BusConnects Dublin - Bus Network Changes Discussion

What is the press-it box?

The problem with Dublin Bus's timing bands is that all buses leaving between 6:30 and 7:30 have the exact same timing pattern. Traffic conditions change gradually - the amount of cars and bus passengers doesn't suddenly double the moment clocks hit 6:30. This means that the bus leaving at 7:20 will often be late as traffic gets bad, whereas the 6:40 bus will often be early as there's nowhere near as much traffic.

The E1 northbound departures actually become irregular before it switches to an 8-minute frequency: there are buses leaving Ballywaltrim at 6:30, 6:35, 6:43, and 6:45. It almost screams like this was done to make the buses spread apart and keep a decent frequency along the route, but instead all of them take the exact same amount of time to get to Dublin and Northwood.

If not fixing the timings to begin with, it would've at least made some sense to add a few buses halfway along the route to reduce the largest gaps. The fact that the buses departed the terminus 10 minutes apart is not much use if you're taking the bus from the city centre (or, even worse, near the other terminus) and have to wait 30 minutes.

Honestly for as much gibberish as that table was it did make a lot of small corrections that are now gone, such as the many routes routes missing early morning departures. But also as you point out its managed to keep a few of the possibly new typos like the 48 and 98 early departures and I've also noticed it is missing the 30-min freq for the 60.

Also the orbitals, 48, 98, and X1 missing departures are still there, the boxes just aren't coloured so its white text on a white box. I only noticed it now when I was highlighting rows to help me read.

The problem with all of this constant cancellations, bad timings and ignoring the press-it box is that it makes a complete mockery of the real time information that we're supposed to be relying on.

Last Tuesday I went to get a 27 on the quays at around 16:45. When I got to the stop the RTI indicated that the next 27 was 32 minutes away with no other buses listed! The 15 stop just down the road, which I can also take, said the next 15 was 18 minutes way. So I walked around to Amiens Street because I can also get a 42 or 43. The RTI was showing a 15 that was apparently 1 minute away despite there being no 15 at stop on the Quays. That time oscillated between 1 minute and Due for around 5 minutes and then a 15 did arrive and was suprisingly half-empty. I took the 15 but when I got off I saw a 27 just ahead of me. Given the length of time between me arriving at the stop and getting a bus there was no way we could have caught up with the previous 27 so I can only assume one had arrived at the Quays at some point and then passed us out probably because it was full for most of its journey and therefore wasn't taking on passengers.

If this was a one-off incident I'd just put it down to a bad day and leave it but it's a constant on the Malahide Road corridor in the evenings. It's a complete hit and miss as to whether a bus arrives anywhere close to the RPI time and if it does whether it actually will take on passengers. I get it that because both the 15 and 27 go through the city centre they can be badly disrupted by traffic conditions in the evening but unless something can be done to make information reliable then what's the point in spending money on RTI systems. I also suspect that my experience is no different to that of thousands of other commuters with other routes.

I don't anticipate the D spine rollout will make much difference either to my experience because the 27 replacement is going from a supposed 10 minute frequency to a 15 minute frequency. Maybe the move of the route onto the Quays as opposed to Dame Street though might help but I fear the bus corridors on the Quay are going to get incredibly clogged as more and more buses are routed this way.

Hollystown is just passed Tyrrelstown (this is the correct spelling). From the maps it looks that a bus is going to terminate close by the roundabout with L3080 road and Corduff Road. However, Hollywoodrath is closer to the planned terminus so I'm also confused why it's called Hollystown.

I don't anticipate the D spine rollout will make much difference either to my experience because the 27 replacement is going from a supposed 10 minute frequency to a 15 minute frequency. Maybe the move of the route onto the Quays as opposed to Dame Street though might help but I fear the bus corridors on the Quay are going to get incredibly clogged as more and more buses are routed this way.

While the D-spine won't completely fix the delays the 27 (and also 15) have, it will likely be a massive improvement. They both do a number of nasty turns in CC that will be removed, the worst of which turning at George's St, turning at CG, turning at OCB, going from Hawkins St to College St (getting in the way of the Luas). They all add a lot of delay to journeys and can get backed up easily. So moving the turns to areas of the network which are less busy and/or just better suited to buses turning will help a lot.

Now I will note with the 15, the south section will still be running until the A-spine launches, so it will likely still turn at CG and depending on where it terminates OCB. However as you would be using the D-spine that probably wouldn't effect you.

2.20 hrs for the running of a cross city bus route is a shocking indictment of Dublin's current public transport woes and supporting infrastructure.

I installed the Transit app, and while it does show a map, it doesn't show bus positions, like Bustimes.org.

Tjey should show up like so when you click into a route:

Sometimes the data feed is down for maintenance/issues, so there may be times when bus locations don't appear properly/at all, but that would be the case across the various 3rd party apps. Even TFI Live runs into this issue sometimes.