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Town bus services as an alternative to the car

  • 17-01-2020 10:19am
    #1
    veryangryman
    Registered Users Posts: 5,528 ✭✭✭


    Personally my experience is that anyone who owns a car doesnt use the bus services in the towns. Usually due to lack of speed (rare you get bus lanes in towns). Minimal climate impact as few abandon their car for them

    So traffic wise they dont help. The non drivers of course find them beneficial.

    Dublin and (maybe) Cork seem to be the only places where the bus beats the car speedwise into town. Others just dont give bus priority so the only benefit i can see s saving on parking for the commute


Comments

  • #2
    bk
    Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 22,444 Mod ✭✭✭✭bk


    Not even Cork IME, anyone who can drive, does drive in Cork. Buses mostly are just students, elderly, etc.

    I suppose there might be 3 or 4 routes in Cork that might be the exception, but overall I remember reading somewhere that only 2% of people commute by bus in Cork!

    Dublin is really the only place with serious bus usage. Having said that, the buses are very badly needed by those who can't drive and I find the buses in Cork can be still quiet full, with OAP's, students, etc.


  • #3
    MrAbyss
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 426 ✭✭MrAbyss


    Not even Dublin on the whole yet so much better than anywhere else with Galway being a total disaster.


  • #4
    is_that_so
    Registered Users Posts: 32,136 ✭✭✭✭is_that_so


    veryangryman wrote: »
    Personally my experience is that anyone who owns a car doesnt use the bus services in the towns. Usually due to lack of speed (rare you get bus lanes in towns). Minimal climate impact as few abandon their car for them

    So traffic wise they dont help. The non drivers of course find them beneficial.

    Dublin and (maybe) Cork seem to be the only places where the bus beats the car speedwise into town. Others just dont give bus priority so the only benefit i can see s saving on parking for the commute
    Local bus services tend to have very few routes, limited timetables and literally go around the houses.


  • #5
    Tomrota
    Registered Users Posts: 336 ✭✭Tomrota


    What towns have actual high quality dedicated public bus services outside of the cities?

    Let’s take Naas for example. Choked with local and Dublin commuter traffic. It has no local bus service, but if you put in a route that circled the town, also went to adjacent towns, had a flat fare that was capped, installed bus lanes to beat traffic, etc. then it would definitely get people out of cars and give incentive to the likes of stay at home moms and others to not take their SUVs out to shop at this time because it would be quicker and easier by bus. That would also connect communities. I believe that would be a little too European for Ireland though, even in Dublin we can’t seem to get people around.


  • #6
    ohographite
    Registered Users Posts: 312 ✭✭ohographite


    Does anyone know how many people use the town bus services in Sligo and Athlone?
    Are the buses mostly running empty, or are there usually a good few on board, or something in between?


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  • #7
    veryangryman
    Registered Users Posts: 5,528 ✭✭✭veryangryman


    ohographite wrote: »
    Does anyone know how many people use the town bus services in Sligo and Athlone?
    Are the buses mostly running empty, or are there usually a good few on board, or something in between?

    Empty enough outside of rush hours.

    Wouldn't begrudge the service though - it just needs a massive overhaul of the local roads to allow for bus priority etc to get car drivers to migrate.

    If its just for pensioners and students then its grand enough the way it is. Still even they treat themselves to a cab the odd time. Or bike it.


  • #8
    murphaph
    Registered Users Posts: 19,018 ✭✭✭✭murphaph


    is_that_so wrote: »
    Local bus services tend to have very few routes, limited timetables and literally go around the houses.
    Still, if done properly they can be very useful. I live in a dormitory town on the outskirts of Berlin. It would be comparable to say Leixlip or Celbridge. The town services connect people with the centre where the shops and services are and with the railway station, for onward connections to Berlin mostly.

    There is insufficient demand off peak for the service to be run entirely by the bus company in the region. They only operate the peak services with larger vehicles. Off peak and on Saturdays, the local volunteer bus drivers take over and drive a special wheelchair accessible 8 seater bus on the route. The ticket machine is still able to issue tickets for the whole VBB (Berlin & Brandenburg) tariff area if you don't have a monthly pass.

    https://www.buergerbus-brieselang.de/streckenfuehrung


  • #9
    Vic_08
    Registered Users Posts: 3,041 ✭✭✭Vic_08


    murphaph wrote: »
    Still, if done properly they can be very useful. I live in a dormitory town on the outskirts of Berlin. It would be comparable to say Leixlip or Celbridge. The town services connect people with the centre where the shops and services are and with the railway station, for onward connections to Berlin mostly.

