Last Nitelink full!

elbon · 22-11-2010 01:39AM

Thanks for all the information folks, much appreciated. It would appear that the Nitelink service is indeed covered in the NTA contract and that the provision of auxilliary departures is also covered. As stated previously I did turn up on time for the scheduled departure and from the group of people standing on the road trying to get on an already full bus- it is fairly clear that an auxilliary departure was required. Absolutely no reflection on the driver of this bus as he was just trying to do his job but shame on the DB authorised decision maker on the street who felt this was an acceptable way to treat people- if it was not possible to provide an auxilliary departure, this could have been explained to people. No explanation was given.

Tickityboo · 22-11-2010 01:43AM

Re. The sarcarstic thankyou Foggy.
What do you expect Dublin Bus to do?
Have a bus on standby incase there are a few stragglers.
Then you would be moaning that they have a driver sitting around doing nothing.
Obiviously the demand on this night was greater than normal and byond their control.

soden12 · 22-11-2010 01:49AM

Did we see swords Express providing this service ?

soden12 · 22-11-2010 01:53AM

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

It was the middle of the night. A large group of young people were left stranded in the middle of the city without any money. This is a reckless, shameful thing to do.

Cool. If I'm in Swords and have drunk all my money then swords express will drop me into town for free. Or vice versa ?

soden12 · 22-11-2010 01:56AM

foggy_lad wrote: »

The problem that night was the bus left early due to being full so arriving early for it would make little difference. From what I have read here there were significant numbers left stranded by Dublin bus at 4am many without cash for a taxi or nobody available at home to collect them. This is not good from a company like Dublin bus.

Why is this not good ?

If you're going into town to fill yourself with drink then have a backup plan. Most folk would ensure that they've bobs for a taxi es especially seeing as going for "the last bus" is often a euphemism for drinking until the bitter end.

I cannot understand why DB is somehow responsible for people overstaying their night out...

elbon · 22-11-2010 01:57AM

"Sarcastic thank you"?? No sarcasm meant- but perhaps a little nastiness on your part?? To be very clear (once again) it was not a case of a few stragglers- there were 10-15 people at the stop 5 minutes prior to the departure time. These were in addition to the ~77 people already on the bus. This is clearly an unforeseen increase in demand for a public service and the NTA contract allows that an auxilliary departure can be made in this instance. No-one has suggested that a bus should hang around on the off-chance of there being some stragglers- just being a smart a** methinks!

BenShermin · 22-11-2010 02:16AM

As a matter of interest does anybody know how many people were on the 0400hrs 66N. If there was room for the 10 to 15 passengers left behind than surely the inspectors on the ground could have got the driver of the 66N to do a run to Maynooth?

The words Buses may leave more frequently if demand dictates on the nitelink timetables seem to suggest that auxillary departures should take place and that no drunken soldier will be left behind once they arrive on time for their bus. I hope the people left behind make official complaints to Dublin Bus in the morning, as these words are borderline false advertising imo.

The poor folks that got left behind (and arrived on time for their bus according to the thread) not only faced a €30+ taxi fare, but they'll probably have to commute to work this morning on Network They Wrecked Lucan corridor buses. If Stillorgan and Blanch corridors are anything to go by I'd say it's a few more Dublin Bus customers back to the wheel of a car for the commute, and who the feck could blame them.

BenShermin · 22-11-2010 02:25AM

soden12 wrote: »

Why is this not good ?

If you're going into town to fill yourself with drink then have a backup plan. Most folk would ensure that they've bobs for a taxi es especially seeing as going for "the last bus" is often a euphemism for drinking until the bitter end.

I cannot understand why DB is somehow responsible for people overstaying their night out...

Hmmm, how did they overstay their night out if they were on time for their bus?

During the week I'll go to town for a few and finish at 2320 which gives me time to get to the bus stop five minutes before my last bus. In two years of doing this, I've yet to miss that last bus.

It's not an euphemism, it's a fact that people make it to the bus stop for the last bus because they don't want to be wasting money on taxis or they don't have the money.

