Aircoach Ballsbridge new route from 29 October 2013

devnull

Finally an announcement, bizare that it seems to try and reflect it as a new service, rather than adding stops to the Greystones route, the content of the text suggests it was written a few days before it was published for some reason

Good news - Aircoach service returns to Ballsbridge

Aircoach is delighted to announce that with effect from 30th October 2013 it will be re-introducing a direct service between Ballsbridge, Grand Canal Dock and Dublin Airport. This service will initially operate on an hourly basis, 24 hours per day. For full timetable details click here: http://www.aircoach.ie/table.routes.greystones.php

The service will operate via the following stops to and from Dublin Airport:

St. Vincents Hospital, Merrion Road.
Bewleys Hotel, Ballsbridge, Merrion Road.
RDS, Merrion Road.
Ballsbridge Hotel, Pembroke Road.
School House Hotel, Northumberland Road.
Maldron Hotel, Cardiff Lane.
O2 and Port Tunnel to Dublin Airport T2 and T1.

Should you require any further information please contact the Aircoach Customer Service Team at 01 8447118 or email info@aircoach.ie or why not book online at www.aircoach.ie.

We look forward to welcoming you onboard.

Still though, the most logical place to find it, the Ballsbridge timetable page, tells you the previous service is no longer running. It also doesn't mention that the Greystones running time has been increased by 10 minutes to allow for the extra stops. In fact, there is nothing here to suggest there is any change whatsoever to such times.

LXFlyer

lxflyer wrote: »

What's even better is that the timetable on the NTA journey planner for the Leopardstown route (route 700) does not equate to that on the Aircoach website.

The NTA planner has departures every fifteen minutes at xx:00, xx:15, xx:30 and xx:45 24/7 from Leopardstown, whereas the Aircoach website shows that between 00:00 and 04:00 they are actually every thirty minutes.

In the opposite direction, from Dublin Airport, the journey planner shows it as every thirty minutes from 23:55 to 02:25 and every fifteen minutes at all other times, while the Aircoach website states that the thirty minute frequency applies from 23:55 to 03:25!

These are the simple things that really need to be done correctly.

And bizarrely enough, the NTA Journey Planner has now been updated.

SandyfordGuy

well if someonewis reading lets hope they address the other issues

at the top of the greystones tometable it still mentions sandymount

devnull

Someone probably is reading, but they probably won't do anything about it if past track record means anything.

They also ought to change this
http://www.aircoach.ie/media/Blackrock.pdf

Which can be found here
http://www.aircoach.ie/timetables.php

Seeing as the Greystones service has had iut's timetable amended and no longer serves Sandymount

SandyfordGuy

some of the criticism is over the top

00112984

lxflyer wrote: »

I wonder what the exact routing is between Northumberland Road, Macken Street and the O2?

Given the combinations of low bridges east of Pearse Station, and no right/left turns at the Samuel Beckett Bridge, it's not exactly straightforward.

No bus stops in place on Cardiff Lane either, so no idea where the buses will pull in. That whole area can be a bit of a traffic disaster in the evening peak, ten mins from Northumberland Rd to the O2 is very optimstic.

devnull

Already had problems, already one service has been delayed by half an hour.

Typical sloppiness that there are no stops in place yet but the service is running, no doubt the stops in Ballsbridge still have a notice that the service is suspended, too. Comes back to what I was saying earlier once again, lack of customer focus.

There's more to a bus service than simply supplying vehicles and drivers at certain times and operating the service and not bothering about stops, timetables, websites, customer information and proper communication

patrickbrophy18

I think a lot of undue criticism is being fired at Aircoach here. In my opinion, it is a very sensible move to reroute the Greystones service to pick up the slack from the previously cancelled Ballsbridge service. Otherwise, the Greystones and Dalkey Aircoach services may end up collectively duplicating themselves. From a journey length perspective, I might have rerouted the Dalkey service through Ballsbridge instead given that the Greystones service is significantly longer prior to Tara Towers. Either-way, it's a win-win situation for both routes.

coylemj

00112984 wrote: »

ten mins from Northumberland Rd to the O2 is very optimstic.

+1 If that was a realistic estimate then why would anyone use the East Link?

I'm going to have to allow a lot more time when travelling to the airport on the Greystones bus. Simply adding 10 minutes to the airport arrival time for the same departure time at a given stop is way too little if it involves passing through D2 instead of heading up the coast road at the Merrion Gates and going over the toll bridge.

