Bus fares going up today

bobin fudge

point taken, Im sure if she had a leap card though she would still have taken 30 seconds to look for it in her bag/purse. These type of people never have anything ready when they should have so probably wouldnt make much difference in your example.

the leap card does save money but let's not pretend it is considerably making travel so much cheaper. Prices with and without the leapcard are still far too expensive for the service being offered in my opinion

bobin fudge

bobin fudge wrote: »

point taken, Im sure if she had a leap card though she would still have taken 30 seconds to look for it in her bag/purse. These type of people never have anything ready when they should have so probably wouldnt make much difference in your example.

the leap card does save money but let's not pretend it is considerably making travel so much cheaper. Prices with and without the leapcard are still far too expensive for the service being offered in my opinion

Oh, don't get me wrong. I'd much prefer if it was a tag on/tag off system. It's not perfect by any means but I don't know if they're unaware of it's existence or just couldn't be bothered.

Miguel_Sanchez

Karsini wrote: »

Yesterday I was on a 40 where a woman boarded, started rummaging for change on the bus and eventually paid about 30 seconds later.

This amazes me. I was standing at a stop for about 5 minutes one morning, there was another guy there with me. When we get on the bus he spends at least a minute looking for coins in his pockets.

Did it not occur to him that the bus driver was going to ask for money? Had he never been on a bus before? :mad:

Polar101

Most people who commute daily seem to have a pre-paid ticket, at least on the bus I take. The ones who pay cash do not do the same trip every day. I find it incomprehensible that anyone would pay cash, if it is someone who uses the bus daily.

Anyway, if I worked for CIE I'd suggest raising the cash fares even more, since a lot of people would still pay cash.

StudentDad

lxflyer wrote: »

The bilingual announcements are a requirement of the Official Languages Act, something that had nothing to do with Irish Rail.

As for your timetable suggestions, how many people are going to need to travel to Westport after 18:30 that would justify a train being provided? I can't see potential customer numbers that might justifying the additional costs of operating more trains than that? Any such train wouldn't be arriving in Westport until around midnight.

What about the people from all the stations between Westport and Athlone that would be discommoded by your proposed non-stop service? Do they not count? What you propose would mean having to operate additional trains at additonal cost, something that frankly the companies do not have very much room to do right now. In addition there are the physical restrictions to operating extra trains and indeed non-stop ones due to the fact that the line is single track and trains have to cross one another at passing loops.

Legislation or not - Irish Rail can control the bloody volume!

The plain fact of the matter is that in real terms it's cheaper, quicker and more reliable for me to take my car on a run up to Dublin than take a train.

From a customers point of view - me - instead of spending money on laying another line next to the Westport - Dublin line - (to my mind all routes should be twin track!) - and making sure the signalling is upto scratch - the mgt and staff got unsustainable payrises - the company bought in new engines and had them flown in by Antonov - no expense spared! - millions spent on upgrading stations. While at the same time the fares are too high, the timetables useless, the company has to go cap in hand to the govt. for more money! They won't take a credible pay cut. The Western Rail corridor is a joke, and to top it all these new engines can't even get out of 1st gear - metaphorically speaking!

SD

[Jackass]

lxflyer wrote: »

No you don't have to pay €2.15.

You can get a LEAP card and pay €1.90, the same fare as the old cash fare.

Frankly that is yet another stupid post (and I have no qualms about using that word) that ignores cheaper options that are available. I'm getting sick of reading this sort of nonsense from people who just don't bother checking whether cheaper options exist. It's frankly ludicrous.

As for the different timetables, I think you'll find the one from Head Office shows the times from the terminus, while the second one shows times from an intermediate point.

In retort, you sir, are the one being foolish. Why?

Where to begin. First of all, I have a leap card. I use the bus on and off for college. The leap card is fine, but I find it funny how I make a EUR5.00 down payment for an untraceable piece of plastic, which no one will ever "redeem" and will either keep or lose, more money for nothing, in the same sense as the exact fare is money for nothing, I'd imagine very few people redeem those tickets and also I would be interested in knowing where that money goes. If it doesn't go to charity at the end of the year, then it's a disgrace....just like the bus service in this city is. Also, I am a poor student, I don't always have 20, 40, 50 euro lying around to put into the card, living day to day with expenses, it's just not feasible.