Tickityboo · 22-11-2010 02:32AM

elbon wrote: »

"Sarcastic thank you"?? No sarcasm meant- but perhaps a little nastiness on your part?? To be very clear (once again) it was not a case of a few stragglers- there were 10-15 people at the stop 5 minutes prior to the departure time. These were in addition to the ~77 people already on the bus. This is clearly an unforeseen increase in demand for a public service and the NTA contract allows that an auxilliary departure can be made in this instance. No-one has suggested that a bus should hang around on the off-chance of there being some stragglers- just being a smart a** methinks!

The sarcastic thankyou was not aimed at you. I'm not trying to be nasty but you just can't expect buses to sprung out of nowhere!! I'm too thick to be a smart arse!! I'm just a bus driver after all.

Tickityboo · 22-11-2010 03:23AM

I'm off to bed now I just missed the last jockyback off my wife up the stairs.
Maybe I'll start a complaint thread about that in the morning!!

CIE · 22-11-2010 07:52AM

Well, if there's sufficient demand for 24-hour bus service in Dublin, why is it not run as such, and not limited to this Nitelink farce that's gone on for far too long...?

thomasj · 22-11-2010 08:46AM

In this case, is the 67n timetable misleading because it states "note: buses may depart more frequently if demand dictates"

KC61 · 22-11-2010 09:12AM

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

You are blatantly trotting out your corporate agenda. Specifically in this case, you are defending the indefensible.

You think I need to be driving my own agenda to criticise a company which did something completely reckless.

I was not talking about legal obligations. I am talking about ordinary common decency. And why would DB not run an auxiliary service when it knows it is guaranteed by law to get paid for it?

Just to make this abundantly clear I have no corporate agenda in this regard. I have nothing to do with Dublin Bus other than being a daily customer.

I am merely an observer of public transport.

stop · 22-11-2010 09:29AM

Why didn't people just get a 25N to Lucan then share taxis onwards from there? Beats a taxi from town.

elbon · 22-11-2010 10:21AM

Some people did get the 25N but due to the lack of information, the 25N had already departed before some folks knew what was happening

liger · 22-11-2010 10:24AM

BenShermin wrote: »

As a matter of interest does anybody know how many people were on the 0400hrs 66N. If there was room for the 10 to 15 passengers left behind than surely the inspectors on the ground could have got the driver of the 66N to do a run to Maynooth?

Do you think the Driver of the 66N would be happy to take 10-15 people onto his bus that were acting in such a dangerous manner because the other bus was FULL???

BenShermin wrote: »

The words Buses may leave more frequently if demand dictates on the nitelink timetables seem to suggest that auxillary departures should take place and that no drunken soldier will be left behind once they arrive on time for their bus. I hope the people left behind make official complaints to Dublin Bus in the morning, as these words are borderline false advertising imo..

It says, MAY leave more Frequently. The days of having a spare driver hanging about are long gone. Only around xmas week they MAY have one spare driver for both donnybrook garages

BenShermin wrote: »

The poor folks that got left behind (and arrived on time for their bus according to the thread) not only faced a €30+ taxi fare, but they'll probably have to commute to work this morning on Network They Wrecked Lucan corridor buses. If Stillorgan and Blanch corridors are anything to go by I'd say it's a few more Dublin Bus customers back to the wheel of a car for the commute, and who the feck could blame them.

They arrived on time but the bus was full. How many threads are on this site about dangerous overcrowding on buses and the luas?? And if the bus is full there is no reason for it to wait till its departure time because nobody else can get on.

The reality is, people werent using the Nitelinks and the service was cut, Dublin bus has been cutting costs so no way will they allow a spare driver to sit there on fri/sat and do no work on the off chance it may be extra busy. Also Where at 3:50am on a saturday night is an Inspector on westmoreland street suppose to come up with an empty bus and extra driver??????

