BusConnects Dublin - Bus Network Changes Discussion

Bambi wrote: »

The old CIE cream and navy was probably the most aesthetically pleasing combination

RayM wrote: »

I'm not sure how well it would look on today's buses. Although that old CIE logo was a fantastic design. Can't understand why they got rid of it.

Spanish Eyes wrote: »

Just another thing, timetables. Yes the timings on them are weird sometimes. I though ND was to iron them out.

You know what I mean, leaving at 08.03, 08.17 etc. as an example. why not on the hour and every five ten fifteen minutes afterwards for consistency. Maybe if all the buses have the same timetable they will crash bang wallop into each other every morning and evening though!

Just being a little lighthearted on this Bank Holiday Friday.

I agree that the bus numbers need to be sorted. All Northside originators that cross CC should have odd numbers like the post code, opposite on the South side.

BRT different sequence.

Orbital another. and so on.

I get that the tram system was the originator of many of DB's numbers, but the trams have been gone since 1949 or thereabouts! Shame really.

Irish Steve wrote: »

Slightly sad, I've skimmed through nearly 600 messages, and what's missing for me in most of it is the bigger picture, in that nothing's been said about issues like the interaction between Dublin Bus and Bus Eireann, which for people in places like Ashbourne, Dunshaughlin and other places around Dublin is a major issue, in that for most of those areas, there's one , or if they are lucky 2 routes, and they only serve Busaras, which makes working in vast swathes of Dublin impossible, because of the time involved in going into the centre and out again.

For me, the lack of any integrated rail in much of the city centre is a massive issue, we spent a long weekend recently in Hamburg, which is not dissimilar in size or population to Dublin, but they have a much bigger rail network, both above and below ground, and in some areas both, with a very impressive service quality, the most evident aspect of that being the airport, which has a train to the city centre every 10 minutes, 8 coach train, so significant capacity, and it links with a significant number of other areas on the way in, and runs for 20 of the 24 hours in the day.

What I think is going to have to happen in the longer term is that the city inside of the canals will need to have a much higher LUAS style service, with the buses providing a feed into the LUAS that will serve the centre, simply because one LUAS style tram can carry a massive number of people when compared to a bus, and at peak periods, the critical issue to to move a lot of people quickly, and a LUAS style system, or an orbital underground can do that, but multiple buses cannot, because the dwell time is just too long in comparison to the time needed for the train equivalent.

In the same vein, there needs to be oribital feeder systems that link places like Clare Hall, the Airport, Blanchardstown, Liffey Valley, Red Cow, Dundrum, Sandyford and Dun Laoghaire, or similar, with high frequency feeds from the areas around the interchanges. At one time, there was a plan to do this with a rail service, but that seems to have been killed off, but it's going to have to be revisited at some stage, for all sorts of reasons, the biggest being the inability to upgrade the M50 to the size that is now needed, an acceptable, reliable and fast alternative is going to be needed sooner rather than later.

The ticketing systems need to allow for any service to be used within a zone without issue, in Hamburg they have rail, bus and ferry services that are all part of an integrated ticketing system, with options for zone travel, or day travel, or commuter season tickets for longer distances, and there is no issue about changing from one to the other, or using different routes, if you are in a zone and have paid to travel in it, then that's what you can do, and it works very well indeed.

The key issue for me is if the right questions are being asked in this review, and if the brief of the people who will be producing the final report gives them the scope to address all of the issues related to public transport, or if the review will only focus on dealing with the bus services in Dublin to the exclusion of all other transport options.

Time will tell, but 25 years of watching the snail's pace of transport reform in Dublin does not fill me with optimism.