    There is insufficient demand off peak for the service to be run entirely by the bus company in the region. They only operate the peak services with larger vehicles. Off peak and on Saturdays, the local volunteer bus drivers take over and drive a special wheelchair accessible 8 seater bus on the route. The ticket machine is still able to issue tickets for the whole VBB (Berlin & Brandenburg) tariff area if you don't have a monthly pass.

    https://www.buergerbus-brieselang.de/streckenfuehrung

    Whereas here we have a transport authority licencing more premium services within the city (more airport-city express routes) and publicly funding their own routes in dormitory towns that are completely separate from the existing fare and ticketing arrangements (Naas-Blanchardstown, Ashbourne-Swords).

    Not to mention the massively subsidised nationwide local-link network that is almost perversely designed not to be integrated into anything else both for fares and even provision of information relating to it's existence.


  • #10
    is_that_so
    Registered Users Posts: 32,136 ✭✭✭✭is_that_so


    murphaph wrote: »
    Still, if done properly they can be very useful. I live in a dormitory town on the outskirts of Berlin. It would be comparable to say Leixlip or Celbridge. The town services connect people with the centre where the shops and services are and with the railway station, for onward connections to Berlin mostly.

    There is insufficient demand off peak for the service to be run entirely by the bus company in the region. They only operate the peak services with larger vehicles. Off peak and on Saturdays, the local volunteer bus drivers take over and drive a special wheelchair accessible 8 seater bus on the route. The ticket machine is still able to issue tickets for the whole VBB (Berlin & Brandenburg) tariff area if you don't have a monthly pass.

    https://www.buergerbus-brieselang.de/streckenfuehrung
    Why do people always refer to systems we can never emulate? We don't have German planning, never mind their way of thinking. From my own experience of Germany it's pretty much the same patterns others have mentioned, in small towns. The only places where it is different is where trams and a metro can be justified.


  • #11
    murphaph
    Registered Users Posts: 19,018 ✭✭✭✭murphaph


    is_that_so wrote: »
    Why do people always refer to systems we can never emulate? We don't have German planning, never mind their way of thinking. From my own experience of Germany it's pretty much the same patterns others have mentioned, in small towns. The only places where it is different is where trams and a metro can be justified.
    Of course we can emulate them. We, as a society that places little value on public transport (never a serious election issue), choose not to.


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  • #12
    jrar
    Registered Users Posts: 795 ✭✭✭jrar


    Tomrota wrote: »
    What towns have actual high quality dedicated public bus services outside of the cities?

    Let’s take Naas for example. Choked with local and Dublin commuter traffic. It has no local bus service, but if you put in a route that circled the town, also went to adjacent towns, had a flat fare that was capped, installed bus lanes to beat traffic, etc. then it would definitely get people out of cars and give incentive to the likes of stay at home moms and others to not take their SUVs out to shop at this time because it would be quicker and easier by bus. That would also connect communities. I believe that would be a little too European for Ireland though, even in Dublin we can’t seem to get people around.

    I live in Naas and there are some local bus services - there are the usual plethora of distance buses coming through town headed for Dublin, Red Cow Luas, Dublin Airport, and then Portlaoise, Kilkenny, Limerick etc. going the other direction.

    Locally there is a feeder bus to the rail station in Sallins but the routing and schedule appears akin to the third secret of Fatima.

    There was a bus linking Naas with Sallins & Clane, and also Kilcullen, but I don't see that around now so it may have folded.

    There is a new route (139) which goes to Blanchardstown SC via Clane, Maynooth, Leixlip etc. so very useful for students in Maynooth for instance. One puzzling aspect of this route is that it's pick-up only and doesn't seem to allow passengers to alight where they wish or need to - not exactly a way to encourage more people to use the service and abandon their cars.