elbon · 22-11-2010 11:09AM

To be clear @liger, people were not expecting to get on an overcrowded bus- they were merely protesting at the lack of reasonable measures in place for an unforeseen increase in demand. This is a public service, paid for with our taxes and therefore contracted to serve the public and it is the right of any person in this country to protest. Nobody expects a spare bus to *hang* around but most companies have contingency plans in place for exceptional circumstances- so much so that it is written in to the contract between the department of transport and Dublin Bus. I have been using the nitelink service to Celbridge for the past six years (incidently, whilst the midweek service was cancelled, the weekend service is the same as it was prior to any DB restructuring-indicating by your logic that the weekend demand remains the same) and gave previously gotten an "auxilliary departure" when the last bus was filled prior to departure time. When pre-empting possible scenarios where a service may not meet the need of the customer, in this case increased demand is the most obvious- therefore you have a plan in place to avoid this-it's called a response plan-it's the pricincile by which major accidents are dealt with by emergency services- or would you think that you shouldn't expect an ambulance to be available *in case* you have an accident. Before you get offended by the comparison between bus services and emergency services- remember that the public service is there to do that- serve the public, and sometimes that means doing thins slightly different. How complacent and accepting we gave all become as to how our taxes are spent

liger · 22-11-2010 11:32AM

elbon wrote: »

To be clear @liger, people were not expecting to get on an overcrowded bus- they were merely protesting at the lack of reasonable measures in place for an unforeseen increase in demand

Unforeseen or unforeseeable????? Do you suggest the inspectors do a quick survey in pubs and clubs to see how many people plan to get the 04:00 bus to celbridge or maynooth??? Even when Oxygen was on and there was thousands of extra people in town getting nitelinks home there was no need for extra buses, so just what do you propose DB do to predict when they MAY need more space on the 04:00 journeys?

And when the midweek buses were cut the less used routes like 44/48/49 and 15 were cut back from every 30mins to every 60mins on fri/sat

Victor · 22-11-2010 01:03PM

Can we tone down the snide remarks about Swords Express? They aren't involved in this scenario.

While they don't provide a night service, can I ask Antoin what arrangement is in place if last bus is oversubscribed?

Someone mentioned that Dublin Bus will get paid if an additional departure is required. Is this information publicly available? Is this an extra amount? How is it calculated?

antoinolachtnai · 22-11-2010 01:20PM

Well, on our service, that never really happens, just because of the time it finishes.

We are anxious to provide late night services in the future though, on the new licence we have applied for.

If there were no alternative, we would have to bring the bus around again to get those people home if there were a lot of them. If there were only 15 people, and it was that time of night when the 'bump' of demand for taxis was gone past, it seems to me that arranging taxis would be the practical way to do it.

Under the PSC arrangements, DB is compensated in accordance with the expenses it actually incurs, plus an allowance for a profit. This is in the annex of EC regulation EC 1370/2007. If it needs to run an extra to meet the demand, it follows that it will be compensated.

KC61 · 22-11-2010 01:24PM

Is that a new licence application through the NTA or the existing one that has been stalled forever by the DoT?

foggy_lad · 22-11-2010 01:32PM

Tickityboo wrote: »

Re. The sarcarstic thankyou Foggy.
What do you expect Dublin Bus to do?
Have a bus on standby incase there are a few stragglers.
Then you would be moaning that they have a driver sitting around doing nothing.
Obiviously the demand on this night was greater than normal and byond their control.

I did not rtealise i was thanking anyone. And i would expect Dublin Bus to Have a bus waiting at 4am and departing at 4am if there was one scheduled to depart at this time! Also because this is a night time service and the last hope many people have of getting home Dublin bus should be prepared by adding an extra bus where required even if it was to go out via Leixlip and back via Celbridge, they are in the business of getting people home and failed miserably that night.

soden12 wrote: »

Why is this not good ?

If you're going into town to fill yourself with drink then have a backup plan. Most folk would ensure that they've bobs for a taxi es especially seeing as going for "the last bus" is often a euphemism for drinking until the bitter end.

I cannot understand why DB is somehow responsible for people overstaying their night out...

I have on some occasions drank "until the bitter end", and still turned up at Westmoreland Street with a few minutes to spare, and still have time to buy my ticket and board the last bus that never left till 4am. There were nights when busses left full at 3.45am and there was always another bus found for the "stragglers" that turned up when the 4am bus was due!

Tickityboo wrote: »

The sarcastic thankyou was not aimed at you. I'm not trying to be nasty but you just can't expect buses to sprung out of nowhere!! I'm too thick to be a smart arse!! I'm just a bus driver after all.

busses are all over the place on weekend nights and one can easily be found for covering increased demand. Also this was not an unforeseen demand! Were Dublin Bus completly unaware and ignorant of the Rugby match being played in dublin?

