Dublin Coach Experience Discussion Thread

Doesn't matter, even the last bus, a driver shouldn't have let more people on the bus knowing there were no seats left.

I’m not arguing the rights and wrongs! It’s possible there was a spare seat hidden down the back some place with bags etc and she preferred to stay there- I’ve no idea. Does the driver have some kind of automatic register that tells him how many sears are free?

Vast majority in seats don’t wear a seat belt anyhow so in an accident her outcome would not be a whole lot different I’d imagine

Saw a falling apart decker in portlaoise the other day, the bumper was hanging off, and a light hanging out.

If I recall it was a 12

A 09 decker passed me near portlaoise today, falling to bits and sounded worse!

How is that yoke road legal or still going!

How does that even happen? Relatively new coach as well.

I see people on Facebook giving out about some drivers speeding etc.

A driver said they are speed limited so they couldn't be speeding!

Most of their drivers are non nationals often with poor English

Dublin Coach been letting me down a bit, unfortunately. When the service runs, it's fine, but a couple of times I've been waiting for the 7.15 AM M7 service out of Burgh Quay and it's just not been there. To be more specific, on the first occasion, the bus was there, but it said "Not in Service" and the bus driver appeared from the back of the bus, eventually, to let people on for the 7.45 slot. The second time, there was just no bus.

On the second time of this happening, I asked the 7.45 driver what the issue was and he said that the company has a lack of drivers. OK. I also called the company themselves, and the explanation they gave was that one of the buses going toward Dublin earlier experienced a mechanical failure at Kildare. OK. I understand all of these things happen, and more, but it's no good for commuters to show up to a stop and just have no bus be there.

The man on the phone said about seeing the location of the buses in the app, which would work, unless it's like the first occasion where the bus was physically there at the stop, but just wasn't running.

The company needs to be better with real time service updates otherwise it's just not fit to use, especially if you need to be somewhere at a specific time.

Yes, and to that, the customer service guy did hang up on me mid-call.

Passed a Killarney bound coach in Limerick on Friday evening with a person sitting in the ‘tour guide’ seat and another sitting on the steps up to the main seats. Ridiculous operator.

I don't think service levels are as poor as people make out. Bit like Ryanair people love to complain to keep coming back!

There real time system is streets ahead of the public operators and fairly reliable. BE don't even have an app.

I agree. Yes it can be a wild ride sometimes but i often use the M9 service and it’s cheap, quick and if you get a new bus can be a comfortable experience. I use their app too and it’s spot on. Can watch it leaving Waterford and know to get ready and make my way across town to the stop! A lot of people are using them and that says to em they’re providing the service people want. They beat the train on door to door times

I was about to reply to a few of you saying fair enough, maybe I'm just unlucky, but then I got 726'd yesterday! Was waiting in the airport for the 18.30. It simply didn't show up. Similarly the 19.30 didn't show. I jumped on the 750 to the red cow and figured I might pick up the 726 there or at least if i had to go back into the city to get a train that was an option. Eventually a 726 turned up at th red cow at 20.45 but there wasn't enough seats so he left 5 people, myself included, behind. Then randomly another 726 turned up at 21.15. This took the rest of us, it was pretty empty. As I was getting off at Naas the driver couldn't open the front door, asked us to use the back. He then had to turn off the bus for something and couldn't start it again. There were people on that bus that waited 2.5 hours in the cold at the red cow and then got as far as Naas, only to be stuck again

Throughout all of this, the 'real-time' info was not working. None of the drivers I asked were able to tell you where the next 726 was or if they saw it in red cow etc etc. Absolute sh1tsh0w.

That sort of experience is a regular occurrence with this crowd. Just look at the physical condition of most of their buses - very high mileage (even for buses), physical damage, pieces missing, dirty... Nothing that suggests any sort of regular or thorough maintenance.

It's more a testimony to the manufacturers that they run at all given the abuse they get from this company.

Route 726 (Portlaoise - Dublin Airport) will be servicing Junction 14 Service Station in Monasterevin in both directions, starting tomorrow (October 26th).

https://www.facebook.com/654282030232877