Go-Ahead Dublin City Routes - Updates and Discussion

Shop River is a small group of houses just after the bus stop on the left if you're heading away from Enniskerry. There is a small 'river', although unsure if that's actually Shop River, that originates in a small reservoir on the other side of the road that goes underground under the houses, reappears above ground and wends it's way towards Powerscourt, feeds another small reservoir close to the main car park, and ends up in the Dargle. You can see it all clearly on Google aerial photography if you look.

I agree though, it's a silly end destination to put on a bus serving Enniskerry.

Alun wrote: »

Shop River is a small group of houses just after the bus stop on the left if you're heading away from Enniskerry. There is a small 'river', although unsure if that's actually Shop River, that originates in a small reservoir on the other side of the road that goes underground under the houses, reappears above ground and wends it's way towards Powerscourt, feeds another small reservoir close to the main car park, and ends up in the Dargle. You can see it all clearly on Google aerial photography if you look.

I agree though, it's a silly end destination to put on a bus serving Enniskerry.

Enniskerry Golf Club is worse! Google maps sends you somewhere near the N11 when you look for it. We still dont even know what golf club they are referring to. Powerscourt? The old pitch and putt that has been closed many years?

loyatemu wrote: »

bloody hell - 2 hours!

It's anywhere from a 30m to 60m trip in a car, which suggests they're building in a lot of leeway for traffic problems to the schedule. But yeah, that's what dwell times and frequent stops will do!

I see things are a bit slow in NBRU headquarters today again.

My quick assessment of Go-Ahead so far.

Go-Ahead rating 7/10:
Certain features of the timetable are positive (e.g. using a suffix to note journeys on the 75 through the industrial estate) and waiting for the last trains in Bray and Greystones each evening. But they get marked down for the lack of clockface timetable departures and the fact that there are still mistakes in their published timetables. For example, look at the evening Tallaght bound 75A services - the timetable makes no sense!! There are also different timetable versions within the GoAhead website and the NTA website. These should have been set and cross checked weeks ago but the sense is they were set at the last minute.

The other thing they fall down on is the fact that a driver might work a few routes on a shift - creating a knock on effect if one particular route is delayed. Such an approach needs extra turnaround times between services which don’t appear to be in place. Given their garages location I know why it’s needed. Perhaps the current problems will sort themselves out when all DunLaoghaire services transfer. Perhaps they are using a temporary setup until later this month.

The final positive for GoAhead is the flexibility to introduce extra services like on the 75 and 175 so quickly. I have never known Dublin Bus to introduce changes so quickly and that is to be welcomed.

NTA 1/10
The only reason they don’t get zero is that they actually achieved what many had tried and failed before - breaking the stranglehold of Dublin Bus. (This isn’t an inbuilt disliking for Dublin Bus - I think in the long term it will be great for them, they just don’t know it!). Beyond that, the NTA performance has been dreadful. Bus stops. Timetables. Publicity. RTPI etc. etc. Also the delays caused by the diversion of the 75 via Dundrum Luas is their fault. My solution would be that all peak time departures in both directions operate as 75As and go the old route through Dundrum and the other services divert along the new route when the traffic isn’t bad.

Livery 0/10 until I saw it in real life, now it’s just as good as the Dublin Bus one!

I remember hearing before that the NTA are suffering from chronic understaffing, is that true or was it just me hearing things?

Qrt wrote: »

I remember hearing before that the NTA are suffering from chronic understaffing, is that true or was it just me hearing things?

The NTA I'm sure is well staffed as it's just a branch off of the department of transport.

punisher5112 wrote: »

The NTA controls all routes so have go-ahead is no different at all as to how frequency has changed as of the same date of changes many many db routes have had their frequency increased given the go ahead by the NTA.

I'm very much an outsider here but my understanding is that whenever someone (NTA or DB management) want to change a route, it goes to the drivers/union for discussion. Several drafts of the timetable are debated and rejected, all taking time, until eventually a consensus exists and the new timetable can be published and made available to customers. This process might be quick sometimes but can be very slow other times and, in the case of Network Direct all those years ago, several changes were abandoned completely because of lack of agreement.

If GAI can implement a timetable change in a more efficient manner, I can understand why NTA would want to wait until GAI were running the routes before introducing the changes.

NTA amazingly stop db refund tickets on the day go ahead take over what were db routes.

It's not amazing at all. Trying to get rid of change facilities in the past would have been politically difficult because of the inevitable whinging. Trying to support change receipts with two different operators with two different settlement models would be expensive for NTA to implement or tricky for customers. Getting rid of it now is both efficient and easy to explain.

All services could be improved over night if they brought in the travel 90 across the board and get people away from interaction with driver.

Agreed.

punisher5112 wrote: »

The NTA I'm sure is well staffed as it's just a branch off of the department of transport.

They are very understaffed.

Hi all dont post here ever. Just want to clarify some information here.
NTA decide the timetables for all routes. No changes can be made to posted tinetables without NTA approval. That goes for all pso contracts. DB ,go ahead etc. Db cant even put an extra bus on a peck times with the nod from the NTA.
Drivers are never involved in this process. DB Drivers do vote on duty timetables but they are an internal issue and dont affect customer timetables. GAI are in the same boat in regards to customer timetables but im sure the NTA is bending over a little to make the transition a little easier.
Union votes are done on the drivers / workers issues and not what the Nta want done..

markpb wrote: »

I'm very much an outsider here but my understanding is that whenever someone (NTA or DB management) want to change a route, it goes to the drivers/union for discussion. Several drafts of the timetable are debated and rejected, all taking time, until eventually a consensus exists and the new timetable can be published and made available to customers. This process might be quick sometimes but can be very slow other times and, in the case of Network Direct all those years ago, several changes were abandoned completely because of lack of agreement.

If GAI can implement a timetable change in a more efficient manner, I can understand why NTA would want to wait until GAI were running the routes before introducing the changes.



It's not amazing at all. Trying to get rid of change facilities in the past would have been politically difficult because of the inevitable whinging. Trying to support change receipts with two different operators with two different settlement models would be expensive for NTA to implement or tricky for customers. Getting rid of it now is both efficient and easy to explain.



Agreed.



They are very understaffed.

The schedule process is now totally different.Maximum of two drafts,the second is implimented regardless of agreement,with one single independent referal tribunal to ultimately decide.

Process is now taking less than 2 weeks beginning to end.