Dublin Bus Network Review

SparkyTech

D14 wrote: »

Also the bus I take every morning 14- at 7.30 is always jammed, The worst part is that it always is either THE OLDEST RV, The Wedding bus or a Coastal tour bus. I can't wait for the summer because i'm expecting a open top tour bus to come around the corner :rolleyes:

By 2012 all of the old RV's will be replaced with low floor buses.

LXFlyer

D14 wrote: »

The 16a is going to cause big problems, theres aprox. 30 pupils in De La Salle in Churchtown from Harolds cross, Terenure, Rathfarnham and South Circular road area combined who aren't going to be happy.

Also the bus I take every morning 14- at 7.30 is always jammed, The worst part is that it always is either THE OLDEST RV, The Wedding bus or a Coastal tour bus. I can't wait for the summer because i'm expecting a open top tour bus to come around the corner :rolleyes:

I also use that bus on occasion and there is still plenty of room before it gets to Rathgar. There is never a full standing load before that point. Have a bit of perspective. There is no 48a at that time (passengers off the 0720 48a will use the 0715 departure from Dundrum - currently a 14a) which is only ever half full. The latter will also pick up people on Braemor Road that had a half hour gap.

As for the 16a - anything that improves the situation for the majority of users south of Rathfarnham on the 16/16a has to be welcomed. Stand at the Grange Road/Nutgtove Avenue junction and look at the loads. They are far greater to/from Grange Road than Nutgrove (often a full bus -v- 6 people) yet the service levels are similar. I certainly welcome an increased service to Ballinteer with the move to all 16s serving Grange Road.

The schoolchildren from Terenure and Rathfarnham will have the 17 and anyone from the south circular has a relatively short walk to the 14.

SparkyTech

I would be surprised if a route adjustment was not put in place for Nutgrove Avenue in lieu of the 16a. The 17 and 75 still serve this stretch regardless.

Devilman40k

Anyone who lives in Harolds Cross and not at the scr will not see the walk to the 14 as "relatively short"

CIE

Devilman40k wrote: »

Anyone who lives in Harolds Cross and not at the scr will not see the walk to the 14 as "relatively short"

Certainly not if one walks from Grange Road/Nutgrove Avenue junction to Barton Road East/Nutgrove Way junction (the nearest stop from the former junction, at 1.5 km; going all the way to Beaumont Avenue/Lower Churchtown Road is 1.7 km from Nutgrove Avenue/Grange Road). The 17 is of no use for passengers bound for Harold's Cross.

I've always wondered why the 16A wasn't re-routed via Upper Churchtown Road (western portion) to Landscape Road after the 14 was re-routed via Orwell Road and Braemor Park; that road hasn't had a service on it since the cancellation of the original 47A (Orwell Road route) and 61.

kc56

Now that Glasnevin (Glasnevin Hill - Botanic Ave) is losing the 13, are there any proposals for the remaining routes - 19 and 83??

CIE

kc56 wrote: »

Now that Glasnevin (Glasnevin Hill - Botanic Ave) is losing the 13, are there any proposals for the remaining routes - 19 and 83??

Not likely. If they don't care about bus service on all of Dartry Road and Lower Churchtown Road (a distance of 2.6 kilometres), they certainly won't care too much about the half-kilometre of Ballymun Road that was always the domain of the 13.

Dyr

Things is, it's often a complete bottleneck for the 13, and with the exception of the met office stop, does'nt do much business

med1

Bambi wrote: »

Things is, it's often a complete bottleneck for the 13, and with the exception of the met office stop, does'nt do much business

dont forget there soon wont be any bus service along jamestown road or onwards to poppintree roundabout except he 19 terminus when the 220 and 104 finish shortly also dcu will be losing its only outside the main entrance bus when the 104 goes
remember the hulabaloo about that bus shelter recently now the bus is been removed to pay for it

AlekSmart

med1 wrote: »

Dcu will be losing its only outside the main entrance bus when the 104 goes,
remember the hulabaloo about that bus shelter recently now the bus is been removed to pay for it

A Ha...but you forget the Bus Eireann 109A....a high frequency,easy access service if there ever was one......dear oh dear oh dear,we just don`t look at the BIG picture do we....;)

med1

AlekSmart wrote: »

A Ha...but you forget the Bus Eireann 109A....a high frequency,easy access service if there ever was one......dear oh dear oh dear,we just don`t look at the BIG picture do we....;)

havnt forgotten that but i am looking at dublin city services plus they have installed a realtime display pole there which bus eireann doesent use another waste of money

Heart

med1 wrote: »

havnt forgotten that but i am looking at dublin city services plus they have installed a realtime display pole there which bus eireann doesent use another waste of money

I think you're being somewhat unfair by looking at city infrastructure in single operator terms. Bus Eireann have a service using that stop, therefore it's still justified. The cost is another matter which was discussed elsewhere previously.

