Patton Flyer (mod warning post #404) SEE POST #659 ALSO

patrickbrophy18

I think that the route extension is brilliant news as it means I have two choices of where to get on. Plus, if I decide to get off at Fitzpatricks Castle Hotel coming back from France, I have a down-hill walk all the way!Baggage can get pretty heavy when you are going up a slope!:D

As for you, dalkeyresident, I was only quoting the Dalkey Newsletter and it would appear as though this was purely hearsay. Otherwise, Aircoach wouldn't have renewed their license let alone extend it up to Fitzpatricks castle. At the end of the day, it's good that we still have an airport service as opposed to no airport service at all! While I still sympathize for Patton at his misfortune, he did break the licensing law and his mistake caught up with him last summer when Aircoach were granted the license. Don't get me wrong, I do wish Patton luck with getting a license albiet for a different route provided that he goes by the book this time around!

dowlingm

It's worth noting that Dunnes Stores also had a case listed for mention vs Revenue. Would DalkeyResident like to indicate what conclusion we are to draw? Should we all run out (those of us in Ireland) and stock up on St Bernard?

Cookie_Monster

Buy a load of dogs cos Dunnes may be in trouble, I don't get it...
:P:P

devnull

Rock Steady Edy wrote: »

Presumably Aircoach would not have extended the route if they did not have a licence not only for the extension, but for the original part too.

You might remember that only about 6 of Trevor's buses per day served Killiney, Aircoach are sending all 29 there. You might also remember that The Fitzpatrick Hotel recommended Aircoach from Dalkey even when both services were running, so they may prefer you didn't call it "Trevor's" stop. And presumably they reckon 29 services a day to and from the airport is rather a good selling point to customers.

Exactly, they clearly have a license, otherwise they would not be able to do this. The fact is, the Fitzpatrick Castle Hotel, and the Royal Marine Hotel are choosing to advertise Aircoach, as without being too dismissive of Patton, Aircoach offer a higher more luxury standard of service, with free wifi, leather seats, additional legroom amongst other things, these are the kind of thing which will appeal to someone who is staying in a four star hotel much more than Patton's service.

The fact it is more often, and cheaper helps too, as does the fact it drops off right outside two terminals.

dub_commuter

Was passing Dalkey this morning and heard that Patton still believes he will be coming back and has got a license which will start operating later this month, although there does not appear to be any official word on that yet.

The issue of the revenue commission though does raise questions of what it may be about and no doubt Patton will try to latch onto that with another anti-British rant at a later date if he does come back.

DalkeyResident

The word I heard today that Trevor will be back next month.

With regards to Fitzpatrick's Castle Hotel, as despite claiming they are proud to be Irish, they have gone back on their morals.

Hopefully Trevor will now stop at Ulverton Road when he comes back, to help out all the locals who have been hung out to dry by Aircoach who now are mainstreaming the route.

-Chris-

DalkeyResident wrote: »

With regards to Fitzpatrick's Castle Hotel, as despite claiming they are proud to be Irish, they have gone back on their morals.

I'm itching to ask you to elaborate on this point, but I expect the response will get you banned forever...

Fairly warned be thee, says I - one more xenophobic/racist remark and you will be permabanned.

Cookie_Monster

DalkeyResident wrote: »

The word I heard today that Trevor will be back next month.

credible source, or just rumour?

Hopefully Trevor will now stop at Ulverton Road when he comes back, to help out all the locals who have been hung out to dry by Aircoach who now are mainstreaming the route.

whats the point stopping on Ulverton road when the route goes up Hyde rd anyway. to serve both involves some pointless and time wasting loops around. Or will he simply not be stopping on Hyde Rd?

Rock Steady Edy

DalkeyResident wrote: »

The word I heard today that Trevor will be back next month.

Unlikely. If he's that keen on running a regular bus service, there's a lot of green line luas stops without car parks or a regular frequent linking bus service, so perhaps I could suggest he pursues this instead? Finnegan Bray have at best an hourly daytime service to Brides Glen, but trams arrive every 10 mintues for eighteen hours a day.

DalkeyResident wrote: »

With regards to Fitzpatrick's Castle Hotel, as despite claiming they are proud to be Irish, they have gone back on their morals.

