It's summertime

Bambi wrote: »

So the good weather and sitting on a jam packed bus reminded me..are we going to have to endure dublin buses summertime schedule once more?

Because what you need when hordes of Spanish tourists start packing out public transport is less buses obviously

Yup. Summer schedules are on the way.

These were the routes affected last year:

http://www.dublinbus.ie/News-Centre/General-News-Archive/Introduction-of-Summer-Timetables1/

Certainly a controlled reduction of services during the peak summer period makes perfect sense to me!!

OldNotWIse wrote: »

So if schoolkid next door gets the 8am bus to school, and adult in the next house gets the same 8am bus to work, and they cut said 8am bus from timetable because the kid is off school - the adult is still affected.

They spread the departures out differently. It does mean people's departure times can change but the service should be faster with less traffic on the road.

Swings and roundabouts.

The alternative is to have half empty buses going around - is that a good way of spending public money?

Stephen15 wrote: »

Facebook pm or tweet them they're usually fairly active on both

Last time I tweeted Bus Éireann (who are just DB on steroids, in my eyes) they just said "fill in the form and we'll get back to ya"

Bambi wrote: »

Can you show any figures to back up the half empty buses in summertime assertion? Granted, that might be difficult for someone who has no connection with with dublin bus

Having buses curtail their services right around the time that massive groups of tourists start using buses as the cheap alternative to hiring a coach is a great use of public money I suppose...so long as you're not the customer who's actually paying for the service all year around AND subsidizing it through your taxes just to have it turned into a cattle truck for 1000s of spanish kids in the summer.

With respect please stop making insinuations about me, and trying to make a joke out of it. You've done this before and I don't appreciate it at all. It's nothing more than trolling or bullying and frankly it is pathetic.

I have clearly stated repeatedly here that I have no connection with Dublin Bus other than being a daily passenger who happens to be interested in the business of public transport.

So I've sat down and read up about the industry, read reports in detail, figured out bus schedules etc. So what? Just because I have a particular interest in this area doesn't entitle you to make all sorts of assumptions about me.

Now I make no insinuations about you - please stop doing so about me.

My own eyes tell me already that loadings have reduced - I can leave 10 minutes later now due to less traffic on the roads. There's no college students travelling any more.

If you're seriously trying to tell me that summer loadings in the morning peak are even remotely similar to those during the rest of the year then you really are taking the proverbial.

howiya wrote: »

I've two problems with summer time schedules. One is that Dublin Bus regularly demonstrate their inability to run each timetabled service on my route and this will no doubt continue during the summer. So when one service doesn't run you are left with longer waiting times until the next service.

The second is that their scheduling doesn't seem to allow for less traffic and you are often left waiting in the city centre for a driver to take over.

So for me, summer schedules mean using the Luas or taxis more often

The first problem is a different issue though - it's down to a combination of (from what I can see) having a shortage of drivers in general (despite having recruited new drivers), and in previous years, not having had sufficient drivers to cover holiday leave - I've been frustrated by that as well. But that wouldn't be any better with a full schedule as you'd simply have more buses cancelled. We'll have to wait and see if the situation improves this year.

The second issue would be improved if they actually had full proper timetables with timed intermediate points so that you would know which bus to get to be somewhere at a particular time. The summer schedules by no means apply to all routes, but where they do apply, they generally don't involve recasting the entire schedule to reflect less traffic, rather they are addressing over-capacity.

I sometimes get the 27 and the 151 into work. July and August and indeed the school holiday's see the routes shave up to 40 minutes off it's allotted running times, yes 40 minutes. Differences as massive as these in regular timings means that driver changes are thrown out of kilter, with the result that buses are sitting on Eden Quay and Parnell Square not going from A to B waiting for change of crews. Where buses are waiting for changes of driver, it means that they get to termini no quicker than scheduled as the relief driver arrives when they are rostered to.

It also means that passengers are arriving to bus stops having missed their regular service arrivals due to faster runnings or getting to interchanges far quicker than required. Okay you don't mind being a little early and waiting 5 or ten minutes but not 20+ and it makes buses less attractive if it can't get you there when you need to be there.

Lastly, it takes a lot of strain off of driver and fleet rostering and it makes for effective use of available resources and the fleet is kept moving. Holiday relief for staff is easier covered as there are less shifts to cover, it cuts down on the pressures of overtime or rest days working to cover regular services and on bus servicing, fuel, repairs, wear and tear etc etc

If summer boards can make things work better for one and all then I'm all for it.

I get the 11 regularly and I can barely notice any differences on the summer TT tbh.