Victor · 22-11-2010 01:33PM

Imagine there was a concert or something that a disproportionate number of Swords people attended.

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

If there were no alternative, we would have to bring the bus around again to get those people home if there were a lot of them.

But would you legally be allowed run the extra service?

If, when you run the extra service, there are still people there, what would you do?

antoinolachtnai · 22-11-2010 01:42PM

A transport company's job is to get people to work and get them home.

We would do our best to keep going until we got everybody home or somehow get them on their way.

We would certainly do our best to avoid a situation where a public order issue arose.

I am not saying there is any perfect answer in a situation like this, and perhaps there is another side of the story to be told by Dublin Bus, but leaving a crowd of youths on the side of the road at 4am is just not a responsible way to behave.

elbon · 22-11-2010 02:22PM

@liger, I believe the correctvterm to be unforeseen as I was referring to Saturday night at 4am only. The people left without transport was quite an indication that DB did not foresee increased demand for their service ( despite, as pointed out my myself and other posters, that a rugby match attended by >46K people was played near the city centre- not rocket science). As to whether this phenomenon is unforeseeable- I doubt it very much. I'm surethat DB employ some good data analysts who can determine if the demand for a service or product is high enough to meet or outweigh the supply and if there is a response plan for when this situation occurs. How do you think the ESB generates enough electricity for the whole country- it doesn't just make a bucketload of electricity and when it's gone, it's gone. It responds to increase and decreases on demand and reacts accordingly.
That's also a pretty concise piece of information you have regarding provision of additional buses during Oxygen- DB puts on a service specifically for Oxygen, such is their response to a foreseeable increase on demand. Is what you meant to say, that YOU weren't asked to provide/drive an additional bus those nights. The 66N operates 3 buses (1 every two hours!) on Friday and Saturday nights- this present service can transport a maximum of 231 people on any one night- it's not difficult to see this service may be oversubscribed at times as the population of Celbridge I'd ~20K alone. I am amazed at the "I'm alright Jack" mentality on here- if you're bus service works for you, that's great but don't presume that's the case for everyone

BenShermin · 22-11-2010 02:50PM

liger wrote: »

Do you think the Driver of the 66N would be happy to take 10-15 people onto his bus that were acting in such a dangerous manner because the other bus was FULL???

Would they have acted in this manor if they were able to get home on the 4am 66N, they probably would not have.

It says, MAY leave more Frequently. The days of having a spare driver hanging about are long gone. Only around xmas week they MAY have one spare driver for both donnybrook garages

Indeed it does say "may", and this seems to suggest that Dublin Bus "can" actually increase frequency if needs be.

But hold on a second, the events of Saturday night prove they "can't" actually increase frequency if needs be. Therefore it is borderline false advertising.

They arrived on time but the bus was full. How many threads are on this site about dangerous overcrowding on buses and the luas?? And if the bus is full there is no reason for it to wait till its departure time because nobody else can get on.

The Dublin Bus charter does state that no bus will leave a terminus before it's scheduled departure. Another bus should have been provided to ensure that the 4am departure didn't leave before it's time. Maybe the 4am 66N could have been the solution to this problem?

The reality is, people werent using the Nitelinks and the service was cut, Dublin bus has been cutting costs so no way will they allow a spare driver to sit there on fri/sat and do no work on the off chance it may be extra busy.

The real reality is that this governement allowed a taxi regulator to get out of hand and therefore flood the city with taxis to destroy any hope of a 24hr bus service that this city absolutely deserves! There's no excuse for busy corridors like Blanch, Lucan, Stillorgan, Swords, Tallaght etc not having at least one bus every hour between midnight and 6am!

The government's pathetic solution of taxis to solve nightime public transport is a disgrace. Town could be very busy midweek with social get togethers, unfortunately people can't afford taxis, and the whole city centre economy suffers as a result!

As a matter of interest, I wonder how much fuel Dublin Bus waste between 9pm and 12 midnight trying to drive down Dame Street. It should take 2 minutes max for a bus to get from City Hall to Trinity College, in reality they have to waste 15 minutes stuck in a car park of taxis every night here:mad:! Maybe they waste enough fuel to put on an extra nitelink if needs be?