Like many businesses and people, they're just trying to get by. 29 coaches a day helps no matter who the supplier. Morality doesn't come into it. If you want to talk morality and irish buinesses, the first thing that comes to my mind are the likes of AIB, Bank of Ireland and Anglo, Great bastions of Irish morality they were too... charging customers for the privilege of depositing their earnings in a current account and lending the money recklessly to anyone that would borrow it in the pursuit of the never ending Irish growth story...but that's for a different thread.

patrickbrophy18

Rock Steady Edy wrote: »

Unlikely. If he's that keen on running a regular bus service, there's a lot of green line luas stops without car parks or a regular frequent linking bus service, so perhaps I could suggest he pursues this instead? Finnegan Bray have at best an hourly daytime service to Brides Glen, but trams arrive every 10 mintues for eighteen hours a day.

This would be a brilliant idea. It would be nice to see a service linking Dalkey with one of the Green Line Luas stops. If Patton did this (by the book this time), he would clean up. He has/had 3 busses in his fleet. This should be more than enough to run an hourly service to and from one of the Green Line Luas stops. This trip would probably take 20 minutes if it were terminating in Sandyford. In fact, with time, it could be extended to service Tallaght and City West Luas termini via the M50. The total trip should only be 40 minutes. The name of the service would have to be changed to reflect the fact that it is no longer an airport route. A good name would be "The Tram Link". What do y'all think?

Cookie_Monster

patrickbrophy18 wrote: »

This would be a brilliant idea. It would be nice to see a service linking Dalkey with one of the Green Line Luas stops. If Patton did this (by the book this time), he would clean up. He has/had 3 busses in his fleet. This should be more than enough to run an hourly service to and from one of the Green Line Luas stops. This trip would probably take 20 minutes if it were terminating in Sandyford. In fact, with time, it could be extended to service Tallaght and City West Luas termini via the M50. The total trip should only be 40 minutes. The name of the service would have to be changed to reflect the fact that it is no longer an airport route. A good name would be "The Tram Link". What do y'all think?

it'll take a hell of a lot longer than 20 mins, especially at rush hour. Dalkey to Sandyford by car when its quiet nearly takes that.
I also see negligible demand for such a link, Look at the 114 and 75 which provide Luas links from the coastal areas, both under-used. Such a service would also need to be much much more frequent than hourly for people to use, its a totally different type of useage, unsuitable to mini coaches due to the on-off nature of short hop passengers. the airport route at least only has one pickup/ departure point depending on direction.

patrickbrophy18

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

Such a service would also need to be much much more frequent than hourly for people to use.

If that's what your saying, you are agreeing with me that low frequency routes will fail to attract many passengers. If so, could this be the very reason why routes such as the 7D and 8 are under-used?

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

Look at the 114 and 75 which provide Luas links from the coastal areas, both under-used.

Really? I always thaught that these routes were very popular. However, their frequency isn't exactly attractive because one would have to be waiting for up to an hour for their bus to arrive. The 114 has the same frequency as the 59 pretty much. The reason why the 46a get's large passenger loads is because the waiting time at bus stops is minimized with the 10 minutely nature of its frequency. To put it into perspective, it is more frequent than the DART. The 75 is also very unreliable. I can remember waiting at Dundrum for over an hour for the bus to arrive. Any longer and I would have hitched a taxi. Is it any wonder why the route is 'under-used' as you put it? It is near impossible to predict when it will arrive at intermediate stops.

Anywho, back to the topic at hand. The extended Aircoach service is now using my road to get up to Fitzpatrick's Castle. Saval Park Road is by far, the best road in Dalkey for busses as it is wide enough to fit two busses side-by-side comfortably. However, the top and bottom ends of the road are quite narrow which in time, will need to be widened for smoother entry.

KC61

patrickbrophy18 wrote: »

The 75 is also very unreliable. I can remember waiting at Dundrum for over an hour for the bus to arrive. Any longer and I would have hitched a taxi. Is it any wonder why the route is 'under-used' as you put it? It is near impossible to predict when it will arrive at intermediate stops.

Actually as a frequent 75 user I would totally refute that statement.

It is VERY reliable. It suffered serious reliability problems prior to the timetable change in 2008, but since then it has not had any problems at all. Far from it. I get frustrated when these statements are made.

You are making a statement about an entire route based on one experience. "I had to wait once for over an hour" ergo the entire route is unreliable. Perhaps the bus broke down, maybe there was an accident? Who knows? But as a regular user I can tell you emphatically that it is reliable, as is the 17 (despite what people often seem to think).

