How to improve Dublin Bus Services in 2017

Dravokivich · 05-01-2017 3:36pm

loyatemu wrote: »

could validators be put at stops for tag on/off (ok, again we run into the problem of too many stops)?

parking machines are solar powered, add in a 3G connection and you have a validator without requiring a load of civils - they could integrated into upgraded stop poles?

in fact the Big Belly bins that a lot of councils are installing are solar powered and have mobile comms to tell the owners when they're full, doesn't seem to me that on-street validators need to be any more complicated.

That "works" for Irish Rail because it's a regular requirement to access and exit the major stations and for Luas due to their high use of inspectors. Won't for Dublin Bus due to their rare use of inspectors.

Also, I thought the the ticket machines should be hooked up to GPS now? meaning there will be no issue with the validator by the door knowing where it is. But if there is Tag On/Off you will get into memory restricted issues again as you'll be doubling the entries for each card use on a bus that takes a fare.

loyatemu · 05-01-2017 3:38pm

Dravokivich wrote: »

That "works" for Irish Rail because it's a regular requirement to access and exit the major stations and for Luas due to their high use of inspectors. Won't for Dublin Bus due to their rare use of inspectors.

Also, I thought the the ticket machines should be hooked up to GPS now? meaning there will be no issue with the validator by the door knowing where it is. But if there is Tag On/Off you will get into memory restricted issues again as you'll be doubling the entries for each card use on a bus that takes a fare.

how proactive are drivers in monitoring fare evasion anyway - people wave their leap cards at the validator and walk on, the driver is usually busy taking fares.

Dravokivich · 05-01-2017 3:40pm

loyatemu wrote: »

how proactive are drivers in monitoring fare evasion anyway - people wave their leap cards at the validator and walk on, the driver is usually busy taking fares.

They get a notification of the card type. So they can see if the person by the validator is using the correct one. The tones alert them to whether or not a fare was done.

loyatemu · 05-01-2017 3:45pm

Dravokivich wrote: »

They get a notification of the card type. So they can see if the person by the validator is using the correct one. The tones alert them to whether or not a fare was done.

fare enough

ideally they'd just be driving the bus though - as pointed out above the QBC proposals did seem to address many of the shortcomings of Dublin Bus, shame they seem to have been kicked into the long grass.

Spanish Eyes · 05-01-2017 3:49pm

Interesting thread.

So far I see dwell times being a big issue. Some suggestions, but not much will happen.

Will take another five years to implement some of the great ideas here.

BRT will taken ten years. LOL.

FWIW I don't think drivers should have any responsibility for fare evasion. The driver in his cab on the LUAS doesn't, neither does a train driver. Drivers are drivers, and the sooner there is no interraction with him/her the better.

Anyway. I agree also there are far too many bus stops far too close together. The recent revision of bus routes (can't remember what it was called), went relatively smoothly didn't it? So a few more metres to walk to the nearest stop shouldn't cause a general election either.

loyatemu · 05-01-2017 4:05pm

Spanish Eyes wrote: »

Anyway. I agree also there are far too many bus stops far too close together. The recent revision of bus routes (can't remember what it was called), went relatively smoothly didn't it? So a few more metres to walk to the nearest stop shouldn't cause a general election.

"Network Direct" as it was called. Certainly any changes near me were resisted by local politicos.

as an example the 84 was to be changed from a low-frequency, slow route between Kilcoole and the city centre, to a higher frequency route between Kilcoole and Bray (from where people could transfer onto the 145 or the Dart). IIRC it would have doubled the number of services from Kilcoole each day.

Local FG councillor complained this would make life difficult for UCD students (of which he was one) to get to/from college, so compromise was the route was changed to Kilcoole-UCD with no increase in frequency, effectively the worst of both worlds.

DB subsequently rerouted it to Kilcoole-Blackrock so it no longer serves UCD at all, is still slow, and low-frequency, and now largely pointless. No stops were removed. I assume similar compromises took place elsewhere.