Also, a monthly ticket is not an option as I don't use it regularly enough. Sometimes I cycle, sometimes I walk, depends a lot on the weather, and walking the 2.5 mile distance on average is actually quicker than the accumulated waiting time and bus journey - scandalous in a major European city. I have a right to expect a half decent service. There is a more frequent service to Galway and Cork city by train than there is from UCD to Sandymount.

Also, cycling has not been an option a lot of the time, as I have a recurring groin strain (unrelated sports injury) for the last few months that I can't seem to shake (getting old now, hitting 30) and cycling seems to aggravate it a lot, so it comes and goes.

I have lived in New York, London and Toronto - and to say our public transport is an absolute abject failure is being complimentary. Your point about the mismatching time tables is wrong - obviously I calculate at what time the bus is supposed to arrive, not the distance it gives. You correctly point out the points of journey on the time tables are different, but obviously that's irrelivant, all I'm interested in is what both timetables give as arrival time. One states it should arrive roughly around 20 past on the hour by one time table (which was recently updated as the routes from UCD have changed) and the other, from head office, has it arriving at 35 minutes past. From experience, anywhere between 5 past and 45 minutes past is usually the best waiting time.

Frankly, what's "ludicrous" is the appalling bus service in this city. It is literally unique in its inefficiency and overlapping of routes and dismal deviance from main routes. I also note that it seems ALL routes from UCD that go towards town now go via Donnybrook and none now go via Ballsbridge (that I know of), so the 47 (which I get) is the only option from UCD, once an hour, unless I want to go to Donnybrook and have a 15 / 20 minute walk, which seems pointless when I'm waiting up to an hour, an hour and a half to get home in a 2.5 mile journey - including waiting time, dublin bus can get me home at an average speed of 1.6 miles an hour. Nice. So a score of bus routes cover virtually the same route to town..

Also, I suggest you watch this video for how "ludicrous" Dublin bus is. And this over staffed, wholly inefficient, money losing monopoly full of morons should be opened up to private bus companies who at those prices could have a bus every 5 minutes covering all routes to every corner of the city 24 hours a day. It's a joke.

Skip to around 6 and a half / 7 minutes in for most interesting part.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNC1h5H5cJA

LXFlyer

StudentDad wrote: »

Legislation or not - Irish Rail can control the bloody volume!

The plain fact of the matter is that in real terms it's cheaper, quicker and more reliable for me to take my car on a run up to Dublin than take a train.

From a customers point of view - me - instead of spending money on laying another line next to the Westport - Dublin line - (to my mind all routes should be twin track!) - and making sure the signalling is upto scratch - the mgt and staff got unsustainable payrises - the company bought in new engines and had them flown in by Antonov - no expense spared! - millions spent on upgrading stations. While at the same time the fares are too high, the timetables useless, the company has to go cap in hand to the govt. for more money! They won't take a credible pay cut. The Western Rail corridor is a joke, and to top it all these new engines can't even get out of 1st gear - metaphorically speaking!

SD

It might be an idea if you checked some of your facts first.

Only one 201 Class locomotive was flown in and that was paid for by General Motors and not IE.

The line to Westport has been resignalled and relaid. There is neither the money nor the demand to justify doubling the line. And as I said before, the line does not serve only Westport, but also the other towns en route which you seem to think don't count.

IE didn't want the WRC in the first place - that was a purely political decision.

LXFlyer

[Jackass] wrote: »

In retort, you sir, are the one being foolish. Why?

Where to begin. First of all, I have a leap card. I use the bus on and off for college. The leap card is fine, but I find it funny how I make a EUR5.00 down payment for an untraceable piece of plastic, which no one will ever "redeem" and will either keep or lose, more money for nothing, in the same sense as the exact fare is money for nothing, I'd imagine very few people redeem those tickets and also I would be interested in knowing where that money goes. If it doesn't go to charity at the end of the year, then it's a disgrace....just like the bus service in this city is. Also, I am a poor student, I don't always have 20, 40, 50 euro lying around to put into the card, living day to day with expenses, it's just not feasible.

Also, a monthly ticket is not an option as I don't use it regularly enough. Sometimes I cycle, sometimes I walk, depends a lot on the weather, and walking the 2.5 mile distance on average is actually quicker than the accumulated waiting time and bus journey - scandalous in a major European city. I have a right to expect a half decent service. There is a more frequent service to Galway and Cork city by train than there is from UCD to Sandymount.

Also, cycling has not been an option a lot of the time, as I have a recurring groin strain (unrelated sports injury) for the last few months that I can't seem to shake (getting old now, hitting 30) and cycling seems to aggravate it a lot, so it comes and goes.