Also, Bus Eireann do have real time information available and, from what I'm told, could be added to the City Council on street screens.

TheChrisD

I remember a post in this thread not too long ago of someone complaining that their bus was cancelled due to a lack of passengers. I think that this happened with some of the 270 service yesterday because my 2pm departure from Dunboyne never showed up, and based on the lack of a bus going in the opposite direction when I got a regular 70 part of the way instead, I don't think that driver ever bothered to turn up for that part of his roster.

Gotta love how they claim to be providing a better, more punctual service when it doesn't even bloody bother to run.

SafetyPin

I was just thinking the other day, would it not be best to run the new 13 down Collins Avenue seeing as there isn't a bus that runs into the city (except the 3 at the end of it) and it could serve the main entrance to DCU and then take a right down the Old Swords Road continuing onto Drumcondra etc.

CIE

SafetyPin wrote: »

I was just thinking the other day, would it not be best to run the new 13 down Collins Avenue seeing as there isn't a bus that runs into the city (except the 3 at the end of it) and it could serve the main entrance to DCU and then take a right down the Old Swords Road continuing onto Drumcondra etc.

What bus would serve Griffith Avenue then?

(And regarding Ballymun Road south of Griffith Avenue, they have the 4 running on there. This I forgot.)

SafetyPin

CIE wrote: »

What bus would serve Griffith Avenue then?

They are taking the new 13 out of Griffith Avenue & the route of the current 13 and sending it down Home Farm Road. I think they'd have more business if it were to go by DCU at Collins Avenue as it'd be an advantage to the other routes that serve DCU by being the only one to serve this entrance.

Also, I think it's crazy to remove the 13 out of Whitworth Road considering at rush hour from Dorset Street to the junction of HFR is mental when one uses the 13a and it can take up to 40-60minutes sometimes.

AlekSmart

SafetyPin wrote: »

They are taking the new 13 out of Griffith Avenue & the route of the current 13 and sending it down Home Farm Road...........
It could serve the main entrance to DCU and then take a right down the Old Swords Road continuing onto Drumcondra etc.

If nothing else this highlights the somewhat cack-handed planning and design which went into the most up-to-date University campus in the State.

It beggars belief that an institution such as DCU made it from drawing board to fruition without any Public Transport element incorporated into its infrastructure.

It also serves to underline the increasingly disjointed nature of Network Direct`s interpretation of Deloitte,as one of the major reasons for the moving of the deckchairs is to somehow replace the 11 group of routes which currently do serve Home Farm Road.

Worse still the 11 is one of the routes which most closely meets Deloitte`s specifications for a Dublin Bus route linking,as it does major centres of public importance with each other and via the City Centre...so one can immediately see the need to eradicate it and replace it with a collection of somewhat dissimilar routings none of which match the originals suitability.

It all seems to be Pure Genius....or perhaps Pure Lunacy...at this stage nobody really appears to care anymore ?

dfx-

Devilman40k wrote: »

Let me guess....the 77 !! I don't understand why the 77 isn't beefed up to run decent frequency from City West to Parnell St/Sq or even Broadstone linking with both ends of Luas Red Line and Main shopping areas of the City Centre.

Very close! The 150 took the most at 15 passengers as it was at the front of the queue. Had the 77 arrived first, it would've taken a conservative estimate of 25 on board. Five for the 123 and just three passengers for the empty 151

Devilman40k

dfx- wrote: »

Very close! The 150 took the most at 15 passengers as it was at the front of the queue. Had the 77 arrived first, it would've taken a conservative estimate of 25 on board. Five for the 123 and just three passengers for the empty 151

The problem I see here is having 3 routes that service roughly the same area i.e Cork St through to Crumlin Hospital arriving at the exact same time in the city [at the start of their journey] as opposed to midway through the route!.