Idbatterim · 05-01-2017 4:13pm

certain bus routes should be 24 hours at this stage IMO, on the hour on some routes and half hour on busier ones maybe...

Spanish Eyes · 05-01-2017 4:32pm

loyatemu wrote: »

"Network Direct" as it was called. Certainly any changes near me were resisted by local politicos.

as an example the 84 was to be changed from a low-frequency, slow route between Kilcoole and the city centre, to a higher frequency route between Kilcoole and Bray (from where people could transfer onto the 145 or the Dart). IIRC it would have doubled the number of services from Kilcoole each day.

Local FG councillor complained this would make life difficult for UCD students (of which he was one) to get to/from college, so compromise was the route was changed to Kilcoole-UCD with no increase in frequency, effectively the worst of both worlds.

DB subsequently rerouted it to Kilcoole-Blackrock so it no longer serves UCD at all, is still slow, and low-frequency, and now largely pointless. No stops were removed. I assume similar compromises took place elsewhere.

That's ridiculous.

Any bus that connects to LUAS or DART is magic IMV.

Anyway, I take your point, but people who were affected (not just the councillor) should have resisted. I don't think people complain enough really. I know I don't, so I hold my hand up. I get a rash on me if I think I have to interract with politicians of any hue.

Many others are the same. So that's our/their problem really isn't it?

Must take a deep breath and just do it though if it affects me!

CIARAN_BOYLE · 05-01-2017 4:41pm

At certain times of the day some of the big cross city routes should be restricted to city centre only if it makes more capacity available on parts of the route.

More options for operators to run a curtailed route. A lot of people get my bus in the morning going to schools this extra loading of the route causes some passengers to be unable to get on. An empty bus departs the terminus 2 might uses after the bus I normally get and runs along the route for close to a third of the route passing 6 secondary schools. A curtailed run serving the schools would help people but the operatorsn dont have an option to run a curtailed route.

mickmmc · 05-01-2017 4:43pm

Re 33s going through Port Tunnel

Swords is the County Town of Fingal and a significant amount of passengers from Skerries/Rush/Lusk travel to Swords (Pavillons is the largest shopping centre in North County Dublin). Before Christmas the bus driver had to open the double doors on the 33 to Abbey St. at Main St. Swords and at Pavillons stop due to the amount of passengers getting off. A new local service would have to be put in place if the 33 was routed through the Port Tunnel and not go through Swords.

Re: 41s
If the Airport is the terminus, it would take longer for passengers from the Airport to travel to the City Centre as the bus would have to go to Swords Manor and back to the M1 again and onto the Tunnel. Also, capacity on the Swords Road/Drumcondra would be reduced; the 41s and 33s pick up a significant amount of passengers at Northwood/Santry/Whitehall church.

Re: 43
The frequency should be increased on this route

lawred2 · 05-01-2017 6:53pm

ArmaniJeanss wrote: »

The validator doesn't know its own physical location so wouldn't know what to charge you on tag-off.

Which is laughable

BonnieSituation · 05-01-2017 9:34pm

The 18 links Lucan Road/Palmerstown and the Kylemore Luas. Linking Lucan to Clondalkin with the Red Cow wouldn't a be a bad shout though.

Extending the 18 to Liffey Valley leaves a swathe of Palmerstown (from the Coldcut to the N4) now with no service because you have also extended the 26 to Dodsboro. So no dice. Some of these cross city routes could do with a tightening up but they would be better off linking with existing services than being completely rerouted.

Some ideas make sense others less so. I would murder anyone who makes the 25A/25B extend to UCD. Its'a a pain as it is coming from Merrion Square in the evening (as well as the idiotic stop placements) but I can only imagine how hellish it would be wrt reliability if extended to UCD. Making routes longer is not how you make multimodal [sic] work or reliable.

