Changes to city bus routes

303 and former 306 route merged on Southside. Will add more passengers but gonna add an extra 10 minutes to journey. :-(

Brian Lighthouse wrote: »

Poxy Shamrock,
I don`t get the added journey time.
Am I missing something?
If you use the bus regularly, then your journey time wont be affected. Perhaps your waiting time will be.

Yes, my apologies! :P it'll add more of a waiting time.

It's good to see a stop at the Tipperary road! It was needed! I wonder if therell be a stop in CityEast Retail Park.

Poxyshamrock wrote: »

It's good to see a stop at the Tipperary road! It was needed! I wonder if therell be a stop in CityEast Retail Park.

Turns out I misunderstood what they mean by Tipperary Road.
Bus isn't actually going to go out the Tipp Road! :P

hightower1 wrote: »

and it looks like the frequency is now gone from every 15 mins for the 303 and 306 to just 30 mins combined.

This is going to suck on those days when the bus goes magically missing , before at least one may be along in 15 mins but now its gonna be another 30 mins to see if it decides to show again.

By far the worst bus route Ive ever used in the city, most mornings the bus leaves late from william street. Ether the driver is having a chat with a friend , arrives late and STILL decides to get off for a smoke or is simply engrossed reading the paper to notice the time.

My point exactly! With the 303 and 306, you were always guaranteed a bus from the stop by Tierney's Shop roughly every fifteen minutes.

Full timetables and network map available at:
http://www.buseireann.ie/news_timetable.php?id=1163&month=Sep

Direct link to network here:
http://www.buseireann.ie/pdf/1347005558-Limerick-city-network.pdf

So what do people think of this? An overall improvement or poorly thought out?

I myself wish that they kept the early Caherdavin buses going to UL as well but looks like they're strictly city centre now only.:(

I'm not surprised that the Coonagh route got dropped (with the 343 covering it) as I've only ever seen a few people on that bus. I wonder if they would be any problems using city passes on the 343 given that's technically a regional route.

Well the buses runnign till midnight and 00:15 on some routes is an improvement anyway

No 312 anymore??? And revised route looks like it doesn't go dooradoyle road... and they just built a brand new bus stop near huntsfield..wtf

Yeah it makes no sense !!! Hoping it just an over simplified map of the route

The Dooradoyle Road stop (on the 312) that was installed about 6-7 months ago is now redundant due to the new routes and timetable. Well done Bus Eireann!

eclectichoney wrote:

From UL to Sarsfield st takes 20 minutes not 15, longer at peak times.

UL to city centre was always fairly brutal in the afternoons (at least it was when I was using the service).
I can live with the 20 minutes if the bus shows up roughly at the right time fairly consistently as opposed to nothing coming until an hour+ later (with barely enough room for everyone even standing).

Man our bus service must be a joke. I've worked in Dublin before and even with their traffic problems they ran a fairly consistent service even during peak hours.

What bus would you get from town out to Raheen, into Ballycummin or churchill meadows direction? I'm asking for an older relative as I'm not on the buses myself. thanks

I got the 8:30 bus from Debenhams to Raheen Industrial estate this morning. I got to work at 9:15. We were still in town at 8:50. Normally the 8:30 bus would get me to Raheen Church at around 8:50. Now the journey is longer and the buses go every 15 minutes instead of 10 minutes. Well done Bus Eireann

The situation is still a bit messy this morning, but not as many angry commuters as yesterday. Bus Eireann is very lucky the weather has been ok (nice and sunny this morning, only patchy light drizzle at times yesterday).

The fact that one of the 304s went into Raheen Industrial Estate yesterday morning shows how much pressure they were under. They knew people didn't know their routes had been changed.
On the City Centre-Raheen routes, those who get on at The Crescent (O'Connell Monument), O'Connell Avenue and Punch's Cross no longer have a bus that serves the Industrial Estate.
The 301 only serves the Industrial Estate between 7:00 and 9:00 in the morning and between 4:00 and 6:00 in the evening. While that will probably accommodate the majority of users, I wonder if they did a quick survey of businesses there to find out when they had their shift changes? If you start an evening shift at 4:00, then you're going to be late for work from now on! Also, trainees at FAS get a half day on fridays, and the dedicated FAS bus no longer runs (think it was cut last year).
The journey time for the 301 is longer than the old 304. I was a few minutes late this morning as a result, and traffic wasn't a noticeable issue.

You can no longer get from Clare Street/Dublin Road directly to UL. This now requires two journeys. There may be other similar changes that haven't affected me yet.

Anyway, the new routes obviously have potential to bring a better service to people in many parts of the city previously not served very well, if at all. We'll find out over the next week or two how much benefit is there. But big losers in these changes are those who want to get to Raheen Industrial Estate.
Let's hope the driver remembers that he's supposed to come into the estate at 4:00. He only has to do this once or maybe twice in his shift - every other time he gets to the South Court Hotel he turns to go into town.

In fairness to the drivers, they all do their best to keep the timetable. But the timetable takes no account of delays due to traffic congestion. Unlike in Dublin, there are no bus lanes in Limerick City (there are a few semi-useful stretches in the suburbs, which were put in by Limerick CoCo). Therefore, when a bus falls behind time there is no way it can catch up until the traffic congestion eases. This can also impinge on the drivers entitlement to a tea break and a lunch break (unless you are self employed, no one works through their break times).
There are no extra services scheduled at peak times either, which might alleviate some of the deterioration in service due to the combination of traffic congestion and the lack of dedicated bus lanes.

I hope we don't find ourselves back in the bad old days when you could easily walk (stroll) from UL to O'Connell Street quicker than getting the bus. When I was a student in the 90s, you would often wait for up to an hour in the afternoons for a bus to come. Then sometimes the driver wouldn't let you on because the bus was too overcrowded. If you got on the bus, it would then take 30-40 minutes to travel into town.