LXFlyer

I have to say that I think Aircoach would have been better re-routing the shorter Killiney route via Ballsbridge than the longer Greystones route.

The principle is right, but I think they have got the routes the wrong way around.

Has anyone figured out the routing yet?

devnull

lxflyer wrote: »

I have to say that I think Aircoach would have been better re-routing the shorter Killiney route via Ballsbridge than the longer Greystones route.

There are problems with the new services timetable both from a running time perspective and the working timetable since it seems to allow no time for delays at the outer terminus, whereas before the scheduled time for the service was 1hr 20 mins to Greystones, it had a 10 minute buffer before the driver was due to work back to Dublin Airport, which allowed time for delays.

Now the extended service has had a few stops extra and allowed only 10 minutes extra to operate the timetable, without changing the departure time at either end. This is proving not to be enough on several occasions. Any delay on departures from Dublin Airport arriving into Greystones, has a knock on effect on services from Greystones since there is zero margin for delays. This can be regulated somewhat at the airport end since drivers break there, but it does not help people going TO the airport.

The principle is right, but I think they have got the routes the wrong way around.

I suspect it may have been decided to be this way, since it allows them to serve extra stops, and extend the route without increasing the number of vehicles and drivers required to operate the service. I'm not sure what happens on the Dalkey route since there seems to be an odd 50 minute layover at the outer terminus, which makes me think they would break there rather than at the airport. The length of both the routes mean that a clockface timetable isn't really that suitable, hence the 50 minute layover at Killiney and the zero layover at Greystones, purely to keep clockface timetables in operation rather than requiring extra duties.

If you allow the Dalkey route an extra 15 minutes for the stops, better than 10, and still want them to leave on a clockface, you'd have a bus departing on the hour from the airport, getting into Dalkey at 15 , Kiliney at 20 minutes past the hour. Leaving Kiliney 35 minutes later, arriving at Dalkey at xx and another 1hr 15 mins to get to the airport at xx:15 which adds another 45 minute layover for the bus and staff. It's not great to have dead time at either end of the route, especially that amount, which will result in more vehicles and drivers being required. However it's difficult to see how the Dalkey timetables can be designed to avoid this unless they are redrawn by for example one end leaving on the hour and the other on the half hour, but then you create duplication with the Greystones route.

LXFlyer

Ah the dark art of scheduling - it's never easy!!

AlekSmart

lxflyer wrote: »

Ah the dark art of scheduling - it's never easy!!

Particularly when NONE of the other Civic Agencies,whose activities impinge upon the ability to provide such services,exhibit the remotest interest or understanding of the principle of PUBLIC Transport......Viz: St Stephens Green/Dawson St Luas BXD codology as an example

SandyfordGuy

chronic late running today buses are leaving the outer terminus very late due to not having the appropriate running time' it is effecting all stops

they have to resolve this and quick else they will lose customers at a very fast rate when people realise it cannot be relied oni

devnull

What I don't understand, is if a few of us on here can see there are going to be problems practically from the day the timetable was released, why can the company not forecast the same things happening.

The timetable is far too tight, and if buses are scheduled to depart Greystones to Dublin Airport the moment they arrive from Dublin Airport, then obviously any delay on the outbound leg is going to cause a delay on the return leg, the leg of the journey where Aircoach can least afford it as passengers are time sensitive to the airport.

The service TO the airport is the one that they really need to be reliable, since people will be getting on at each stop and wanting to make their flights and if the bus runs more than 10-15 minutes late they are just going to get a taxi. If it's not reliable then people will turn their back on it quite quickly. Which will be a disaster for the route and could threaten the viability of it if enough passengers leave.

Delays leaving the airport are not so much an issue, because everyone is getting on at the same stop so delays e-route won't effect them, besides the service is regulated at the airport anyway, so you know, it isn't really an issue since there will be Aircoach staff there to keep people in the loops.

I see one person on twitter today moaning that the 16:00 for Greystones was 20 minutes late at Foxrock, unless there were some local traffic issues, I'd say that this was again caused by a late departure from Greystones.

coylemj

devnull wrote: »

I see one person on twitter today moaning that the 16:00 for Greystones was 20 minutes late at Foxrock, unless there were some local traffic issues, I'd say that this was again caused by a late departure from Greystones.