XPS_Zero · 06-01-2017 1:24am

loyatemu wrote: »

"Network Direct" as it was called. Certainly any changes near me were resisted by local politicos.

as an example the 84 was to be changed from a low-frequency, slow route between Kilcoole and the city centre, to a higher frequency route between Kilcoole and Bray (from where people could transfer onto the 145 or the Dart). IIRC it would have doubled the number of services from Kilcoole each day.

Local FG councillor complained this would make life difficult for UCD students (of which he was one) to get to/from college, so compromise was the route was changed to Kilcoole-UCD with no increase in frequency, effectively the worst of both worlds.

DB subsequently rerouted it to Kilcoole-Blackrock so it no longer serves UCD at all, is still slow, and low-frequency, and now largely pointless. No stops were removed. I assume similar compromises took place elsewhere.

Just getting minor changes to the 7 and 111 and 59 eliminating stops and turns saving up to 20 min were resisted by you gussed it RBB I think he's physically incapable of agreeing to anything and has to oppose everything

Then Dublin Bus in true stupidity finally put bus stops at the Brides Glen Luas......with no bus shelters in a high up high wind exposed area....

dfx- · 06-01-2017 5:25am

Routewise, the major artery routes, the super long routes introduced to save money, need to be worked on intensely. The orbital routes run as well as can be expected largely enough (small tweaks like running times for the 238 which cannot make its journey in time).

The 13 and 16 are the problem children and need remedial action. The 27 and 40 are not far behind. Pretty much only the 14 has worked since its forced joining of two routes.

KC8 wrote: »

Route 56A – Replace with a shuttle around Ballymount to Red Cow Luas

The 56A works perfectly well as it is. Almost a poster child for the changes made from the appalling previous incarnation of the 56.

Zebra3 · 06-01-2017 7:40am

Have had the opportunity to spend a few weekends in Zurich over last few years.

DB heads and politicians need to get up off their arses and get over there to see how they do it.

Single decker buses with multiple doors opening at every stop, multiple validates on board and no interaction with the driver whatsoever. The driver does what he did when I was a kid. He simply drives the bus.

As a result of all this dwell times are incredibly low.

It's not rocket science but if implemented would save DB time and money, customers time and hopefully money and give people better quality lives.

Dravokivich · 06-01-2017 9:22am

Zebra3 wrote: »

DB heads and politicians need to get up off their arses and get over there to see how they do it.

Single decker buses with multiple doors opening at every stop, multiple validates on board and no interaction with the driver whatsoever. The driver does what he did when I was a kid. He simply drives the bus.

NTA determine the services and provide the vehicles. Even though this thread is about what Dublin Bus do, it should be an appeal to NTA, more so than Dublin Bus.

trellheim · 06-01-2017 4:23pm

It should be remembered that DAA charge bus operators to stop at Dublin airport.

devnull · 06-01-2017 6:06pm

Dravokivich wrote: »

NTA determine the services and provide the vehicles. Even though this thread is about what Dublin Bus do, it should be an appeal to NTA, more so than Dublin Bus.

If you really think that if the NTA bought 3 door buses tomorrow, all of the problems would go away and Dublin Bus and the Unions would agree to use them for boarding and alighting and everything would run smoothly you're living in cloud cuckoo land.

Just because the NTA wants something, doesn't mean they will get it, anyone who has a clue about industrial relations and how public transport works at an operational level would know that.

Dravokivich · 06-01-2017 6:10pm

devnull wrote: »

If you really think that if the NTA bought 3 door buses tomorrow, all of the problems would go away and Dublin Bus and the Unions would agree to use them for boarding and alighting and everything would run smoothly you're living in cloud cuckoo land.

Just because the NTA wants something, doesn't mean they will get it, anyone who has a clue about industrial relations and how public transport works at an operational level would know that.

