Dublin Bus News

finnfinn

:(Yesterday I walked from Templeogue to M50 at around 11. Buses passed out of service, turning at the spawell roundabout. Traffic was going reasonably normally from here to Tallaght. I met 2 girls who had given up after waiting for 1.5hrs. Imagine my surprise to hear on the news that buses were running more or less normally. Who is telling lies, the Company, the Drivers, or my eyes and ears.:(:confused::mad:

Bazzer2

It's your eyes and ears.

Dublin Bus say their buses are operating more or less ON ROUTE, just not on time.

finnfinn

On Route - Does this mean on the first half of the route or does it mean that they have "As Seirbhis" as destination.

EricPraline

Having waited an hour for a bus this morning, my experience is that what Dublin Bus is saying (particularly on their web site) is somewhat divergent from reality.

The long-promised Real Time Passenger Information system for buses would be pretty useful right now.

finnfinn

On Route - Does this mean on the first half of the route or does it mean that they have "As Seirbhis" as destination.

finnfinn

finnfinn wrote: »

On Route - Does this mean on the first half of the route or does it mean that they have "As Seirbhis" as destination.

EricPraline wrote: »

Having waited an hour for a bus this morning, my experience is that what Dublin Bus is saying (particularly on their web site) is somewhat divergent from reality.

The long-promised Real Time Passenger Information system for buses would be pretty useful right now.

One young lady told me that various buses had left town at times from 10am on. We saw some of these turning at Spawell and going back. She got her information by text. What's realtime.
At the same time the service was much better than in London on Saturday with much less snow. Dublin Airport was much superior to London airports where buses and taxies were chaotic. e.g. Sunday Luton 4 out of 216 local taxis working.

Corruptedmorals

Yesterday evening my bus route said 'Not serving Lucan or Leixlip (correct). Operating via Bypass (incorrect) and N4'. After 3 and a half hours, 8 busses were on the sliproad between Chapelizod and Palmerstown. (at least another 8 waiting to turn onto the sliproad behind and it was announced that 16 were stuck on the byass overhead- X's and 25B's ONLY) 2 were at the very top...but didn't move in over an hour...so nobody else could. Two busses behind mine slid severely and turned off and kicked all the passengers out. Mine didn't but everyone got off and walked anyway. It would be lovely if the website could say after the curtailments something like 'Massive delays- several busses stationary on route'.

dearg lady

mine's been running fine, as in curtailments in place, and slow to run, but given the weather that's normal.
finnfinn, if you check the website it will give details of curtailments.
Curruptedmorals, agree that's poor that the website wasn't updated to show this, but perhaps it had been updated after you got on the bus..

trishasaffron

Yes I agree. The information is way misleading. I've had nightmare experiences trying to get home from town on the 145 and yet the website implies the difficulties only start out in the suburbs. Then you're faced with explaining to the office why you're late.

Corruptedmorals

dearg lady wrote: »

mine's been running fine, as in curtailments in place, and slow to run, but given the weather that's normal.
finnfinn, if you check the website it will give details of curtailments.
Curruptedmorals, agree that's poor that the website wasn't updated to show this, but perhaps it had been updated after you got on the bus..

That was after I got off it, before I got on it said 'Operating as normal', in fairness that was hours before. I hate the normal crowded Maynooth line trains so could not face them in this madness, but that's the way when the snow is that bad..

Jaysoose

Stood at the snugborough road stop waiting for a 38/38a this morning for an hour with a load of other people, website says running as normal. 7....yes 7 empty 17a's tootle past and while one was letting somebody off a lady asked the driver what the story was with the 38's he told her everything was running as normal.

Who is telling lies here..the website...the drivers? its a disgrace that they can operate in the way they have its bad enough that they had the bright idea to change all the routes/frequency but to plainly lie to people that are relying on the information they provide to make decisions about getting to/from work is not on.

