BusConnects Dublin - Bus Network Changes Discussion

So the answer to the problem of too many buses and not enough drivers is to demand more buses. Got it.

What was the original completion date for BusConnects?

I believe planning started 9 yrs ago in 2017.

9 years into the project & there is no completion date or even a roll out date for the next phase.

Is a 2030 completion date ambitious now?

Loads of DB cancellations over the weekend. The service at weekends especially Saturdays has become extremely poor recently between cancelled buses and the buses that are operating going past full.

Still doesn't really explain Saturday though which at times had gaps of an hour for some routes

Seems to be a problem today with a huge amount of departures down as scheduled but which are actually running.

I would say whats likely happening there is buses are running excessively late and when they get to the outer terminus they are being sent out of service either to the depot or the city centre for handovers.

Drivers are entitled to their breaks and to finish on time and this is the only way that can be ensured. However on the other hand it wouldn't surprise me either if the company are trying to avoid having to pay drivers OT in order to finish services. But hey ho the NTA should have the solutions to all these problems.

There were diversions on the C-spine due to Forbidden Fruit and I'd imagine traffic could have been heavy because of it but I don't know if it explains all the disruptions above.

Celbridge has been a disaster for public transport for a good while now, Irish Water have various main roads fully closed for months with diversions taking anything up to 45 minutes for what would normally be 5-10 minutes journey.

The next phase due to start later this month apparently sees them closing approximately 0.25km of the main road (R405) for which there is no local diversion possible and the official diversion is a 15km reroute out to Barberstown roundabout and back into Maynooth and 15km back again, can't see DB/GAI agreeing to that so be interesting to see what actually happens.

Sorry I thought by the comments I just assumed you lived in Celbridge. Cancelling an hourly service is very poor when other routes run every 10/15 mins.

Another observation is far more people seem to be travelling off peak and at weekends compared to pre covid and even further back. I don't think I've ever been left behind by a full bus in Dublin outside of the rush hour unless there was some major event on. Come to think about it now there seems to be some shagging event on every weekend in the city centre now.

It definitely does feel like the people who make up the schedules of the buses haven't taken into account how many people actually go places on the weekends nowadays, especially during the bank holidays or basically any major event, including any sort of heatwave.

Irish rail's habit of taking the DART line out of service every bank holiday weekend certainly doesn't help the already struggling weekend bus services.

I'm not familiar with the C spine commuting experience, but this weekend has been carnage on the E spine. Just today afternoon, three southbound E1's in a row were curtailed from Northwood due to late arrivals. Luckily the middle one departed from Parnell and I was able catch it from there. But despite departing from city centre, the bus was already full at St Stephen's Green and we left 10-15 people behind at the next few stops (with the next in-service E1 being another half an hour away). And that's with an E2 in front already taking most of the passengers from the shared section of the route - the bus I was on seemingly stayed 90% full until around Shankill/Woodbrook.

It's funny yet frustrating to see TFI post on Twitter that there are a lot of events happening in Dublin this weekend, and for people to expect busier services as a result, yet in the same breath take away the darts and push people onto buses that have no hope of keeping up with the demand.

And this is with the E spine being among the most frequent bus routes in Dublin. I do wonder what would've happened if trains had been down for maintenance last weekend, with there being full trains of people going to the festival at Howth in the northside, and full trains of people going to the beaches in the southside.

Where did you hear that, i would love to know

Surely this can't be the excuse anymore? BusConnects rollout has been mothballed for some time now, they must have had a chance to catch up already.