Not as close to Cuckoo land who think Dublin bus can just make these changes. The issue with multi door usage has often been cited as concerns about the conditions of stops. I'm on buses regularly that do use the centre doors when it's possible for the driver to do so.

hytrogen · 06-01-2017 6:28pm

KC8 wrote:

Sunday start times â€“ Departures begin far too late. IMO, it is very sad to see so many retail businesses treating Sunday just like any other day, but the reality is that thousands of people have work to go to early on a Sunday morning, yet Dublin Bus donâ€™t have a meaningful service to the city Centre until about 1000. This is even more acute on Bank Holidays when many international businesses are also open. Services along core routes should begin around 0700, like Luas.

Honour the Sabbath day... We are not America not should we go back to those stupid antics of pre 2007 work hours and retailpoxology!

Geuze · 06-01-2017 10:27pm

How close are bus stops?

What should be the distance between stops?

n97 mini · 08-01-2017 1:22am

hytrogen wrote: »

Honour the Sabbath day... We are not America not should we go back to those stupid antics of pre 2007 work hours and retailpoxology!

Should religion impact on public transport? And FYI many US cities have service levels much lower than Dublin on Sundays.

Cookie_Monster · 08-01-2017 6:32am

Dravokivich wrote: »

Not as close to Cuckoo land who think Dublin bus can just make these changes. The issue with multi door usage has often been cited as concerns about the conditions of stops.

Funny how only Dublin encounters this problem. Been in London and Berlin recently and both cities manage 2 and 3 door buses whenever, no pulling in perfectly, no special kerb everywhere. If you have to step on the road so be it.

I don't think it would be a stretch to say every other city in europe operates similarly apart from Irish ones :mad:

hytrogen wrote:

Honour the Sabbath day... We are not America not should we go back to those stupid antics of pre 2007 work hours and retailpoxology!

Lol, get real will you. We've left that rubbish in the past where it belongs

Bray Head · 08-01-2017 10:34am

Geuze wrote: »

How close are bus stops?

What should be the distance between stops?

My personal view is that it should average 500 metres even in built-up areas.

I don't know what the number is in Dublin but I would guess around half that.

Posters have found examples of stops 100 metres or so in the past.

If you reduced bus stop numbers and removed interaction with the driver you would get DRAMATIC improvements in productivity without an extra cent spent on wages or the fleet.

Slutmonkey57b · 08-01-2017 11:13am

I have to disagree with the comments on the 45a and 84 routes, if anything the old 45 route needs to be re-established. Bray now effectively has the 145 and the 84x and nothing else, the first is horrifically overcrowded (forget about getting on at any point after the first few stops from the terminus at peak times) and the second being an express service doesn't serve enough points on the route. The 84 is so infrequent and unreliable with timing it's almost unusable.

There are lots of schools and housing on the old 45 route which are not being served at all now, and I'm sure that's contributing to traffic congestion. E.g you live in loughlinstown, your kids go to school in Blackrock, you are stumped. You live in bray, school in Loughlinstown, same problem. Bray has a dart station but it's half an hour walk for most of the population and it's overcrowded as it is. The 45 route covered a lot of high population areas with young families which are in no man's land between the bus crazytown of the n11 qbc and the dart, and are now getting no service at all or looking at long walks in the rain to get to a service. Blackrock I'm sure is suffering from ghost town effect partly due to the loss in bus service.

Another issue thrown up by consolidating routes on qbc's is that the capacity assumptions based on the long journey buses immediately go out the window. Say you are in the city centre and there are 3 buses going along the qbc in your direction; one goes 5 stages, one goes 15 and another goes 20. The people who only need to go 5 stages will cram on the first bus that arrives. But if you *need* to go 20 stages, now you have to contend not only with crowding on your own route, but also all the bus hoggers who could almost have walked home.

I've waited an hour and a half for a bus which isn't stuffed to the gills while watching empty shorter stage buses sail past. Drivers should have discretion to force short stage cash payers onto following buses.

I can't see the residents of Sandymount bring pleased with your plan to bring the 77 with its complement of rioting thugs to their area either.

StreetLight · 08-01-2017 11:25am

Slutmonkey57b wrote: »

I can't see the residents of Sandymount bring pleased with your plan to bring the 77 with its complement of rioting thugs to their area either.