Was left waiting on a bus from town last week for an hour and a half and whrn i rang the the information line i was told that a bus i was waiting on had gone past my stop ten minutes previously...when i told her i had ben at the stop an hour she started backtracking...uh oh uh the driver was just on the radio...

Useless...the lot of them.

trellheim

find the garage your route runs from and ring that. The rest of DB have no connection whatsover to the reality on the ground.

Jaysoose

trellheim wrote: »

find the garage your route runs from and ring that. The rest of DB have no connection whatsover to the reality on the ground.

Then this is the information they should be putting on the website, not a number for some clueless spoofer to give people false hope. Its such a particularly irish way of doing things, make things as awkward as possible for the customers while being completely unwilling to improve things.."this is the way its always been done".

Look at the recent network changes where they claim to have increased the frequency of buses and improved the trip times...when its plain to see that the frequency of buses has decreased and trip times are longer. But when people ring up dublin bus they are basically called liars by some plonker in an office that came up with this bright idea.

The sooner they get privatised the better.

finnfinn

dearg lady wrote: »

mine's been running fine, as in curtailments in place, and slow to run, but given the weather that's normal.
finnfinn, if you check the website it will give details of curtailments.
Curruptedmorals, agree that's poor that the website wasn't updated to show this, but perhaps it had been updated after you got on the bus..

I am talking about yesterday morning , not rush hour, not after dark but between 10 and 12. While traffic was slow it was steady. The buses actually passed at possible 30k/h or more. Yhere was absolutely no reason for them not to go on to Tallaght. What I object to is the lies. Although I am nearly 70 and was carrying a case a 5K walk in snow wont harm me, but to hear that I am so senile as not to notice that the route was serviced would be disturbing, were it not that other persons much younger had the same experience.

thomasj

I had to laugh at the notice on the Dublin bus website. Apparently re the 75

To city centre buses are unable to serve Georges Street or York Road and are operating via 45a Route to Rochestown Avenue and back on to normal route to the city centre.

Eek! Someone should tell them they are going the wrong way!

stop

thomasj wrote: »

I had to laugh at the notice on the Dublin bus website. Apparently re the 75



Eek! Someone should tell them they are going the wrong way!

I assume they Copy & pasted 46a info? I've found that the majority of the info on the website doesn't hold up. If each local garage had access and someone updating it with local knowledge it might be a bit better.

Alas the old system of walk to the stop and hope is still the order of the day (/month).

dearg lady

finnfinn wrote: »

I am talking about yesterday morning , not rush hour, not after dark but between 10 and 12. While traffic was slow it was steady. The buses actually passed at possible 30k/h or more. Yhere was absolutely no reason for them not to go on to Tallaght. What I object to is the lies. Although I am nearly 70 and was carrying a case a 5K walk in snow wont harm me, but to hear that I am so senile as not to notice that the route was serviced would be disturbing, were it not that other persons much younger had the same experience.

I'm not sure what difference the time makes. My point was the website was generally updated(albeit sometimes a bit late)
I have literally no idea what you're talking about in this post!

Jaysoose

dearg lady wrote: »

I'm not sure what difference the time makes. My point was the website was generally updated(albeit sometimes a bit late)
I have literally no idea what you're talking about in this post!

Its fairly simple, the information on the website is just plain wrong half the time and the info being given over the phone is just plain lies the other half of the time.

dearg lady

Jaysoose wrote: »

Its fairly simple, the information on the website is just plain wrong half the time and the info being given over the phone is just plain lies the other half of the time.

I disagree. My bus has been running per the info on the website. I don't doubt there are some errors and things are changing a lot with the weather, but overall I think it's pretty clear and accurate

finnfinn

dearg lady wrote: »

I'm not sure what difference the time makes. My point was the website was generally updated(albeit sometimes a bit late)
I have literally no idea what you're talking about in this post!