Surely there is a better way of staggering these routes (giving tham a 2/3 minute headway) so they are picking up the customers for this section of the service on a regular interval, and thereby not creating the problems as the routes progress.

More importantly will RTPI be employed to manage all routes so they are run at these intervals? or is it being employed so as to stop my 5 year old daughter constantly asking when the bus is going to arrive and then having a fit when I cant answer!!:o

antoinolachtnai

This is bunching. The problem is that unless the buses reach the stop very regularly, the bus at the front will always be slowed down much more than the one behind it, because all the passengers will want to board it. The buses behind then catch up. One of these buses then gets in front and becomes the new first bus and it is slowed down again. In the meantime a third bus has caught up from behind. This is now a 'bunch' of buses.

To stop this from happening, the key is to speed up boarding times. Cashless products are the key to speeding up boarding. Unfortunately, Dublin Bus doesn't really have cashless products that are suitable for people living close to the city, so a larger proportion of people use cash. This really slows things down.

Integrated ticketing will help by providing a cashless short journey product, but not too much. On Dublin Bus, smart card usesrs will need to approach the driver and ask for the fare you require for shorter journeys.

Coordinating things better using RTPI should in theory help with this, but probably won't in practice, I'm afraid. The buses are departing on a schedule, and there is usually a gap in that schedule, but it just isn't big enough to stop the buses from bunching.

med1

SafetyPin wrote: »

They are taking the new 13 out of Griffith Avenue & the route of the current 13 and sending it down Home Farm Road. I think they'd have more business if it were to go by DCU at Collins Avenue as it'd be an advantage to the other routes that serve DCU by being the only one to serve this entrance.

Also, I think it's crazy to remove the 13 out of Whitworth Road considering at rush hour from Dorset Street to the junction of HFR is mental when one uses the 13a and it can take up to 40-60minutes sometimes.

another bit of madness here route 13 via the withworth road is far quicker and more reliable than drumcondra but then again if the 13 was rerouted to take in dcu front entrance then it would link up several colleges on its route or else they can expand the 3 to dcu

oharach

Why didn't they just get Deloitte to do the routes?

Dublin Bus and other interested parties could have contributed the local knowledge, but DB seem to have absolutely zero experience in route planning, and I just don't trust them.

CIE

oharach wrote: »

Why didn't they just get Deloitte to do the routes?

JMHO, but I think that the better source to "do the routes" by is the passengers. The current melée is the result of DB listening to the consultants who, while some of their ideas are good, others are clouded by a lack of intimate knowledge of passengers' needs as well as that of the city itself and its suburbs.

oharach

CIE wrote: »

JMHO, but I think that the better source to "do the routes" by is the passengers. The current melée is the result of DB listening to the consultants who, while some of their ideas are good, others are clouded by a lack of intimate knowledge of passengers' needs as well as that of the city itself and its suburbs.

So long as you mean via representative passenger focus groups, and not a free-for-all, where the politicians and a few loudmouths determine everything, I have no problem with that.

dfx-

[obligatory facebook group]http://en-gb.facebook.com/pages/Unfair-and-unthoughtful-changes-to-Clondalkin-bus-routes/169138633129592[/obligatory facebook group]

I do hate facebook, but I admit I like the guy who is naive enough to believe that the 13's level of service will indeed be every 10 minutes in the real world...

Q.

When is a number "50" bus, not a number 50 bus? :pac:

devnull

I am happy to say I am now a former Dublin Bus customer! The recent poor service, combined with the many cancellations over the holiday season when they were supposed to be running a normal weekday service has drove me to look for other options.

The ongoing deterioration of route 4 which has been going on for several months now has hit rock bottom in the last seven days with the removal of the bendy buses culminating in an injury to a passenger on board a double decker during the scrum to get on the bus. This is something that has got noticeably worse since the removal of bendy buses since the turn of the year thanks to the capacity reduction, in addition to the savage frequency cuts made in an earlier phase of Network Direct.

Upon calling Dublin Bus I was informed that there is no problem with capacity on this route, and the removal of bendy buses and replacement with double deckers will INCREASE capacity and efficiency and time keeping. The lack of them even being willing to listen to the views of the public, and our experiences has now led to four of us at work, car pooling rather than taking the bus. This means Dublin Bus will now will loose a few thousand euro in revenue from us not buying 30 day ramblers all year long.

