Dublin Bus - Thanks :-(

miller50841

bk wrote: »

That is great news and hopefully they will specify three doors for the longer tri-axels.

Of course this means they have to also deal with and fix the issue of the Labour Court ruling, so that all the doors are actually used.

They will also need to deal with the issue of the leap card and flat fare or also tagging off (a possibility with double and triple door operation).

A half way solution would be entrance only at the front door, tag-on at the reader, no driver interaction. Exit only at the rare doors and optionally tag-off for a lesser fare.

The ultimate solution (in terms of dwell time) in my opinion is enter and exit at any doors, flat fare, tag on at any of a few validators on board the bus.

Finally they have to deal with the probability of increased fare dodging *.

I'm not saying it is going to be an easy transition, but neither is it rocket science. Most out major european cities have figured out this problem and successfully operate dual and tri doors.

* I think this problem can be dealt with in the Central European manner. Contract robocop like ex-russia military paratrooper types you see on the dart to be ticket checkers, with a high fine for fare dodger and give the ticket checker a slice of every fine (so basic wage + commission) as they do in many European countries. Doing it this way so allow fare dodging to be kept in check and the high fine value should pay for the extra ticket checkers and the missed fare dodgers, just as it is done on Luas, which manages to operate at a profit, despite the free for all.

This also has the advantages of putting more staff on buses and pay help reduce anti-social behaviour.

Alek, as for the passenger who will have a long chat with you and then complain about the next person doing the same or complain about having to stand, we can't build a bus service around the opinions of such people.

As you yourself say, the silent majority just board the bus, quietly pay the exact fare that they already know and have, sit down, read their newspaper, get up and leave. It is these people who want a quick and efficient bus service.

They might not complain when it takes ages to disembark and board people on the 16 in O'Connell St, but you can be sure they are wondering why it can't be as quick and efficient as last week when they were in London or Poland.

It is these people we need to be building a better bus service for, not the moaners.

We need to reduce interaction with the driver to the minimum possible, so that the driver can focus on driving the bus safely. We need to focus on getting the majority of people on and off the bus as quickly as possible.

As for the problem of the lack of seating downstairs for less able passengers, perhaps a campaign promoting that seats downstairs are for less able bodied passengers and that abled bodied passengers should go upstairs or stand.

Mark all seats downstairs as elderly/pregnant/disabled priority seats with large signs and have announcements pointing this out and reminding abled bodied passengers to move upstairs. I'm sure you would soon embarrass people into changing their ways and using upstairs more.

Personally I always use upstairs and I see many, if not most younger people do the same, so I think most people already have this idea, it just needs to be driven home.

Really a lot of this is psychology and gently manipulating people to use the service more efficiently for the benefit of all.

If they bring in these changes they would need to have full time ticket checkers like the Luas as many people abuse the fare system as it is also the mirrors that are installed on all the busses would need to be proper ones that you can actually see whats beside and behind better as the ones on them busses dont even clear when wet and fog over in cold weather

spareman

Tombo2000 wrote: »

lol fair point.....most of the drivers that tear about my area in their boy racers are 'under 45' (and 'under 25' for that matter). i will take a 45+ yrs driver every time,.

there was a strike there about two years ago.

I'm 100% certain that Dublin bus have NO drivers under 25, Since the minimum age to start driving with Dublin Bus is 23 and they have not recruited drivers for at least 2 years now.

Also Ive been working in Dublin bus for the last 6 years and have NOT been on strike in this time.

AlekSmart

bk wrote: »

Of course this means they have to also deal with and fix the issue of the Labour Court ruling, so that all the doors are actually used.

There's actually no need to "deal-with" the LC's ruling at all.

The long standing and quite commonsense adjudication long ago placed the ball firmly in the courts of the Local Authorities,the Gardai and now the NTA to get their finger out on the issue of safely usable infrastructure.

Dublin Bus is responsible for its vehicles,staff and passengers,but as for its operating environment...sadly,not responsible.

A half way solution would be entrance only at the front door, tag-on at the reader, no driver interaction. Exit only at the rare doors and optionally tag-off for a lesser fare.

The ultimate solution (in terms of dwell time) in my opinion is enter and exit at any doors, flat fare, tag on at any of a few validators on board the bus.

The first suggestion is probably the best for Dublin's bus system,as it stands.
It would appear the notion of a Flate-Fare for bus users is simply too awful to contemplate.

Finally they have to deal with the probability of increased fare dodging *.

I'm not saying it is going to be an easy transition, but neither is it rocket science. Most out major european cities have figured out this problem and successfully operate dual and tri doors.

* I think this problem can be dealt with in the Central European manner. Contract robocop like ex-russia military paratrooper types you see on the dart to be ticket checkers, with a high fine for fare dodger and give the ticket checker a slice of every fine (so basic wage + commission) as they do in many European countries. Doing it this way so allow fare dodging to be kept in check and the high fine value should pay for the extra ticket checkers and the missed fare dodgers, just as it is done on Luas, which manages to operate at a profit, despite the free for all.

This also has the advantages of putting more staff on buses and pay help reduce anti-social behaviour.

Now there's meat n two veg in this topic sure nuff.

Take,for example that well known Austrian hotbed of sedition and civil disobedience,Vienna !

Back in Autunm 2011 the publicly owned 500+ vehicle Wiener-Linen announced it's decision to get tough on Fare-Evasion practitioners.

The company increased it's Standard Fare from €70 to €100 a figure which increases (a lá West-Link Toll) to €138 if not paid within 72 Hours (:eek:).

The company issued in excess of 180,000 Such Fares in 2010 which compares to 300,000 SF's issued on the far larger BVG Berlin Bus network.

The Vienna operator has doubled the number of scheduled revenue-checks and allocated extra staff to the task.