In the absence of a realtime system similar to RTPI, if the bus is running 20 minutes late then people are likely to panic and catch a taxi, especially if they're waiting for a service that runs hourly - how long do they expect the punter to wait before they give up?

There was a time when you could check the Aircoach website and see the location of all the coaches, not being able to do that or check realtime arrival times for specific stops means the service has now deteriorated badly to the point where I'd seriously an alternative next time. Routing the Greystones service into Ballsbridge and Pearse St. will eventually kill it.

Victor

munchkin_utd wrote: »

regarding poaching by taxis, if aircoach were way more aggressive with their internet ticketing and pricing then you'd have more folks with prepay tickets and thus infintely less likely to be tempted by a taxidriver as they already have paid for the bus in advance.

Especially when now they actually know when to expect a bus to arrive!

Given the vagaries of international air transport, internet tickets would only really work to the airport. While this would solve the taxi problem, passenger would be doing a "Waaaah!"

00112984

Found the bus stop on Cardiff Lane, it's a laminated A4 sheet of paper stuck to the wall. That's for the northbound service at least, haven't spotted the southbound one yet, although we had a few windy days lately!

Regarding the route, n/bound seems to be Northumberland Rd on to canal then Grand Canal St, Macken St, Cardiff Lane, Guild St, Sheriff St. Southbound, no idea. Only legal route I can think of is Sheriff St., Seville Place, Commons St (narrow due to parked cars), NW Quay on to Beckett Bridge (busy). That could take 20 mins though.

coylemj

Southbound I got this route from Garmin Mapsource and recreated it in Google Maps, hence the intermediate 'B' waypoint to force the route through that point......

Runs from the exit from the M50 (port tunnel) to the Schoolhouse pub on Northumberland Road.

http://goo.gl/maps/2eZSu

devnull

coylemj wrote: »

In the absence of a realtime system similar to RTPI, if the bus is running 20 minutes late then people are likely to panic and catch a taxi, especially if they're waiting for a service that runs hourly - how long do they expect the punter to wait before they give up?

Pretty much right. They did tweet that they would test a tracker service in October, but like with everything with Aircoach, it runs late and takes forever if it even does make an appearance. Any dates the company gives for anything you can be rest assured they will not meet in almost all cases.

Routing the Greystones service into Ballsbridge and Pearse St. will eventually kill it.

The routing is one issue, but the fact that it has removed all of the recovery time at the Greystones terminus is what has well and truly affected it, since delays on an outbound service mean unavoidable delays on it's return. Before even if the Greystones route ran 10 minutes late, it would have no effect on the journey back to the airport. Now there is zero margin for delays. It's almost like they felt they had to tack Ballsbridge onto a route, but without really thinking of what wider effects it would have for such route.

Victor wrote: »

Given the vagaries of international air transport, internet tickets would only really work to the airport. While this would solve the taxi problem, passenger would be doing a "Waaaah!"

On the Dalkey and the Greystones route there is a €1 discount for booking online and bigger still on the Intercity routes. Little in the way of discount on the Leopardstown route. They really should offer discounts on all tickets, even if it's just €1, to encourage people to pay up. therefore less chance of them buying a taxi. And then shout about it on their website and make it known in every place that the discounts apply.

00112984 wrote: »

Found the bus stop on Cardiff Lane, it's a laminated A4 sheet of paper stuck to the wall. That's for the northbound service at least, haven't spotted the southbound one yet, although we had a few windy days lately!

What I don't understand is surely they have bus stops from the Ballinteer route in trueform style that they could put at these stops. They even still have Trueform stops at the Towns between Dublin to Cork that haven't been used since that commuter service was withdrawn. Can they not bring the bus stops up to Dublin in a Coach and put them out? I mean seriously? They have the infrastructure, why not actually put it at the stops? Laziness, again and lack of dedication and passion to provide a good service? Happening far too much these days.

Regarding the route, n/bound seems to be Northumberland Rd on to canal then Grand Canal St, Macken St, Cardiff Lane, Guild St, Sheriff St. Southbound, no idea. Only legal route I can think of is Sheriff St., Seville Place, Commons St (narrow due to parked cars), NW Quay on to Beckett Bridge (busy). That could take 20 mins though.

It's ridicolous isn't it. You can swear that the people who have designed the timetable really haven't thought properly about it since it just isn't working. It's almost like they took a map, saw what they thought it should take and plumped with that rather than actually doing any real world route testing to how long it should take. How on earth did this route get sign off? I've seen that drivers are supposedly not surprised at the problems since they had doubts from day one, if they did, we did, what were the management doing in the company?