They have destroyed what was one of the best routes in the city. It is now hideously overcrowded, completely unreliable, and completely undependable due to the ridiculously short running times. Dublin Bus, despite indicating they would review changes they made have basically told me they see it as a success. So they lose our business, and I'm sure others too. For those of you who still have to take the bus, the drop in revenues will probably lead to a rise in fares - a very vicious circle to be getting in if the underlying issues are not addressed.

EricPraline

devnull wrote: »

So they lose our business, and I'm sure others too. For those of you who still have to take the bus, the drop in revenues will probably lead to a rise in fares - a very vicious circle to be getting in if the underlying issues are not addressed.

Funny you should say this. From today's Indo:

Dublin Bus has asked the National Transport Authority (NTA) to allow it to increase fares across city bus services.

The move comes as passenger numbers fell across the CIE group of companies, with Iarnrod Eireann, Dublin Bus and Bus Eireann haemorrhaging 25 million passengers last year. Government payments to the companies have also fallen.

Dublin Bus, which accounted for two-thirds of the lost passengers, has sought permission to increase fares but a formal decision has not yet been made.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/public-transport-users-face-fare-increase-2490130.html

Hardly surprising that people are moving away from Dublin Bus in their droves - less reliable services covering fewer areas, coupled with the company's traditional inability to accurately communicate information to their customers.

The_Wrecker

devnull wrote: »

I am happy to say I am now a former Dublin Bus customer! The recent poor service, combined with the many cancellations over the holiday season when they were supposed to be running a normal weekday service has drove me to look for other options.

The ongoing deterioration of route 4 which has been going on for several months now has hit rock bottom in the last seven days with the removal of the bendy buses culminating in an injury to a passenger on board a double decker during the scrum to get on the bus. This is something that has got noticeably worse since the removal of bendy buses since the turn of the year thanks to the capacity reduction, in addition to the savage frequency cuts made in an earlier phase of Network Direct.

Upon calling Dublin Bus I was informed that there is no problem with capacity on this route, and the removal of bendy buses and replacement with double deckers will INCREASE capacity and efficiency and time keeping. The lack of them even being willing to listen to the views of the public, and our experiences has now led to four of us at work, car pooling rather than taking the bus. This means Dublin Bus will now will loose a few thousand euro in revenue from us not buying 30 day ramblers all year long.

They have destroyed what was one of the best routes in the city. It is now hideously overcrowded, completely unreliable, and completely undependable due to the ridiculously short running times. Dublin Bus, despite indicating they would review changes they made have basically told me they see it as a success. So they lose our business, and I'm sure others too. For those of you who still have to take the bus, the drop in revenues will probably lead to a rise in fares - a very vicious circle to be getting in if the underlying issues are not addressed.

The sad thing is the loons in management positions think they are doing a great job. A drop in passenger numbers is blamed on the recession still and not network direct.
The great phase 1 saga 145 is going under review yet again from next Saturday with a 7 day review, upto 6 inspectors, unions reps and other loon managers out some claiming OT.
Also the loons think removing the ardmore part of the 145 will solve the problems? Palermo service also under review.
It seems to be a race to the bottom, but the Loons think its all ok.

CIE

EricPraline wrote: »

devnull wrote: »

So they lose our business, and I'm sure others too. For those of you who still have to take the bus, the drop in revenues will probably lead to a rise in fares - a very vicious circle to be getting in if the underlying issues are not addressed.

Funny you should say this. From today's Indo:

Dublin Bus has asked the National Transport Authority (NTA) to allow it to increase fares across city bus services.

The move comes as passenger numbers fell across the CIE group of companies, with Iarnrod Eireann, Dublin Bus and Bus Eireann haemorrhaging 25 million passengers last year. Government payments to the companies have also fallen.

Dublin Bus, which accounted for two-thirds of the lost passengers, has sought permission to increase fares but a formal decision has not yet been made.

Hardly surprising that people are moving away from Dublin Bus in their droves - less reliable services covering fewer areas, coupled with the company's traditional inability to accurately communicate information to their customers.

Also the worst indictment of Network Destruct so far. Drive away passengers and simultaneously increase fares, and the haemorrhaging won't be staunched, but rather the flow will increase.

markpb

The_Wrecker wrote: »

A drop in passenger numbers is blamed on the recession still and not network direct.

If DB go ahead with the changes they're proposing for my area, I'll be cancelling my annual DB + Luas ticket and saying exactly why I'm doing it when I ask for my refund.