Your observations were going fine until that last sentiment.

monument · 08-01-2017 12:21pm

The most important thing for the bus and coach services using Dublin in 2017 will be the acceptance and implementation of the planned city centre bus/Luas priority measures.

And greater or wider priority measures or any tweeks that can be done should be added to the list to support the already proposed measures.

monument · 08-01-2017 12:24pm

Slutmonkey57b wrote: »

I can't see the residents of Sandymount bring pleased with your plan to bring the 77 with its complement of rioting thugs to their area either.

Cut it out.

-- moderator

bigredone · 08-01-2017 3:11pm

You moan about how the center doors are use in other countries, well blame the NTA, in other countries the driver wont be held responsible for a accident at the center door, but in Ireland the driver is held responsible, all thats needed for 100% use of center doors in Dublin is for the NTA to step up and accept responsibility for accidents at the center door.

Route extensions and frequency increases, this will cost money, and plenty of moaning around here when the fare is increased, Governments says its broke. so where will this money come from?

Sunday start times, maybe a few here use the bus early sunday to get to work, but the fact is the rest of the population dont start to go out till arout 11, same on a saturday. It would be a waste of money putting on early service.

Intermediate stop times, Hahahaha have you never seen the traffic chaos that is dublin city center? and thats on a accident frree day, buses in dublin must make time whenever they can, because you dont know whats around the corner that will bring traffic to a stand still.

Bus Priority, another joke, as far as i can see there are there are zero consequences for parking in a bus lane, "just nipping into the shop". Also the council have decided to push a pro cyclist plan for city center, no consideration for buses.

Fares, yet again the NTA are responsible for this, years ago Dublin Bus wanted a flat fare and it was rejected by the department of transport, who is holding it up now?

Remove stops/Straighing route, but but but the bus has alway stopped there and went that way ,a few moaning letters/phone calls to the local T.D and that will kill changes. Dublin Bus would save a fortune with a few sensible changes here, but political interference get in the way

Dwell times. the ticket machines are junk, woefully underpowered, and then you have without fail the morons who get to the machine first and then starts digging into a bag looking for cash/Leap card.

devnull · 08-01-2017 4:17pm

How many times have you re-registered now? You know if you want to keep saying the same stuff, at least change your posting style a little bit maybe? Might make it a bit harder for eagle eyed people to spot you

No party is going to turn around and say they will be responsible for every accident because it basically gives a free ride to drivers which basically says that safety is not their problem and that kind of culture is never going to be allowed to happen. The fact that you have come on this forum and asked for that basically appears to suggest you are saying that safety should never be important and it simply gets in the way. You know that, that is why you put up a smokescreen like this knowing that you're calling for something that isn't possible to implement.

If a driver knows no matter how negligent he is at the end of the day someone else will get the blame and he will not be held responsible where is the incentive to even operate a bus to be the safest it can possibly be. Also if this is really your sole argument, why are trains allowed to run driver only? Stepping off a train where there can be 16 sets of doors and a gap which is far more threatening and dangerous than getting off the bus is far harder for a driver to see than a bus with two doors with a much more shallow drop. Yet they still do it. Only difference is there is a mind a gap announcement. If that's all there is required lets add it Monday and you will be all happy to start using centre doors?

As for flat fare, stop over-simplifying it and saying that the NTA are simply blocking it and there is all there is to it. At the end of the day there are other issues involved in this, funding, subsidy, farebox revenue and the effect on it, effect on travel patterns, I know you like to click your fingers and say it can be fixed if the NTA say it can go ahead tommorow, but I doubt the management of Dublin Bus would agree with that, they would have many reservations about it.

That is the irony of all your arguments.

Everything someone else doesn't do is very simple and they just need to do it and that is all there is to it
Everything you don't do is very complicated and there is a lot more to it than meets the eye.

How to improve Dublin Bus Services in 2017

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