Security guards on Dublin Bus

Au contraire, the service into UCD has at times over the years been suspended late at night due to anti-social behaviour.

Not sure, they were OCS security anyways from what I recall.

There are 5 million+ people that could be using it. so 1 million isnt great.

As with anything a student union touches, they made an unholy balls of it and delayed a solution by months.

The UCD stop is a known trouble spot, I was a UCD student and a (non power mad) RA and I saw up front how much trouble that stop caused. Some of these little s-1ts have led very privileged existences that have left them with an attitude of entitlement and they look down their nose at the security staff.

The UCD Admin encourages this by never punishing a student, unless they come from a lower income background and are not plugged into the network somehow, if you come from one and you're friends with the boys that know the right people you're grand, otherwise… The uni, supposedly committed to 'equity' and other buzz words, oversaw a system at that time (don't know what it's like now) where your likelihood of getting punished depended on your background and current status there. If you were from certain schools, so were the male administrators, so you were ok. If you were on the football, Rugby , GAA, or even better if you were n these sports AND from the same school as admin you could basically do whatever you want, with the exception of something extreme or violent.

I recall an incident legendary among the RA's where this complete tool brought in sand from dollymount strand into a high floor student apartment, even went to the trouble of getting someone in his crew who was doing engineering to calculate how much the floor could take (weight wise) but never thought to factor in the water in the inflatable pools or the effect that the sand and water might have on the electricity sockets. He was asked to leave Res but not given any academic punishments. The Rugby fellas tend to have more discipline, rowdy but not scummy, the football and GAA heads could compete with any Tommo or Decko for scumbag behaviour. They had no consideration for other students, they were a nightmare to deal with. When their exams were over it was ok to blast the music and scream your head off, when informed that others hadn't finished their exams and were still trying to study on the floor below them they didn't care and in one case I had to have 8 of us plus a dozen local cops drag the ringleaders out so we could close their windows and turn off the music. This OTT resistance from them was in response to a simple request to close their windows and turn the music down (I never enforced the theoretical no party rule because it's a stupid rule, it's a college campus what do you expect). A reasonable request was met with thuggery of the culchie variety, stenotypes galore.

The next morning these tough guys are in tears in the office begging us not to ring their mam…I'm serious.

Don't underestimate them…or overestimate their characters as it were. Those people now work in places like Goldman and Irish Life trying to find imaginative ways to screw middle class workers out of their pensions and life insurance so they can get a bonus. Same character, different application.

Erm… yes it is.

Yes it could. And it could be worse. I think that public transport (in Dublin anyway) is pretty great and accessible. I may be just lucky as to where I am, but can't really fault it for it's affordability and regularity.

It could always be better, but I think it's pretty great as it is.

If anti social behaviour reduced, or at least the perception of it reduced, there would of course be more people using PT.

I certainly know folks that dont use it because they are worried about safety. I doubt I am the only one.

Not anti bus gates, I am anti closing car parks. Get it right.

has anyone in real life ever met anyone who wouldn't go on public transport because of anti social behaviour? i mean my parents, in their 70s, still take the bus or dart back to artane when we go out for dinner in town or they're at my place.

what kind of weirdos are afraid to use public transport in dublin, seriously?

Perception is what matters, in terms of public safety. If you think its safe, you use it. If you dont think its safe, you dont use it.

How safe it is in reality is irrelevant to the decision making.

As mentioned above by a previous poster I very much doubt there is anything more than a small minority that don't think that think public transport is safe. Try get any Luas/Dublin Bus between 7:30 and 9:00 or 16:30-18:30 and you will see the queues of people availing of PT (well you only will when you drive past twice a year on your pilgrimage to the mecca that is Arnotts car park).

I am not talking about me personally.

I am capable of listening to other peoples experiences and I understand why they might choose not to use PT. Its generally people that have had a negative experience I would say.

I dont think anyone is disputing that. It doesnt mean that there arent a cohort of people that dont use Public Transport because they dont think it is safe.

We also have record numbers of car owners, as well as record numbers of public transport users.

With an annual increase in population of over 100k people over the last few years, I wouldn't expect anything but an increase in both car ownership and public transport usage.

No well you see once I don't see any trouble it means the issue doesn't exist, nothing like a good anecdote to prove it too! ;)

you're just obsessed with making out dublin to be really dangerous for some reason, when it really isn't at all