I will dread to think how GAI will run the new Southern Orbitals, which is after the G-Spine, either later on this year or within the start of next year. The S8 bus which will operate in my part of Dublin from that point on will probably have the same length or running time issues as the 75/75a which may or may not resolved in time once the L25 gets to launch with Dublin Bus at the same time.
Could these same issues with running times not being met be a problem while GAI has the 17 being changed into the S6?
GAI could be coming across more issues in the interim as to how their drivers, either new or old, will get trained how to run these this new routes. These major issues being highlighted within GAI at the moment could signal the probability of how their other routes are getting cancelled along the rest of their Dublin City network.
And then you have the other issue of GAI having to run the S4 among all of those other problems which could make the issue of staff shortages even worse in the short term.
Absolutely. The implementation of the Bus Connects network redesign should be put on hold until the current staffing shortages at least ease somewhat.
Again the problem with the NTA is its being run by lifelong civil servants none of which have public transport operational experience.
Absolutely, but the problem is that the NTA have their heads in the sand and are not responding to it.
They are now all set to launch another phase of BusConnects which will require more drivers, while the operating companies don’t have the staff to operate the existing service.
It is all well and good issuing fines to the operating companies, but if the problem is ongoing then a schedule that can be delivered needs to be implemented.
Leaving customers to play Russian roulette as to whether buses will or won’t operate is frankly disgraceful, and it needs to be addressed.
They will just end up destroying passenger confidence and losing people back to their cars, which is what is happening already.
We are getting to crisis point with this. GAI seems to be in operational meltdown and DB & BE are experiencing serious problems in delivering the advertised services.
One thing I will say which isn't a defence of either DB or GAI is that nearly every public transport operator in the developed world is suffering from staff shortages.
It is far worse than it ever was before.
For sure there have been some routes that have had running time issues such as the 13 and 40, but now many other routes that never had any issues before are now being affected, with significant cancellations and curtailments. I’ve never seen anything like the level of cancellations and curtailments that are happening on the 14, 15, 15a/15b, 16 and 26 for example.
That’s down to a lack of staff however you want to paint it, because it certainly isn’t running time problems.
It never was repaired. Many people gave up and the current situation will just cause even more people to.
" should know as I spent several years attempting to commute on the 75, and it was a disaster."
^^^^ this. that's why the route is so unsuitable for professionals. I've seen a hospital consultant use it too. (there are 3 or 4 hospitals on this route I don't want to DOXX them! )
The problem on the major city routes and especially Network Direct routes have gone on long before the relatively recent staffing issues.
They are acute now.
And considering quite a significant number of people don't even know the difference between GAI and DB I don't see how that damage was repaired you only need to look at Twitter still to this day 4 years since GAI started operating to see people tweeting DB in relation to services now operated by GAI.
The problem was that the damage was already long done in terms of passenger confidence by DB not fixing the 75 timetable quickly enough. This is before the NTA became actively involved in timetabling services.
I should know as I spent several years attempting to commute on the 75, and it was a disaster.
DB took far too long to respond to the problems and plenty of people just gave up on it and indeed the 17.
You only have to read comments years later here and on social media to realise that.
To be fair iirc the 75 timetable was improved towards the end of DB running the route and the running times seemed to be improved.
The problem with a lot of routes that went to GAI was low frequencies especially on Sundays for example the 184 only had one bus every 2 hours on a Sunday and the 114 didn't run at all. Now with GAI the 184 runs half hourly on a Sunday and the 114 runs hourly on Sundays.
That was unacceptable in my view having such poor frequency on a Sunday however the "solution" of bringing in GAI was likely trying to improve services by lower costs for example it's well known DB pay very high Sunday premiums to drivers however GAI only pay what time and a quarter or time and a half.
Let's face it tendering has been cost saving exercise that's back fired miserably for the NTA. Give routes to an operator who say they can deliver more for less then they expect a high standard of service in return forget it.
The curtailments and cancellations on DB routes right now have nothing to do with excessive loadings or busy long routes, but everything to do with a lack of drivers. It’s widespread across the network. The example I posted is the worst that I’ve seen, but daily I see cancelled and curtailed services on the 14, 15, 15b (three in a row one evening), and the 26 in particular. That never happened before.
As it happens, as a long term user of the 16, I would have to disagree with you - in my experience it does have enough running time. Sure if there is something on in Croke Park there will be problems, but there wasn’t on that evening. It was a normal weekday evening.
That snapshot above was caused by staff shortages and nothing else. With only four buses operating the southern half of the route over a 90 minute period on a weekday, it would cause serious problems.
The reality is that the driver shortage is normally less obvious on DB routes normally because they have fewer low frequency routes compared to GAI, but to suggest that everything will suddenly be rosy if DB took over, is kidding yourself.
There is a real shortage of staff across the sector right now, but GAI take it to new levels.
I suggest that you look at the BE service updates page. The levels of regular cancellations in the northwest (Donegal, Sligo and Mayo) in particular, and regularly in Waterford too is massive, with entire routes cancelled on certain days.
As for back in the day, the 17, 18 and 75 were not exactly strong performers with regular cancellations when DB had them. They left the 75 to rot with an unachievable timetable for years, and that destroyed consumer confidence.
catching curtailments on the 16 doesn't really equate to the 45A etc. Nobody can run the 16 as it is with beyond full loadings. You could be on a busy 16 longer than a flight to the UK or the near continent or even a Dublin Airport security queue.
Same thing with 13/14/15/27/40/39s. The loadings and routes as well as lack of resources are going to cause them problems. The 13 and 40 south of O'Connell Street is a desert of services at 7-8pm.