Also Where at 3:50am on a saturday night is an Inspector on westmoreland street suppose to come up with an empty bus and extra driver??????

Once again point to my original message and show me where I said Dublin Bus should have come up with an extra driver. I argued that the 66N bus might have been able to provide a solution not an extra bus!

AlekSmart · 22-11-2010 06:54PM

The government's pathetic solution of taxis to solve nightime public transport is a disgrace. Town could be very busy midweek with social get togethers, unfortunately people can't afford taxis, and the whole city centre economy suffers as a result!

I believe BenShermin has a valid point here,as if we go back to the inception of the Nitelink service,we find one of the contributing factors to it`s inception was the lack of Taxi`s in the City Centre.

As somebody who has driven Nitelinks since their inception I feel the original concept,which was always a knee-jerk emergency response job,was fully time expired after two years.

IF the company and the Civic Authorities had been on-the-ball then a roll-out of 24 hour Trunk Routes would have been a logical progression.

As to the actuality of Saturday`s incident,it`s all down to the resources available to the Inspector on the night.

As Ticketyboo alludes to,the back-up available to the Stance Inspector is no longer there and I can personally vouch for several occasions where I was called as I returned to the garage to "rescue" people who had been unable to board a last Link.

Given that it was after 0400 as this drama unfolded,I`d suspect that any buses/drivers which might have been available were at the furthermost reaches of their routes if not finished their duties.

It`s necessary to maintain some form of perspective about this incident too,as I would contend it is not the norm for Nitelink operations.

By and large the Nitelink still does what it says on the tin,something which I believe even Antoin might concur with.

It really does not come down to Public vs Private either as I can recall stepping ( driving actually

) into the breech on occasions when the original Private Sector Nitelink services failed to operate from O Connell St.

I have also fulfilled the same role at both Slane and Oxygen when private operators failed to turn up for return journeys.

In all of these cases there was no big hullabaloo made over it,as it was a case of Bus and Driver being available and abandoned passengers glad of a rescue.

In one of these cases at Slane I brought several young people back into Dublin City Centre where they spent a fretful few hours in a Garda Station before getting a train back to Galway.

In short,meeting Antoins point...

We would do our best to keep going until we got everybody home or somehow get them on their way.

Full credit must go to Eugene Finnegan,who continues as the sole private-sector standard bearer with his Bray route,a fact many don`t fully realize.

Sadly the overall night Bus situation is not going to improve anyday(night) soon unlike Edinburgh,which I feel should be examined far more closely as a potential model for Dublin to develop to.

AlekSmart · 22-11-2010 07:14PM

I`m actually far more engaged by Antoin`s revelations regarding the NTA`s inclusion of the Nitelink service as a PSO service.

This I feel raises all sorts of issues such as the DSP Free Travel Scheme availability and the actual Fare Structure utilized.

BenShermin · 22-11-2010 09:54PM

AlekSmart wrote: »

This I feel raises all sorts of issues such as the DSP Free Travel Scheme availability and the actual Fare Structure utilized.

Indeed, and if the fare structure was forced to mirror the daytime structure I'd say a lot more punters would be more than happy to leave the taxi ranks and return to Dublin Bus after a night out.

At the moment if there is more than three people going in the same direction home it can be cheaper for them to get a taxi home rather than pay the inflated €5 nitelink fare.

I'd also say that if these services are now being subsidised, question marks should appear over their "express" status. These buses should be picking up passengers at all stops along the route to maximise profit so that the taxpayers subsidy can be as low as possible.

foggy_lad · 22-11-2010 10:31PM

AlekSmart wrote: »

Given that it was after 0400 as this drama unfolded,I`d suspect that any buses/drivers which might have been available were at the furthermost reaches of their routes if not finished their duties.

It's not like you to miss a point made several times on a thread, that this drama unfolded well before 4am.

The bus that people were trying to board was the 4am bus that was leaving early because it was full and those poor unfortunates trying to block its path had rightly suspected that no other bus was being called up to get them home!

Last Nitelink full!

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