How to improve Dublin Bus Services in 2017

Elemonator wrote: »

I would have said add extra Nitelinks. On my route, the 33, they only run Friday/Saturday at 12, 2 and 4. Which is strange, as nearly every student in the country hits town on a Thursday.

We are the only European capital, in my experience, without a 24 hour bus service. Even countries poorer and less densely populated than Ireland have them. Not sure if its lack of funding (they might have ran before the crash but not during it) or unions causing a big hullabaloo about nothing.

it's nothing to do with unions, as from what i understand the agreements for running night links are all ready in place and have been for years.

Bambi wrote: »

On a 4 right now, straight ahead of it is a 4C that's not showing up On RTPI and hasn't a sinner on board.


The cowboy behaviour needs to be curbed

Nothing cowboy about it, this is simply a bus running in service to or from Harristown depot providing extra capacity on a key corridor. You'll see this happen every morning with many Xpresso services arriving in UCD or DCU and then operating a service on their way back to the depot. It may have been empty this morning but very often these extra services fill a gap in service. Either way, better to have it operate than run empty to the depot along the same corridor.

Bambi wrote: »

Not on RTPI and not providing any extra service, there was a proper 4 right behind it. Same with the 1 in the opposite direction this evening.

The 4 is a right shambles at times and the dublin bus solution seems to be ad hoc 4ish buses rather than fixing the problem

The RTPI will only show scheduled services, and as these are extras and operate as directed by Dublin Bus central control, they don't display on screens or on apps. For example, it might operate as a 4 today or a 13 or 83 tomorrow so hard to plan.

I completely agree, both the 1 and 4 need attention to address the timetable problems but I don't think what you describe above is being offered as a solution. It is simply a bus returning to the depot picking up passengers along the way instead of going empty. I don't have a problem with that.

KD345 wrote: »

The RTPI will only show scheduled services, and as these are extras and operate as directed by Dublin Bus central control, they don't display on screens or on apps. For example, it might operate as a 4 today or a 13 or 83 tomorrow so hard to plan.

In the spirit of what we can do to improve the service the real time system clearly needs work. It's really just the schedule plus some occasional real time updates.

The priority needs to shift around and display what busses are actually running and where they are. This would make the system infinitely more useful when there's a disruption.

If a scheduled bus isn't running it needs to be marked as such in the system and not just disappear.

I don't see any signs the real time system has had any improvements since it launched. Right now I bet google has a better grasp of where every dublin bus is and where it's going than anyone else.

[Sorry for the length of this post, the philosophy of public transport is just so much fun!]

1)

bk wrote: »

There is absolutely no reason why you couldn't operate a flat fare and still continue the travel 90 discount!

Tag-on the first bus, pay €2, tag on the second bus within 90 minutes pay just €1. The coding in the ticket machines can easily work all this out, jsut as they do today.

This would be 50% discount, I was referring to a 100% discount, i.e. unlimited free transfers within a specified period of time. Paying €1 on the second bus is obviously better than paying €2 but it's still an extra charge, effectively penalising for (and hence discouraging from) changing a bus.

We all seem to agree on the goal of much shorter boarding times. Adding anything to the process, like the requirement to tag off would be a step in the wrong direction right now. I would much prefer to see and experience the benefits of eliminating interaction with the driver first, before considering any further changes.

Let alone other issues: tagging off would require a massive information campaign and a change in people's habits - we haven't got much success with using the middle doors in this regard (most passengers still head for the exit at the front, without even looking at the middle door). And cities that have introduced it had to face serious resistance - you're asking passengers to do more than today, why should they bother with extra hassle when they can demand the current solution, more convenient for them, to be retained?

So my argument in favour of the flat fare for Dublin is that it will significantly reduce the boarding times as I believe this is one of the key reasons why bus journeys in Dublin are slow and the travel time is unpredictable. The flat fare model has some disadvantages but I think it's a trade off worth doing if we manage to speed up the journeys. Also, the fare structure is overly complex today and fare simplicity has the power to attract new passengers, which is the ultimate goal (people switching from cars to public transport).

Specifically, a flat fare allowing for free transfers within, say, 90 minutes is in fact a time-based ticket. It can be set at a level that does not discourage existing passengers and is successful in attracting new ones, which would result in low subsidy required. By the way, Dublin Bus has been recording profit for three years in a row, suggesting they're quite good at managing their costs - another reason to expect low subsidy (as is the case today).

2)

D8 boy wrote: »

It was something I found in an OECD report when I was wring my MSc thesis, many years ago! The report doesn't seem to be downloadable unless you have a subscription rot the OECD library. Eyeballing the Wikipedia entry on farebox ratio would suggest it's still the case, especially as it does include entries from UK cities apart from London which generally have graduated fares, and high farebox ratios.

