BusConnects Dublin - Bus Network Changes Discussion

Anyone else in the know about how much increase in PVR would there be with F Spine? I imagine it would be quite significant, given these delays?

I don't really get your point on the frequency. Of course cancellations on lower frequency routes seem worse, because percentage wise it is worse. Even GAI's reliability on higher frequency routes like the N6 isn't great.

Take the routes near me for example: E1, E2, 9, 19, 83 (DB) and N2 (GAI). The N2 is by far the worse. There was one day a few weeks ago five buses in a row were cancelled in the afternoon. I complained to TFI and got a useless generic response. It's generally ok until the mid afternoon on weekdays, then it's often extremely unreliable. The last buses have been cancelled on occasion also. DB are certainly far from perfect but I've never seen cancellations at that level.

I use the 19 fairly often and it's very rare for it to be cancelled. The E1 and E2, particularly the former, have a few cancellations/curtailments but they're so frequent it doesn't matter too much. The 9 and 83 have occasional cancellations but rarely enough to be a major problem.

I can't speak for the Bray routes, but for the N2 at least the problem is definitely not traffic. It's clearly a lack of drivers and/or buses.

The schools are off at the moment so traffic is light on the route. The timetable is fairly realistic, although buses often have to wait at some stops as they can end up ahead of schedule. There is plenty of time given for layovers also.

In the afternoon two more buses are required for the 20 -> 15 minutes frequency change.

The 15:40 to Clontarf, 17:00 to Heuston and 18:15 to Clontarf are all the same extra bus.

The 15:45 to Heuston, 16:55 to Clontarf and 18:20 to Heuston are another bus.

On Friday for example these six services all operated.

https://bustimes.org/vehicles/ie-90?date=2025-07-25

https://bustimes.org/vehicles/ie-84?date=2025-07-25

However, it's very common for the 15:40 and 15:45 services to be cancelled. It's not even that uncommon for all six of these services to be cancelled.

In addition, the N2 is often curtailed at the Finglas Road and the bus is sent to cover the N6. The reverse happens as well.

Cancellations in the in the late evening can't be explained by traffic either. I got the N2 at around 22:30 last week and the next two buses were cancelled (so 1.5 hours between buses).

I'm not one of those people criticising privatisation or saying DB should take over GAI's routes. I think having another operator made DB up their game. That being said, GAI's performance is significantly worse than DB's. Their poor reliability cannot be blamed on traffic or schedules, it's clearly a fundamental lack of drivers/buses out of order.

The staffing issue isn't just a problem for Public transport companies here in Ireland, I was over in Malaga in Spain and it's exactly the same over there, they stop all public transport Buses, Metro, local trains at 11pm. It's a problem all over the EU and other Countries as well. At least we don't stop at 11.00pm at night.

I'm betting my entire toothbrush that it's gonna get delayed to the New Year (2026?). This phase won't happen anytime soon, seeing that GAI had to put up 2 mega T ads on their buses, hiring bus drivers and mechanics.

To put this in short, Dublin is not a great place to launch BusConnects. You might want to take a look at London, where I took a look at their route map, and I can't even remember one route.

The training school at Go Ahead has been full for the last couple of months. They also use ISM in Finglas which is been super busy too. The back log has actually been getting a date for the test, its down now to about 7-8 weeks, the theory test is about 2 weeks.

So generally a driver at go ahead, interview, then theory and cpc (2-3 weeks) pass both, then driver training (6-7 weeks) , past your test then its classroom for a week or two, sometimes classroom before test, sometimes after it, health and saftey, videos, ticket machine etc etc.

After all that, then your out learning routes, 2 weeks, few routes, then your on the road (under supervision) then a week or two, depends on you… your on your own.

Its still a long process but not as along as it use to be.

I was out on Sunday 27th July, and observed huge gaps in the services, on the many of the bus TFI real-time poles. Routes like 122, 140, 13, 16 - where showing like 43 mins to the next bus. But buses actually ran during these gaps. I was on both a 122 and 13 and neither of these buses where tracking (on bustimes, or TFI poles), and I noticed also the internal information announcements were not working. So it would appear to me that either the systems on these buses wern't working or that the driver hadn't turned it on. But why on so many?

Sometimes that could happen due to a driver change, for example I driver the 15B and when I take over from Pearse Street the AVL wouldn't kick in till I'm on the Rathgar road

I heard, now don't quote me on this, but if a go ahead driver is taking over a bus, mid route, he or she stays logged on to the current drivers machine until they reach the terminus and only then they log in to their own details. This eliminates the problem above.