I have lived in New York, London and Toronto - and to say our public transport is an absolute abject failure is being complimentary. Your point about the mismatching time tables is wrong - obviously I calculate at what time the bus is supposed to arrive, not the distance it gives. You correctly point out the points of journey on the time tables are different, but obviously that's irrelivant, all I'm interested in is what both timetables give as arrival time. One states it should arrive roughly around 20 past on the hour by one time table (which was recently updated as the routes from UCD have changed) and the other, from head office, has it arriving at 35 minutes past. From experience, anywhere between 5 past and 45 minutes past is usually the best waiting time.

Frankly, what's "ludicrous" is the appalling bus service in this city. It is literally unique in its inefficiency and overlapping of routes and dismal deviance from main routes. I also note that it seems ALL routes from UCD that go towards town now go via Donnybrook and none now go via Ballsbridge (that I know of), so the 47 (which I get) is the only option from UCD, once an hour, unless I want to go to Donnybrook and have a 15 / 20 minute walk, which seems pointless when I'm waiting up to an hour, an hour and a half to get home in a 2.5 mile journey - including waiting time, dublin bus can get me home at an average speed of 1.6 miles an hour. Nice. So a score of bus routes cover virtually the same route to town..

Also, I suggest you watch this video for how "ludicrous" Dublin bus is. And this over staffed, wholly inefficient, money losing monopoly full of morons should be opened up to private bus companies who at those prices could have a bus every 5 minutes covering all routes to every corner of the city 24 hours a day. It's a joke.

Skip to around 6 and a half / 7 minutes in for most interesting part.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNC1h5H5cJA

With respect, you quoted a cash fare in your original post. That would imply that you did not have a LEAP card.

Secondly the €5 that you pay when you get a LEAP card is a refundable deposit that you can dip into when your funds are low.

The money associated with unclaimed change receipts is ring fenced and used for charity purposes.

The student 30 day rambler ticket is valid for 30 non comsecutive days over a roughly 18 month period and gives you unlimited travel on each of those days. It might still save you money.

With regard to the 47 timetable, the timetable from Head Office shows the times that the bus leaves the terminus at Belarmine. The timetable on the bus stop at UCD shows the intermediate timings from Stillorgan. Hence they are different and the time taken to get to UCD is different.

Why don't you use the RTPI facility that tells you when the bus will arrive at your stop in real time either via the Dublin Bus smartphone app or at www.dublinbus.ie/rtpi? For a service that's once an hour I would suggest that is by far the most practical option.

As for a more frequent service to/from Sandymount - that was there in the form of routes 2 and 3, and indeed route 18 for a period, but insufficient numbers were using the services, hence the cut back in frequency, or are you suggesting DB should continue running buses that carry thin air?

A map should I imagine reappear next year (yes there was previously a map available) once all of the network changes are completed - the entire network has been changing in the past year which would render a map out of date fairly quickly.

As for privatising - I think you'll find that looking at the fares charged by the few private operators that have operated in Dublin, without a subsidy fares would be double what they are now.

Tar.Aldarion

Yeah dunno why people don't look at the real time information and complain. I'm only ever waiting a couple minutes at most.

StudentDad

lxflyer wrote: »

It might be an idea if you checked some of your facts first.

Only one 201 Class locomotive was flown in and that was paid for by General Motors and not IE.

The line to Westport has been resignalled and relaid. There is neither the money nor the demand to justify doubling the line. And as I said before, the line does not serve only Westport, but also the other towns en route which you seem to think don't count.

IE didn't want the WRC in the first place - that was a purely political decision.

I never said the towns en route don't count. However when it is faster and more convenient to drive - it doesn't say much for the train service.

Doesn't say much either that the company mgt have frankly ridiculous remuneration packages and then run out of cash and have to ask the taxpayer who for the most part don't use trains just to get to the end of the year!

The quicker the rail network is leased to a private operator the better.

SD

LXFlyer

StudentDad wrote: »

I never said the towns en route don't count. However when it is faster and more convenient to drive - it doesn't say much for the train service.

Doesn't say much either that the company mgt have frankly ridiculous remuneration packages and then run out of cash and have to ask the taxpayer who for the most part don't use trains just to get to the end of the year!

The quicker the rail network is leased to a private operator the better.

