 17th March to the third Saturday in March.

DubTony

Beats wrote:

I don’t really see your point BrianD. Surely we should be demanding better services regardless of occasion or time. All I expect is that the services offered, operate to provide an efficient, regular, safe way for everyone to make it home. The Nitelink provided this. The taxis were a joke!

Hang around this forum long enough Beats, and you'll see BrianD loves to support the status quo. A sort of "if it's already there, it must be grand" attitude. Actually, when BrianD comes up with an original idea, the whole forum stops for a day or two to catch it's breath.

I know a couple of taxi drivers. One won't ever work on St. Patrick's Day again, after having people puke in the car 3 years in a row. The other works it but finishes at 9 pm, well before the pubs start to unload.

As for not picking people up. Taxi drivers on a busy night are very selective. They can afford to be on St. Patricks Day. Problem is they spend the rest of their time complaining about how there are too many taxis. "Ah, sure you can't make a decent living out of this game anymore. Too many weekend warriors taking all our business away."

Tony

DubTony

seamus wrote:

I think St. Patrick's day should be moved offiically from the 17th March to the third Saturday in March.

Jaysus, Seamus. You can't just change somebody's birthday

Tony

seamus

DubTony wrote:

Jaysus, Seamus. You can't just change somebody's birthday

Tony

Ah, ye can if it means you don't have to work the next day

BrianD

DubTony wrote:

Hang around this forum long enough Beats, and you'll see BrianD loves to support the status quo. A sort of "if it's already there, it must be grand" attitude. Actually, when BrianD comes up with an original idea, the whole forum stops for a day or two to catch it's breath.

I know a couple of taxi drivers. One won't ever work on St. Patrick's Day again, after having people puke in the car 3 years in a row. The other works it but finishes at 9 pm, well before the pubs start to unload.

As for not picking people up. Taxi drivers on a busy night are very selective. They can afford to be on St. Patricks Day. Problem is they spend the rest of their time complaining about how there are too many taxis. "Ah, sure you can't make a decent living out of this game anymore. Too many weekend warriors taking all our business away."

Tony

Obviously you don't read my postings at all Tony. I don't support the status quo. What does annoy me if people who take no personal responsibility (right down to checking a bus time table) and then whinge on about how things didn't suit them at that particular time and all needs to be changed.

The fact of the matter is that less people were in the city centre on Paddy's day then on an average work day. There may have been more people engaged in leisure activities than normal but there was plenty of transport options to meet their needs.

There will never be enough taxis in Dublin to meet the demand that results from our drinking culture. There are now more taxis in Dublin than London (according to reports) in are smaller geographic area with a fraction of the population. The unfortunate consequence of deregulation is that the licences are now cheaper and owners can work when it suits them. Along with deregulation should have come sort of service level agreement or even an equal distribution of licences accross the metro area or perhaps the creation of new taxi ranks that must be served by certain licence holders etc.

kenmc

BrianD wrote:

A few comments:
It's a public holiday so one would expect a Sunday service or reduced service. No different to anywhere else in the world.

Bull$hit. Barcelona runs the underground ALL NIGHT on new years. Right through. 24 hours.

kenmc

Beats wrote:

I was under the assumption that empty taxis are available for hire! Not in the case of the numerous cabs that went by during a fruitless fifteen minute attempt.

Nope. Taxis with lights on are available for hire.

Of course even though they were empty, none of them had their light on. Very clever!

ergo they were not for hire! Hence why they didn't stop. If a taxi is on a callout they go lights off, cos they are already hired. If a taxi is going home they go lights out. What bugs me is when they leave lights on and don't stop. or have lights off as if they were hired and cherry pick the fares they want. w@nkers.

HelterSkelter

BrianD wrote:

There are now more taxis in Dublin than London (according to reports) in are smaller geographic area with a fraction of the population.

I don't think you can compare Dublin with London when it comes to taxis. They have a great underground system that is very reliable and runs on time. Because of that people don't depend on taxis as much. Plus the underground is a hell of a lot cheaper than getting a taxi. Also people in London don't tend to go into town as much as Dubliners. They have a good selection of shops, restaurants, bars in the suburbs. They have lots of versions of Liffey Valley, Dundrum shopping centre, etc so there is not the same need to go into town.

BrianD

On the contrary, I think I can. While London has an extensive underground it is all relative. There are large areas not served by the system, it operates till about 0030 at night and a reduced service on public holidays. While it is better than Dublins rail the operating schedule is not that much different. Furthermore, in Dublin there are many people that live close to public transport who will still take a taxi irrespective of this fact because they demand door-to-door transport.