Would agree with this explanation:

BonnieSituation wrote: »

Low fares to encourage use perhaps because the costs of the subvention are offset elsewhere in the economy.

So it's due to the levels of fare, not the method of its derivation (flat, zone, time, distance). In fact, the same Wikipedia article shows Stockholm and Munich with only slightly higher levels of farebox recovery than Brussels, despite having a zone-based fare, while Toronto is doing much better with a flate fare. I guess you can always pick counter examples due to numerous factors impacting the farebox recovery that I mentioned earlier.

3)

bk wrote: »

Actually mostly you want to discourage people from taking short journeys on public transport. You want them walking or cycling instead of taking up space of people who are travelling long distance and have no other choice.

My experience suggests that outside of Dublin plenty of people use public transport for short journeys (up to 15 minutes on a bus vs. over 30 minutes' walk), especially in city centres. So if these journeys are truly being actively discouraged, the authorities are dramatically failing at that. I'd say promoting walking and cycling for short distances is targeted at driving (e.g. school runs) rather than at public transport.

In terms of taking up space of long-distance passengers, that's down to route planning: if there are separate local, orbital and cross-city routes then e.g. you have a different route to your local shopping centre (that terminates there) and a different route to city centre (that bypasses the local shops). Also, part of the issue in Dublin is caused by poor frequencies of some long-distance routes.

There may be a simpler explanation for the decreasing cost per km: that's just the way it has always been and it generally works, if it's not broken - don't fix it

If you really need a rationale, I would think the reason for a larger cost of the first kilometre and a small incremental cost of additional kilometres is that a pure linear fare calculation (e.g. 1 km = €1, 2 km = €2) would not work in practice. Either the short journeys would be very cheap (and as they are popular, it would be a large hit to the revenue) or the long journeys would be very expensive (so nobody would take them).

Or with an accountant's hat on: the higher cost of first km is intended to cover fixed costs (which could be substantial in the world of PT) and the cheaper additional km reflects variable costs.

Deedsie wrote: »

Removing taxi's not carrying passengers from the bus lane would help improve journey times. Possible consideration?

How would it be enforced?

There is currently zero bus lane enforcement in place

On board and fixed cameras are needed ASAP

You're right re SSG East. That's what I meant. But the designation and discrimination against taxis does seem bizarre. I mean I can't imagine it being such that taxis are getting in the way of buses on these routes.

It's just the sort of weird legal clause that always gets my goat up.

Also, kudos on the description of Blackhall. Probably why it isn't designated as a contra-flow so as to allow taxis to use it.

KD345 wrote: »

The RTPI will only show scheduled services, and as these are extras and operate as directed by Dublin Bus central control, they don't display on screens or on apps. For example, it might operate as a 4 today or a 13 or 83 tomorrow so hard to plan.

If the rtpi doesn't show the actual busses running in real time then its a lying piece of crap.
and should be at least renamed, if not redesigned

Carawaystick wrote: »

If the rtpi doesn't show the actual busses running in real time then its a lying piece of crap.
and should be at least renamed, if not redesigned

The system is as real as it gets. It works off the scheduled timetable and then changes to real time movements once a journey goes live. That's all any system can do. Journeys can be cancelled or adjusted by controllers but conditions throughout the day will affect the real time operations on routes.

To give an example, a bus operating route 123 may be scheduled to leave Marino at 2pm and operate across to Walkinstown to depart at 3pm. Along the way, at 2.30pm, something happens mid journey which delays the bus (protest/accident/problem with passengers/heavy traffic) and the bus is now not expected to arrive at Walkinstown until 3.15pm. The controller needs to make a decision - either to keep this bus running late which will result in it bunching with the the next bus, or remove that bus from service from Walkinstown and have it make up time by operating special to a point on the route where it can return to schedule. If that decision is made then anybody tracking that bus on its return journey may see it disappear from the app. The person will probably call it 'a lying piece of crap' like you suggest but in reality it is simply reflecting real time operations.

Last week I was on a bus which took almost 8 minutes to travel one stop from Pearse Street to College Green. The bus stop on College Green displayed it as 2 minutes away. The app was correct, as the bus was 1 or 2 minutes away, but because of heavy traffic it took a lot longer.

I use the bus daily and I find the app to be reliable most of the time, but from using the bus so often I have come to understand how unpredictable the operating conditions in Dublin can be. You only have to look at the current restrictions with the Luas works, with buses passing through narrow fences to get from Dame Steet to Parnell Square. I have been on buses where heavy loading or incidents with passengers can delay a service. You would also be amazed at how many buses are taken out of service because of broken windows from stone throwing or anti social behaviour. All of these incidents affect the RTPI system.

The app could be improved, I would like to see cancelled departures displayed or any service which is running delayed to be shown in a red colour. These are simple things which could offer a bit more information to passengers.

I think we have to accept the app will never be 100% accurate. By its nature it is real time and will always respond to real time conditions.