    On that point, I would say a large percentage of residents in Naas are commuters to Dublin and its environs, and may be living in Naas purely from a perspective of housing costs i.e. nearest point to Dublin that they could afford. The downside is that every house has a front driveway with one or two cars per household with the result there is a large exodus every morning for those working elsewhere. That leaves lots of car journeys for school runs, shopping trips (exacerbated by the fact that the town is ringed by retail parks - town is a good example of a doughnut with the centre having lost much of its vibrancy courtesy of councillors having given the go-ahead over recent years to Monread Centre, Globe Retail park, Newhall retail plus a slew of Lidl and Aldi supermarkets on the town fringes. Basically, Naas is a town which has been modified over many years to facilitate cars and motorised journeys much like the rest of Ireland - walking/cycling options are limited as houses are built further and further from the centre, plus if people have invested in a car, they are going to go and use it.

    Naas COULD be a model town in terms of cycling/walking layout, pedestrianised section etc. - but the vested interests in the town seem to believe that having a traffic-choked main street (but little shopping as a result) shuttling to and from US-style mall developments is preferable to having a Dutch-style urban living environment where people take precedence etc.

    We had a McDonalds on the main street but it closed about 18 months ago - why ? Because the franchise owner built a big drive-through version beside the Monread Centre, and now many of their customers don't even have to leave their cars to get their calorific overload.


  • #13
    Vic_08
    Registered Users Posts: 3,041 ✭✭✭Vic_08


    jrar wrote: »
    I live in Naas and there are some local bus services - there are the usual plethora of distance buses coming through town headed for Dublin, Red Cow Luas, Dublin Airport, and then Portlaoise, Kilkenny, Limerick etc. going the other direction.

    Locally there is a feeder bus to the rail station in Sallins but the routing and schedule appears akin to the third secret of Fatima.

    There was a bus linking Naas with Sallins & Clane, and also Kilcullen, but I don't see that around now so it may have folded.

    There is a new route (139) which goes to Blanchardstown SC via Clane, Maynooth, Leixlip etc. so very useful for students in Maynooth for instance. One puzzling aspect of this route is that it's pick-up only and doesn't seem to allow passengers to alight where they wish or need to - not exactly a way to encourage more people to use the service and abandon their cars.

    On that point, I would say a large percentage of residents in Naas are commuters to Dublin and its environs, and may be living in Naas purely from a perspective of housing costs i.e. nearest point to Dublin that they could afford. The downside is that every house has a front driveway with one or two cars per household with the result there is a large exodus every morning for those working elsewhere. That leaves lots of car journeys for school runs, shopping trips (exacerbated by the fact that the town is ringed by retail parks - town is a good example of a doughnut with the centre having lost much of its vibrancy courtesy of councillors having given the go-ahead over recent years to Monread Centre, Globe Retail park, Newhall retail plus a slew of Lidl and Aldi supermarkets on the town fringes. Basically, Naas is a town which has been modified over many years to facilitate cars and motorised journeys much like the rest of Ireland - walking/cycling options are limited as houses are built further and further from the centre, plus if people have invested in a car, they are going to go and use it.

    Naas COULD be a model town in terms of cycling/walking layout, pedestrianised section etc. - but the vested interests in the town seem to believe that having a traffic-choked main street (but little shopping as a result) shuttling to and from US-style mall developments is preferable to having a Dutch-style urban living environment where people take precedence etc.

    We had a McDonalds on the main street but it closed about 18 months ago - why ? Because the franchise owner built a big drive-through version beside the Monread Centre, and now many of their customers don't even have to leave their cars to get their calorific overload.

    The times for the rail station shuttle are listed on the Irish rail timetable.

    https://www.irishrail.ie/IrishRail/media/Timetable-PDF-s/Heuston-timetables/16-Dublin-Portlaoise.pdf

    Naas-Clane is run by JJ Kavanagh as is the Kilcullen-Newbridge route.

    https://jjkavanagh.ie/timetable-detail-page/?RouteNo=846O&IsWeb=0&IsCollegeRoute=0&Direction=0&RGrp=Town%20%20City%20Services


  • #14
    LXFlyer
    Registered Users Posts: 17,541 ✭✭✭✭LXFlyer


    There is also the Monasterevin-Naas KCoach bus which also operates around Naas.

    http://www.kcoach.ie/#timetable


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