Dublin Bus ran the orbitals fine enough in my experience with less resources and focus on them when they had them with the odd difficult child like the 17A and 75 before they have been split...
The app tells me the last two 45a's from Dun Laoghaire are cancelled too. Which I find hard to believe. Also, it'd make no sense, as the last three 75s are supposedly all running. Can't be that difficult to persuade or bribe someone to switch.
Just checked my local stop and suprise surprise, the last 17 from Blackrock is cancelled (the inbound from Rialto is also cancelled). The 22:20 155 ex bray is the only n11 DB route that seems to be cancelled however
To be fair most DB cancellations and curtailments in my experience are marked as such on the TFI app.
I have plenty of embarrassing screenshots of DB problems too not least this one from a few weeks back.
Dublin Bus cancellations are far more likely to count down and then just disappear off the RTPI screen, as though the bus has come and gone. I've seen the same thing with GAI services too, but nowhere near as often. It means that the operator doesn't end up with embarrassing screenshots like the above.
Four consecutive buses not running would be a huge cock-up. It wouldn't have been that difficult to move one from elsewhere and squeeze it in the middle somewhere. If indeed it actually happened - buses can wrongly get marked as cancelled sometimes, due to human error.
I'll just leave this here!!
In fairness you can tar that brush with all of the main PSO operators to be honest.
Dublin Bus are no means as perfect in this as some people think. Don't let the fact their app doesn't show cancellations and the fact they don't list any on their website on social media trick you into thinking that it isn't happening. It is as others have said.
Bus Eireann in particular has already cancelled 39 services across 9 routes today and that's before you take into account the mess in Waterford where BE say the network is operating a reduced frequency but doesn't want to tell its patrons what that actually means which is exceptionally poor.
If only the tendering process in Ireland was half as open to the public as it is in some continential countries...
Surely the fact that they cannot provide the services they had previously tendered for, could be used as a factor against them. They are atrocious.
GAI could've promised leprechauns for every passenger and they would've won that tender because multiple operators is what the NTA wants and they were the only option.
Having said that you can only judge their performance based on what they said they would provide in their bid and what they are contracted to. Can we see that...
The NTA do award the tenders but if say GAI could prove that they had the most competitively advantageous tender but it was still awarded to DB then GAI would win a case against the NTA if they took one.
The NTA award the tenders nobody else, Nothing got to do with EU law.....If that's the case GA wouldn't of won the first set of tenders as they hadn't of even got a depot in mind when the tender was put in, They only had a P.O Address as an office in Dublin.
Yes I heard the other day about Suirway but there wouldn't be an Irish operator interested in these tenders other than BE,DB. GAI kicked out and DB take over will never happen, DB have the same problems for years but it wasn't a big issue as they were the only operator, there will be other companies in the mix in the next few years City Link/National Express/First Bus will all want work going forward and will do a better job than GA in my opinion NX and First Bus run better city operations than GA in the UK.
NTA don't have have a say who they award a contract too has to be awarded to that offers the best deal on paper under EU law. Whether that works in reality is a different story.
At least those routes have the advantage of being close to the depot at Ballymount. Also, all operators are suffering from the same problems; ya heard about what happened to Suirway just now?
That being said, I completely get your point about them butchering their timetables whilst introducing brand new routes to stretch out their resources even more. Seems pretty non-sensical, especially since they’re to implement the Southern Orbitals before them, which will take even more resources to implement. Unfortunately I can’t see this issue being resolved anytime soon, unless GAI are kicked out and replaced with DB, which seems almost implausible at this point
Serious Questions need to be asked, while GA is widely knowing as a disasters dropping services and picking up fines for late runs, the NTA have awarded them with the W6/W4 Bus connects tender and there was other companies that are willing to get the work and are well able. The NTA are the ones still awarding this company with new runs,
Yeah the only one they managed to get was the Airport and even with that the buses still have to return to Ballymount for fuelling and cleaning.
Really though I think Go-Ahead would've been better off opening two depots either side of the Liffey instead of just Ballymount. A Northside depot in the Blanchardstown/Finglas/Ballymun area would make sense and Southside depot in the Sandyford area would make sense too given where their routes operate. I'd say Ballymount was the low cost option.
Really some of the blame again could go to the NTA in this regard as the NTA probably should have had some say in the depot provision but instead they buried their head in the sand and said that's a problem for the operator not us.
That was also part of the reason why the bidding process was so uncompetitive Dublin Bus and Go-Ahead being the only operators who bidded. TFL the authority who the NTA have based pretty much their entire business model off of have own the depots and rent them to operators. The buses on the other hand are provided by the operators instead of TFL with the exception of the NBFL the opposite of the NTA who own the buses but the operators own the depots.
Go Ahead used to do the same (I presume they still do), when there was nobody to drive a 59. If it was a quiet enough time of day, and the previous/next 75 were both running, they'd take a driver off the 75 to cover the 59. Or a driver might arrive into the depot to do one duty, and be asked if they wouldn't mind doing another one because whoever was supposed to do the 59, 111 or 185 rang in sick at the last minute.
Interworking is generally a disaster, and should only be used to cover breaks. It might work elsewhere, where buses have proper infrastructure and don't spend the whole time queuing in traffic, but it's ludicrous that someone living in Ballyogan should have to wait over an hour for a bus from Cornelscourt, just because there's heavy traffic on a totally different route in Nutgrove or Bray.
Go Ahead planned on having several outstations at the beginning, but for whatever reason (restrictive planning laws being a big one), it never happened.
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