The whole idea I would assume to extend the Greystones route was to make it more viable and provide it with extra customers. Unless they address this quick and address it fast, not only will they not gain the customers that they would like, they will also lose some of their long standing loyal customers which will leave them in an even worse position.

The only thing they can do to save face now is to create one hour layovers in Greystones which will require extra buses and staff, but they need to try and do that during the day to allow for heavy delays maintain a standard of service to the airport. it will be costly but they need to do something else people heading to the airport will just abandon ship when they realise they cannot depend on the service. Implementing that as a stop gap should be done to avoid the hemorrhaging of passengers. It will certainly cost the company money in the short term but if they alienate their passengers and destroy peoples faith in the route, that could just be a death knell for it. They then should come up with a better proposal to solve the issues, because now it just isn't working.

Another person here with a tweet saying the same thing:
https://twitter.com/Workingdaa/status/397449801903509504

For all the criticism that I've given Aircoach about communication and customer care and website etc, I've always said operationally they have been excellent at running, developing and scheduling new services, I'm starting to think they're struggling to even do that now, which is very sad and needs to be addressed as soon as possible, since if that starts going down the pan as well, the future certainly isn't going to be bright for the company. Honestly First really need to take the bull by the horns and address these problems in the company, if the current management can't sort them out, get in someone who will.

Meanwhile, on the subject of their website, more great presentation here:
http://www.aircoach.ie/news.article.php?ID=392

bk

Victor wrote: »

Given the vagaries of international air transport, internet tickets would only really work to the airport. While this would solve the taxi problem, passenger would be doing a "Waaaah!"

Well in fairness to Aircoach, a ticket booked online can be used on any bus during the day in question. So you can get an earlier/later bus *, not just the one you booked.

SandyfordGuy

bk wrote: »

Well in fairness to Aircoach, a ticket booked online can be used on any bus during the day in question. So you can get an earlier/later bus *, not just the one you booked.

In theory according to their website yes but they argue on facebook and twitter that it is not the case several times.

Tarabuses

coylemj wrote: »

There was a time when you could check the Aircoach website and see the location of all the coaches, not being able to do that or check realtime arrival times for specific stops means the service has now deteriorated badly to the point where I'd seriously an alternative next time. Routing the Greystones service into Ballsbridge and Pearse St. will eventually kill it.

Why did they abandon that facility? It was ahead of its time and took the uncertainty out of using the Aircoach. I seldom use it since the tracking was removed from their website.

Victor

Tarabuses wrote: »

Why did they abandon that facility? It was ahead of its time and took the uncertainty out of using the Aircoach. I seldom use it since the tracking was removed from their website.

Old email exchange.

From: Victor
Sent: 20 July 2011 23:29
To: Aircoach Information
Subject: Aircoach - GPS Satellite Tracking Technology

Hi,

I just clicked on the link on this page: http://www.aircoach.ie/aircoach.buses.coaches.php - no buses are showing and only the Donnybrook / Sandyford Route is showing.

Does the tracking service still work? It would be useful if you had a mobile phone app that people could use heading to the bus stop.

From: Aircoach Information (info@aircoach.ie)
Sent: 21 July 2011 08:50:26
To: Victor

Dear Sir;

Thank you for your recent email enquiry.

No the public do not have access to the coach tracking this is for company and employee use only.

If you would like to know the location of a coach it will be necessary to phone the customer services team for this.

Yours sincerley

Aircoach Team

Tarabuses

A pretty poor response - it seems to imply that the public never had access to coach tracking.

The service went downhill from the day it was sold to First.

AlekSmart

Tarabuses wrote: »

A pretty poor response - it seems to imply that the public never had access to coach tracking.

The service went downhill from the day it was sold to First.

Absolutely True.

It is also worth noting that First Bus would feature highly on the lists of "Real","Customer Focused",gung-ho Private Companies which many would wish to see the CIE Road Passenger services hived off to.

One of the reasons I have no small regard for Leo Varadakar as a Minister for Transport,is the fact that he familiarized himself with the ethos of these "Super" groups a tad more deeply than many expected.

This added level of knowledge has broadened his view on the realities of replacing State Involvement with Purely Private equivalent,which does not always work in the expected manner.