However,I suspect our native prediliction for fudge and ambiguity,would render such a response to our Revenue-Protection issues simply impossible to contemplate...;)

Alek, as for the passenger who will have a long chat with you and then complain about the next person doing the same or complain about having to stand, we can't build a bus service around the opinions of such people.

I concur,but in our juristiction bk,this is exactly the demographic we tend to strive to placate,a quick trawl through the Bus Eireann route 109 thread will illustrate this concept quite effectively.

As you yourself say, the silent majority just board the bus, quietly pay the exact fare that they already know and have, sit down, read their newspaper, get up and leave. It is these people who want a quick and efficient bus service.

They might not complain when it takes ages to disembark and board people on the 16 in O'Connell St, but you can be sure they are wondering why it can't be as quick and efficient as last week when they were in London or Poland.

It is these people we need to be building a better bus service for, not the moaners.

Totally agree on this simple and desirable principle.

We need to reduce interaction with the driver to the minimum possible, so that the driver can focus on driving the bus safely. We need to focus on getting the majority of people on and off the bus as quickly as possible.

As for the problem of the lack of seating downstairs for less able passengers, perhaps a campaign promoting that seats downstairs are for less able bodied passengers and that abled bodied passengers should go upstairs or stand.

Mark all seats downstairs as elderly/pregnant/disabled priority seats with large signs and have announcements pointing this out and reminding abled bodied passengers to move upstairs. I'm sure you would soon embarrass people into changing their ways and using upstairs more.

Personally I always use upstairs and I see many, if not most younger people do the same, so I think most people already have this idea, it just needs to be driven home.

Really a lot of this is psychology and gently manipulating people to use the service more efficiently for the benefit of all.

Good post and worth progressing !

foggy_lad

bk wrote: »

Tombo2000, you are wrong about that.

A bus with multiple doors carries more passengers then a single door bus.

Yes a single door bus has more seats (Aleks argument), however you can fit more people standing in the same space if you remove the seats and multi door buses have more standing space and therefore more passenger capacity.

This is why the Luas has so few seats, they are focused on standing space and getting people on and off as quickly as possible.

What about the elderly passengers who are sitting in the seats specially for them near the back of the bus? how are they supposed to get to their seats or from their seats to the exit through a hundred or so people standing in the lower salon when the bus stops?

What about the Irish habit of congregating on the lower salon like barrow boys at the door to the bookies? how are passengers supposed to get to empty seats upstairs with so many short distance passengers clogging up the lower salon?

Stripey Cat

spareman wrote: »

the minimum age to start driving with Dublin Bus is 23

Is that true? How can they age discriminate like that?

miller50841

Stripey Cat wrote: »

Is that true? How can they age discriminate like that?

Its all to do with driving experience and Its over 21 to start driving I started at 22. When conductors were around some started at 16 but not driving and maybe younger. Also when I started few years ago they were taking on people close to 60 and over so there is defo no age discrimination there. The way things are now it looks like no recruitement just get everybody to retire and finish the whole service.

Lapin

Giblet wrote: »

25 mins? Jaysus, I'd love to see you miss a 65, two hours you would have to wait.

A two hour wait is a long time indeed.

But that shouldn't diminish the very valid point the OP raised.

Sloppy service on one route shouldn't be compared to sloppy service on another route.

markpb

foggy_lad wrote: »

What about the elderly passengers who are sitting in the seats specially for them near the back of the bus? how are they supposed to get to their seats or from their seats to the exit through a hundred or so people standing in the lower salon when the bus stops?

How do they manage on the Luas? Or in buses in other cities?

Cookie_Monster

AlekSmart wrote:

There's actually no need to "deal-with" the LC's ruling at all.

The long standing and quite commonsense adjudication long ago placed the ball firmly in the courts of the Local Authorities,the Gardai and now the NTA to get their finger out on the issue of safely usable infrastructure.

Dublin Bus is responsible for its vehicles,staff and passengers,but as for its operating environment...sadly,not responsible.

So what happens if these buses appear tomorrow, are DB mandated to tell all the drivers that they can't use the doors in certain locations until the LAs get stops up to the required standards and they're signed off by the LA, Gardai and NTA?

Is there any route where you could currently operate a dual door bus fully at all stops as far as you are aware?

AlekSmart

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

So what happens if these buses appear tomorrow, are DB mandated to tell all the drivers that they can't use the doors in certain locations until the LAs get stops up to the required standards and they're signed off by the LA, Gardai and NTA?

Is there any route where you could currently operate a dual door bus fully at all stops as far as you are aware?

In a word,NO.

However that doe's not mean the new policy decision is a bad one.
Personally,and in the case of most DB drivers,the use of the centre door is a non-issue thrown up time after time by lazy hacks and hackettes,many of whom cannot differentiate between Dublin and Éireann....;)

However what this policy does entail is a very specific re-focus onto the Gardai,the Local Authorities and even the NTA themselves,so it will be interesting to note if any of those bodies would be bothered to address the 8 taxi's lined up across the pedestrian crossing at the bottom of Grafton St on Saturday evening,with their drivers slobbering at the mouth in their attempts to get a bit of oul foreign Sports business.

Short of hiring in a Caterpillar D8 and setting it on auto I'm unsure how these cowboys can be persuaded to observe the nicities of their own profession ?

parsi

markpb wrote: »

foggy_lad wrote: »

What about the elderly passengers who are sitting in the seats specially for them near the back of the bus? how are they supposed to get to their seats or from their seats to the exit through a hundred or so people standing in the lower salon when the bus stops?

How do they manage on the Luas? Or in buses in other cities?

They've different elderly people .

Just back from Berlin and the elderly hadn't any problems getting on non-low-floor trams.

Noted that there the buses are boarded through the front and unloaded through the other doors.