SD

Well how would you propose to serve all the stations between Westport and Athlone? You proposed running the trains non-stop from Westport to Athlone.

[Jackass]

lxflyer wrote: »

As for a more frequent service to/from Sandymount - that was there in the form of routes 2 and 3, and indeed route 18 for a period, but insufficient numbers were using the services, hence the cut back in frequency, or are you suggesting DB should continue running buses that carry thin air?

Fair points, but regarding this one, yes, I do expect small, single decker coach type vehicles to run on thin air.

A public service is subsidised by tax payer money for a reason. These are public services and are not supposed to be profit making ventures and the highly profitable routes in a public service are supposed to compensate for the non-profitable routes. That is the number one argument about privatisation in any transport network, that the non-profit making routes will be dropped, but Dublin Bus do that anyway as they are hemerging money when they have a 2,000,000 customer base and no competition. A joke.

As regards real time, you might laugh but its true, partly because of hard times, partly just became habit, but I don't really use a mobile phone or any mobile device any more. Crazy I know in this day and age, but then, elderly people probably don't either, and shouldn't have to rely on going to find the information themselves, a timetable drawn up by a semi-concious remotely compitant monkey should be accurate enough that I don't need real time. It's not that complicated.

And I don't understand why they spend all this money on putting up these stupid automated signs that tell you what buses will be arriving in the next 60 - 120 seconds. Fair enough for low volume suburb stops, but at UCD you basically just get updates of which bus is sitting at the traffic lights in front of you. Why not digitize the actual timetable on the bus stop - Obviously different times of day mean different traffic conditions, so the travel time for the bus route will be different each time. My bus says it takes 15 minutes from terminus or whatever all times of day - which obviously isn't the case, so why not update the timetable in real time with expected arrival time (depending on the time of day) and sample it from 50 bus journeys to get exact time of arrivals that are consistent every day rather than have a pointless sign telling you whats going to happen in the next 60 seconds, you've no idea if you've missed a bus or when it's coming as it's so irregular, those signs literally serve no purpose at a stop like that and I'm none the wiser if I should wait there or walk as I can't trust the service.

Like, you explain it away as though this is remotely acceptable. In Toronto for example, they have it so fine tuned that literally bus, train and light rail connections are accurate to within 60 seconds and one connection mode of transport leaves another 60 - 90 seconds after the expected arrival time and I never missed a connection once and not once was a service cancelled or late. It's a similar size city size to Dublin if you don't include the greater Toronto area (like you wouldn't include the commuter belt of Dublin) and their service is spectacular compared to ours. But I've never been to a city anywhere in the world that didn't have a spectacular service compared to ours. It's not just bad, it's an absolute disgrace, entirely incompetent and I presume you work there given your comments, but you talk as though it is a private company already - NO it is a heavily tax subsidised public service holding a monopoly and if it can't deliver a service infinitely better than a private company and if it charges like a private company and if it sees non-profit making routes as surplus to requirements because it can't make a profit from the monopoly, then open it up and let Dublin bus fail - what are we paying for if its so bad, expensive and not like a normal public service, but more like a lazy incompetent private company with no competition?

markpb

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

Yeah dunno why people don't look at the real time information and complain. I'm only ever waiting a couple minutes at most.

Real Time doesn't make the service any more frequent or reliable, it just makes the wait feel shorter because its bounded (and hopefully predictable). If you're travelling to someone else's (not Dublin Bus's) timetable, like leaving work/college/cinema, you get to the bus stop when you get out. Of course,you could sit at your desk and wait until RPTI says a bus is coming. You'll only have a minute wait at the bus stop but you'd be fooling yourself.

StudentDad

lxflyer wrote: »

Well how would you propose to serve all the stations between Westport and Athlone? You proposed running the trains non-stop from Westport to Athlone.

I never suggested running all the trains non-stop. Just some of them.

The journey time from Westport to Dublin. Not just this line all the lines, needs to be cut in half. It's insane to think that when I leave here in the morning at the same time as a train I can get to Dublin a good hour before it.

However, considering the amount of money wasted by the company, I'm not holding my breath waiting for a decent train service.

SD

MOH

lxflyer wrote: »

Why don't you use the RTPI facility that tells you when the bus will arrive at your stop in real time either via the Dublin Bus smartphone app or at www.dublinbus.ie/rtpi?

Because that's almost as fictional as the printed timetables?

I'm lucky enough to have a decent range of buses heading to the city centre, various ones suiting me better depending on where I'm heading.