A brief review of First Bus's UK operational difficulties over the past decade would not exactly instil Confidence,if one were to be considering a Family Silver sell-off to them here ?

SandyfordGuy

Tarabuses wrote: »

A pretty poor response - it seems to imply that the public never had access to coach tracking.

The service went downhill from the day it was sold to First.

Hate to break it to you but the company was heavily loss making before the take over and only after did it become profitable.

I do agree it has suffered go the last several years in some areas but not for the whole last ten years.

devnull

Saying that things went downhill just because First took over is very harsh if not completely inaccurate. The slide started more recently than that.

First inherited a company that it was widely viewed didn't have the resources to expand, and John O'Sullivan sold up to allow the company to get that investment to expand to the kind of routes that he desired to do so. It's fair to say that he didn't get as much expansion as he wanted and was talking about at first when he sold out, but the funding from First essentially turned the company into a small one running a couple of routes to the airport without the funds to expand, into one which operated four or five routes.

From looking at the history of the takeover it's clear that First not only cleared the companies debts, but also helped finance new vehicles and a fleet expansion which allowed new routes like Greystones, Belfast and Cork to launch, the company has also sent over a number of vehicles in it's time to allow it to expand the fleet in line with requirements, as well as being able to redeploy company assets from within the group rather than having to pay upfront for new ones.

The company that you claim offers so bad service, became the only operator to open up Greystones to Dublin Airport, the only operator to offer 24 hour services to the airport from any destination, the first operator to operate non stop coaches from Dublin to Cork, and before that the operator with the earliest and latest departure to/from Cork with the lowest journey time, a big investment in new coaches in 2008/2009 which basically did the company more harm than good since they over estimated the number of customers they were going to have to service.

There are clearly issues with running time on the new route, but at the end of the day this is the first time we've really seen an Aircoach timetable that is badly planned out. And they're not the only company to do it, Bus Eireann and Dublin Bus have had issues with insufficent running time on their services in the not too distant past, yet Aircoach have one route where this happens and suddenly it's a crisis? Talk about blowing it out or all proportion.

First have generally been good for Aircoach, but the last 3-4 years I would have to agree that things have slipped, regarding communications, customer focus, the website, customer care, clarity of information and suchlike. I'd guess this is due not having the right people with the right skills in the business with the right attitue and focus in the right positions and this is comething that the company have to address, since if the operations side goes down the drain like the timetable shows may be about to happen, they really will have trouble. But to paint out the whole company as being poor and bad is completely over the top, they have problems that need to be addressed, that is a given and most of them are not exactly new issues, but they still do a lot of things well.

What they do need, as I've said before is a lot more attention to detail, looking at things from a customrs points of view and taking feedback on board more. They also need someone in house who understands IT systems, websites and that kind of thing since from their own mess of a website now it's kind of obvious they don't have the skills, or if they do have the skills, the person who has them doesn't have the dedication or the right mindset to make the most of them since they ar enot passionate enough about using their skills to make something excllent.

Tarabuses

SandyfordGuy wrote: »

Hate to break it to you but the company was heavily loss making before the take over and only after did it become profitable.

I do agree it has suffered go the last several years in some areas but not for the whole last ten years.

I was referring to customer care rather than financial performance. Maybe First did have to make changes to stabalise the company but did removing the coach tracking feature save them much?

Is it really ten years?

SandyfordGuy

ten years to the day actually!

the tracking was working until around 2009/2010 but the people who designed the system were no longer working for the company and left which is why the system fell into not working!

Tarabuses

SandyfordGuy wrote: »

ten years to the day actually!

the tracking was working until around 2009/2010 but the people who designed the system were no longer working for the company and left which is why the system fell into not working!

Reading the reply that Victor received to his enquiry it seems that it is still working but is for internal use only.

SandyfordGuy

they use a different system now

bk

SandyfordGuy wrote: »

they use a different system now

Hopefully that system can be integrated with RTPI and made available to the public.

markpb

bk wrote: »

Hopefully that system can be integrated with RTPI and made available to the public.

Hopefully the NTA will find a pair of balls and make it a requirement of their license at the next renewal period.

devnull

markpb wrote: »

Hopefully the NTA will find a pair of balls and make it a requirement of their license at the next renewal period.

They said that they were going to trial such a system in October, but heard little since, same about the new website that was talked about months ago.

Patrickheg

devnull wrote: »

Saying that things went downhill just because First took over is very harsh if not completely inaccurate. The slide started more recently than that.