As a rule of thumb it takes about 25 minutes to get to Dundrum from Dun Laoghaire and about 35/40 from Tallaght. Naturally at peak hour it may take longer.

Vic_08

The reason why patton or any other private operator is not going to run such a service is simple: profit.

Nobody is going to pay €8 for such a trip, even €2 would be pushing it. That is why there are more independent bus operations to Dublin Airport than the rest of the city combined, people are willing to pay very high premium fares to get to their flights that they will not pay for regular commuting and leisure trips between suburbs.

I have to laugh at patrickbrophy's belief that Dalkey could ever become the hub of a thronging public transport network in south Dublin. Just because you live in Dalkey and want to use busses does not mean a large proportion of the population is of the same mind, even if you ran it for free I doubt you would get more than a handful of people per hour from Dalkey on the route you have suggested.

patrickbrophy18

Vic_08 wrote: »

I have to laugh at patrickbrophy's belief that Dalkey could ever become the hub of a thronging public transport network in south Dublin.

Before you start making fun of me about this idea, I thought I might add this image of a slide from here to my argument:

antoinolachtnai

KC61 wrote: »

It is VERY reliable. It suffered serious reliability problems prior to the timetable change in 2008, but since then it has not had any problems at all. Far from it. I get frustrated when these statements are made.

If Dublin Bus published statistics on such things, it would be a great help in discussing them.

Southsider1

DalkeyResident wrote: »

The word I heard today that Trevor will be back next month.

Do you need a tax clearance cert to get a route licence?

Rock Steady Edy

DalkeyResident wrote: »

The word I heard today that Trevor will be back next month.

No sign of it so far, DalkeyResident. Not even a test run.

patrickbrophy18

Just out of curiosity, how much business would Aircoach make between midnight and 7 AM?

The reason why I ask this is that they run half hourly at some stage within this time period. Is the demand there?

AlekSmart

patrickbrophy18 wrote: »

Just out of curiosity, how much business would Aircoach make between midnight and 7 AM?

The reason why I ask this is that they run half hourly at some stage within this time period. Is the demand there?

With most of the first flights ex-Dublin leaving from 0630 onwards the passengers really need to be there from 0430 onwards,depending on how brave/foolhardy they are.

Additionally as many late arrivals arrive in after 2200 the outbound Coach business remains quite steady too.

So I`d say business between those hours remains steady and that does not include the Airport Staff related movements.

It also noticeable in the City Centre that routes such as the 16A are experiencing quite an upswing in business as folks seek to keep costs to a minimum.....ie €2.20 as against €6,€7 or €8 for executive levels....:)

n97 mini

Just browsing. Why is there a SEE POST #659, a post by a regular user?

Cookie_Monster

n97 mini wrote: »

Just browsing. Why is there a SEE POST #659, a post by a regular user?

they were a mod at the time.
stepped down for whatever reason and -chris- took over

-Chris-

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

they were a mod at the time.
stepped down for whatever reason and "chris" took over

Why is my name in inverted commas? Do you think I'm not a real Chris or something??

Cookie_Monster

-Chris- wrote: »

Why is my name in inverted commas? Do you think I'm not a real Chris or something??

fixed.
but I'm still annoyed I couldn't get it / didn't think of it for my username

-Chris-

You can be -Chris Jr-

AlekSmart

Hmmmm.....Noting the given locations of Cookie_Monster and -Chris-,is there a tactical Killiney-Cabinteely axis thing going on here ?

This is highly suspicious and can only lead to further unease amongst Dalkey residents that they are being caught in a pincer movement......I smell Blitzkreig !!! :eek:

-Chris-

We're going to lobby to have the 145 extended to the airport

AlekSmart

We're going to lobby to have the 145 extended to the airport

-Chris-,a most excellent suggestion...via Heuston Station,The North Wall,the Ferryport and Port Tunnel...a veritable Emigration Express....I suggest that after the revolution you establish a rapport with the Local Councillors (or Local Councillors to-be) in Dalkey to set the ball rolling...

-Chris-

Why set a ball rolling? You don't need a licence for a service like this (apparantly).

You drive a 145, don't you? Let's just implement it and see what the uptake is!

Losty Dublin

-Chris- wrote: »

Why set a ball rolling? You don't need a licence for a service like this (apparantly).

You drive a 145, don't you? Let's just implement it and see what the uptake is!

You can get a Patton Licence; it's written on the back of a crips pack with a crayon he nicked off his niece. Legally binding, you know. A man in the pub told him