Dublin Bus to Oxegen

spacetweek

Dublin Bus charged me E20 for the return to/from Oxegen.

Extracting the urine!

That's a tenner each way, the nitelink is only 4 quid and they have to put up with junkies, drunk scumbags, comatose teenagers, food fights and rich kids having scraps.

It should have been 10 max.

Nuttzz

Supply and demand, if you not happy make other arrangments.

How much would a taxi have been???

John R

You were free to make alternate arrangements as any other operator was free to put on their own service.

I don't see €20 as excessive, the time each bus is out of the garage for these events far exceeds the journey time and the drivers are all on voluntary overtime, believe it or not Dublin Bus do not have a huge reserve of drivers hanging around to do the odd pop concert a few weekends per year.

The fact is Dublin Bus always put on excellent travel for festivals and concerts. The outgoing buses are sperad over a long period so people can turn up when they like and the same goes for after the events. No departure time is imposed, you just leave and get on the first bus which leaves as soon as it fills up. They even put on extra buses for the return to facilitate those who found their way there without any way back and late buses to pick up the stragglers hanging around much later than anyone could reasonably expect.

dudara

I used this service and couldn't fault it. We left about before 12 on saturday and were there for about 1. I'm not really too sure on times, as I didn't have a watch. Coming home, we left about 10 mins after Green Day finished, and when we left, there was a big string of Dublin Bus buses lined up outside. We got on the 2nd in the queue and were on our way in about 5 mins. the buses got out far quicker than I expected, and I was home in bed for 1.30. How bad. I'm very pleased with the service, and I don't think E20 was excessive for it.

Buses were clean in both ways, full but with no one standing. Brilliant.

I was travelling with my 16 year old sis (I'm 26) who was at her first festival so i wanted things to be as easy as possible. Our total travel expenses for the weekend were E35 (E20 for Dublin bus and E15 for aircoach from cork on Friday). We travelled back down at our leisure on Sunday. Compare this to her friends from home who paid E45 to travel at 4am Saturday morning, returning god knows when on Sunday morning.

BuffyBot

Dublin Bus charged me E20 for the return to/from Oxegen.

Extracting the urine!

That's a tenner each way, the nitelink is only 4 quid and they have to put up with junkies, drunk scumbags, comatose teenagers, food fights and rich kids having scraps.

It should have been 10 max.

These services are operated on a purely commercial basis - no subsidy. So therefore Dublin Bus have to fuel the bus, pay the drivers (overtime rates) etc etc to provide the service and make some money for themselves.

They also run a lot of buses, with flexible departure times each way - not a bad service if you ask me.

Should they run it at a loss?

eth0_

Well the nitelink takes what, an hour at most? I'm sure a lot of those buses were taking up to three hours to get out there, from what i've heard of the traffic. 15-20 is pretty fair, I think.

spacetweek

eth0_ wrote:

Well the nitelink takes what, an hour at most? I'm sure a lot of those buses were taking up to three hours to get out there, from what i've heard of the traffic. 15-20 is pretty fair, I think.

I can't believe you guys are defending all this! It took around 1 hour. I think it's pretty comparable to the nitelink service, but a return there would be 4x2 euro. Even allowing for the fact that it's a service outside what they normally do, I was still taken to the cleaners. I was seriously thinking of cycling down!

On an unrelated note I also paid €8 for a hummous falafel! Jeesus!

dead air

Nuttzz wrote:

Supply and demand, if you not happy make other arrangments.

How much would a taxi have been???

A couple of friends of mine took one to the festival, and it cost them €60. Which is the flat fee to Puncestown apparently. The taxi driver wanted them to pay more because of the bad traffic.

parsi

spacetweek wrote:

I can't believe you guys are defending all this! It took around 1 hour. I think it's pretty comparable to the nitelink service, but a return there would be 4x2 euro. Even allowing for the fact that it's a service outside what they normally do, I was still taken to the cleaners. I was seriously thinking of cycling down!

On an unrelated note I also paid €8 for a hummous falafel! Jeesus!

Was there a man beside the bus with a gun forcing you to use Dublin Bus ? Was there a man with a gun forcing you to buy the falafel ?

FFS eur20 is fairly cheap for a bus to Punchestown and if you didn't want to pay it why not cycle/walk/hitch ?

spacetweek

parsi wrote:

Was there a man beside the bus with a gun forcing you to use Dublin Bus ? Was there a man with a gun forcing you to buy the falafel ?

FFS eur20 is fairly cheap for a bus to Punchestown and if you didn't want to pay it why not cycle/walk/hitch ?

None of those alternatives is realistic.

Borzoi

spacetweek wrote:

On an unrelated note I also paid €8 for a hummous falafel! Jeesus!

What?? Ripped off at a festival?????

Makes the bus fare look fair IMHO

randomname2005

In the same vein, Dublin Bus were running a return service from Ardgillan Castle which was €10 return per person which was also quite steep.

John R

€10 return steep!
I bet you paid more than that for two plastic cups of luke warm liquid at the event.

randomname2005

Actually no, ended up driving cause it was easier!

Third_Echelon

I had absolutely no problems in paying 20 euro to get to punchestown and back.... well worth the money in my opinion.

It was a great service. Plenty of buses waiting and ready to go on both legs of the journey. Anyone complaining about it needs their head examined. Imagine if they didn't provide the service???

cdebru

spacetweek wrote:

I can't believe you guys are defending all this! It took around 1 hour. I think it's pretty comparable to the nitelink service, but a return there would be 4x2 euro. Even allowing for the fact that it's a service outside what they normally do, I was still taken to the cleaners. I was seriously thinking of cycling down!

On an unrelated note I also paid €8 for a hummous falafel! Jeesus!

DB send the buses down and they stay at punchestown for the day along with the staff so they are ready to leave as soon as people want to leave

it is nothing like the nitelink service

DB has to pay the drivers OT rates for the whole day they also have to feed them etc etc
The Buses are unavailable to DB for the whole day as they are parked in punchestown waiting for the return

This is the best way to provide the service as it gaurantees that there will be sufficent drivers and buses available when people want them
for example if people leave early due to bad weather etc etc

what you are paying for is a gauranteed seat to and from the venue pretty much when you want it

also if there was much money to be made at it I can gaurantee you there would be plenty of private operators lining up to do it there is not and that tells its own tale

For DB it is really a pain in the ass that they would probably prefer not to have to do as these concerts are at one of the worst times for DB in relation to staff availibility but they are providing a much needed public service and that is their job