That is obvious. At the risk of of being overly pedantic let me point out the following. At rush hour there are more vehicles on the road making it more likely that a collision or stoppage might occur. At night time dublin bus had suspended its services. Before that (7pm-10pm) it is possible that with compacted snow, colder and darker conditions, and the effects of gritting wearing off, some routes were becoming dangerous.

As to websites, how many old age pensioners carry laptops around with them? How many of these have access to the internet while waiting at the bus stop? And then how many of us could take these out and use them in the snow? Why should we when we are getting text alerts as to the buses leaving town for Tallaght? Perhaps it is not I, who doesn't know what I'm talking about.

Of course the time is also important because it allows one to backtrack and see the relevant notice of curtailment from Dublin Bus and/or the drivers' logs. If there is an explanation for this situation other than people lying, I would like to hear it.

dearg lady

finnfinn wrote: »

As to websites, how many old age pensioners carry laptops around with them? How many of these have access to the internet while waiting at the bus stop? And then how many of us could take these out and use them in the snow? Why should we when we are getting text alerts as to the buses leaving town for Tallaght? Perhaps it is not I, who doesn't know what I'm talking about.

Yes, I agree completely with this, the the Internet is of limited usefulness is for example it takes me 40-50 mins to get to the bus stop(which it does for me leaving work) I didn't use the text service at all myself, just didn't bother, but at times like this the 'realtime' information would be incredibly beneficial...hopefully in time for next winter!!

EricPraline

dearg lady wrote: »

I disagree. My bus has been running per the info on the website. I don't doubt there are some errors and things are changing a lot with the weather, but overall I think it's pretty clear and accurate

Have to say that wasn't my experience at all. The biggest problem was the omission of information - routes that were effectively not running or that were ending in the city centre, but no notice of this at all on the website.

finnfinn wrote: »

As to websites, how many old age pensioners carry laptops around with them? How many of these have access to the internet while waiting at the bus stop? And then how many of us could take these out and use them in the snow? Why should we when we are getting text alerts as to the buses leaving town for Tallaght? Perhaps it is not I, who doesn't know what I'm talking about.

To be fair, many commuters will check the website before they leave work, in the same way that many people use the AARoadwatch website. Unfortunately the Dublin Bus site turns out to be far less accurate and less regularly updated. Best sources of travel information this week have been Twitter and Boards.

superfurry1

I think the website is an absolute disgrace and has no idea whats happening out there especially when routes are not running it should be updated to mention this! Delays are not so bad within reason we can wait a little longer once we know the bus is gonna turn up. And where have all the inspectors gone in town? :mad:

thomasj

Took a 39a this morning.

Got to hanlons corner, then turned left and is now following the 46a route to the city centre

No notice in website

Cookie_Monster

seen an 84 or two skip Cherrywood also yesterday

gazzer

thomasj wrote: »

Took a 39a this morning.

Got to hanlons corner, then turned left and is now following the 46a route to the city centre

No notice in website

On the traffic update on the RTE site it mentioned that a truck had jacknifed on Prussia Sat and traffic on both sides of the street was blocked.

AlekSmart

No notice in website

I`d imagine,in this particular instance a web-update would be pretty much valueless as if the obstruction was removed pdq then only a small number of journeys would be disrupted.

This unpredictability and lack of co-ordination between agencies is whats really hampering improvements in Dublin Public Transport.

However I would also suggest that Dublin Bus should also be far more pro-active in training and encouraging Drivers to use the P.A. System.

I`ve always found that keeping passengers informed of stuff tends to placate the more excitable and defuse the cranks as well as allowing the "Ordinary" folk to plan their response to whatever issue arises.

Jaysoose

dearg lady wrote: »

I disagree. My bus has been running per the info on the website. I don't doubt there are some errors and things are changing a lot with the weather, but overall I think it's pretty clear and accurate

The problem is with routes not running as per the website not the few that are unaffected, lucky you that your bus is alright but dont try and defend the information that the rest of us are being fed, we cant all be telling lies.

The info is rubbish and even the drivers dont seem to have a clue.