Bus #1 shows as 1 minute away, bus #2 which suits me a bit better, 2 minutes.
Let bus #1 go past. Wait a couple of minutes. Check again. Bus #2 is now 7 minutes away.

Which unless the bus has been stuck in reverse for a few minutes would be impossible if the system were truly real time.

Or just stand on Eden Quay any day of the week and watch as buses pull out from stops 2 or 3 minutes before the real time display says they're due. Or vanish off the display without ever arriving.

When it works, they system is fine. But since you never know if it's working or not, it's useless. In fact, it's worse than useless when it's wrong, since in the absence of any such system I'd just get the first bus that came along and end up getting to my destination sooner.

JustAddWater

MOH wrote: »

Because that's almost as fictional as the printed timetables?

I'm lucky enough to have a decent range of buses heading to the city centre, various ones suiting me better depending on where I'm heading.

Bus #1 shows as 1 minute away, bus #2 which suits me a bit better, 2 minutes.
Let bus #1 go past. Wait a couple of minutes. Check again. Bus #2 is now 7 minutes away.

Which unless the bus has been stuck in reverse for a few minutes would be impossible if the system were truly real time.

Or just stand on Eden Quay any day of the week and watch as buses pull out from stops 2 or 3 minutes before the real time display says they're due. Or vanish off the display without ever arriving.

When it works, they system is fine. But since you never know if it's working or not, it's useless. In fact, it's worse than useless when it's wrong, since in the absence of any such system I'd just get the first bus that came along and end up getting to my destination sooner.

Trust in the system is key and having seen what you described, I trust it no more than you do

Where do they get info that a bus is 2 minutes away? If it's from a physical bus, which is actually 2 mins away, where the hell did it go then??

It's flawed a good lot of the time

Tar.Aldarion

markpb wrote: »

Real Time doesn't make the service any more frequent or reliable, it just makes the wait feel shorter because its bounded (and hopefully predictable). If you're travelling to someone else's (not Dublin Bus's) timetable, like leaving work/college/cinema, you get to the bus stop when you get out. Of course,you could sit at your desk and wait until RPTI says a bus is coming. You'll only have a minute wait at the bus stop but you'd be fooling yourself.

When the bus isn't there for a while you get to know, would you rather wait half an hour in the cold or get a coffee, have a chat, look at something on the net? It doesn't make it faster but it makes the experience a lot better. As for people saying it's not right, in my experience using it twice every day it works fine for me.

GPS can tell you where the bus is now and make an estimate based on that location. It can't tell you exactly when the bus will be at your location. Especially at stops near busy road junctions it can be near impossible to correctly estimate this.

I treat it as a guide, at least I have an idea when the bus will be there and I can decide to do something in the meantime if the time is longer than I had expected.

Gongoozler

Yeah, have to say my experience of the real time thing has been pretty ok. I'd say accurate around 85% of the time. It is very annoying when you're waiting on a bus, and finally it gets to 1 min and then disappears. enraging really.

John Mason

that real time thing does my head in.

the 40 is horrendous. the buses are every 10 mins (LOL), so you are there and the sign says 17 mins, so go to the shop, get a drink whatever come back and its 11 mins, then it just disappears but comes back to 19 mins, then skips 11 mins back to 27 mins, down to 5 mins back to 17 mins - Eventually at 25 mins 3 buses turn up together!!

schemingbohemia

irishbird wrote: »

that real time thing does my head in.

the 40 is horrendous. the buses are every 10 mins (LOL), so you are there and the sign says 17 mins, so go to the shop, get a drink whatever come back and its 11 mins, then it just disappears but comes back to 19 mins, then skips 11 mins back to 27 mins, down to 5 mins back to 17 mins - Eventually at 25 mins 3 buses turn up together!!

And I presume you've reported this to Dublin Bus and the NTA? Only way to get effective change is to contact them when things go wrong.

John Mason

tonight it was due in 8 mins when i got there. It didnt jump but i was standing for 17 mins before it got to "due" and then, yeah, you guessed it 3 buses turned up at the same time.

no point to complaining to them writing, i used but i always get the same email back, apologizing for the bus not stopping at my stop,!!

i also used to phone but the last time i dont that, i was "i dont whether i will be alive tomorrow so how do i know if your bus is going to turn up "

You'd be surprised. I contacted the NTA about a faulty RTPI display in Fairview a few months back. They acknowledged my mail and fixed it the next day.