First inherited a company that it was widely viewed didn't have the resources to expand, and John O'Sullivan sold up to allow the company to get that investment to expand to the kind of routes that he desired to do so. It's fair to say that he didn't get as much expansion as he wanted and was talking about at first when he sold out, but the funding from First essentially turned the company into a small one running a couple of routes to the airport without the funds to expand, into one which operated four or five routes.

From looking at the history of the takeover it's clear that First not only cleared the companies debts, but also helped finance new vehicles and a fleet expansion which allowed new routes like Greystones, Belfast and Cork to launch, the company has also sent over a number of vehicles in it's time to allow it to expand the fleet in line with requirements, as well as being able to redeploy company assets from within the group rather than having to pay upfront for new ones.

The company that you claim offers so bad service, became the only operator to open up Greystones to Dublin Airport, the only operator to offer 24 hour services to the airport from any destination, the first operator to operate non stop coaches from Dublin to Cork, and before that the operator with the earliest and latest departure to/from Cork with the lowest journey time, a big investment in new coaches in 2008/2009 which basically did the company more harm than good since they over estimated the number of customers they were going to have to service.

There are clearly issues with running time on the new route, but at the end of the day this is the first time we've really seen an Aircoach timetable that is badly planned out. And they're not the only company to do it, Bus Eireann and Dublin Bus have had issues with insufficent running time on their services in the not too distant past, yet Aircoach have one route where this happens and suddenly it's a crisis? Talk about blowing it out or all proportion.

First have generally been good for Aircoach, but the last 3-4 years I would have to agree that things have slipped, regarding communications, customer focus, the website, customer care, clarity of information and suchlike. I'd guess this is due not having the right people with the right skills in the business with the right attitue and focus in the right positions and this is comething that the company have to address, since if the operations side goes down the drain like the timetable shows may be about to happen, they really will have trouble. But to paint out the whole company as being poor and bad is completely over the top, they have problems that need to be addressed, that is a given and most of them are not exactly new issues, but they still do a lot of things well.

What they do need, as I've said before is a lot more attention to detail, looking at things from a customrs points of view and taking feedback on board more. They also need someone in house who understands IT systems, websites and that kind of thing since from their own mess of a website now it's kind of obvious they don't have the skills, or if they do have the skills, the person who has them doesn't have the dedication or the right mindset to make the most of them since they ar enot passionate enough about using their skills to make something excllent.

What's your "firstgroup" fan club number?

SandyfordGuy

to be fair to devmull they have criticised them a lot lately read the thread in full.

the fact is the company have done good things over the years under current ownership but some things have been not good enough lately.

I don't think it's being a fan boy to point that out since fan boys only say positive things and never criticise the company whereas the personxyou speak about has been pretty critical on this tthread.

ScottSF

I hope whatever Aircoach tracking system they introduce or re-introduce in the future, it is mobile friendly. I never had much success with the old tracking system on their website years ago. It required Internet Explorer on Windows as a browser and other atypical plugins to work. Mobile friendliness is key if you are getting ready to leave the house or walking to an Aircoach stop and simply want to know in how many minutes it is expected to arrive. I don't need a map, just # of minutes like the newest Dublin Bus stops.

SandyfordGuy

still no bus stops up?

SandyfordGuy

still no bus stops up?

SandyfordGuy

still no bus stops up?

devnull

If that is the case two weeks later it's unforgivable.

homerjay2005

patrickbrophy18 wrote: »

Either-way, it's a win-win situation for both routes.

how? for those of us who use the greystones route and want to get to and from the airport quick, this is a disaster. its adding potential for long delays during peak times.

i used it last weekend and the driver was bizzare. he pulled in twice (once opposite the BG theatre and then again near the gibson hotel for no reason. didnt pick up anybody, didn do anything just pulled in, stopped the bus and drove off again a few minutes later both times - overall journey took about 45-50 mins when it used take me 30 minutes maz.

markpb

homerjay2005 wrote: »

I used it last weekend and the driver was bizzare. he pulled in twice (once opposite the BG theatre and then again near the gibson hotel for no reason. didnt pick up anybody, didn do anything just pulled in, stopped the bus and drove off again a few minutes later both times - overall journey took about 45-50 mins when it used take me 30 minutes maz.

I assume he reached both those stops ahead of schedule and was waiting to leave at the timetabled time, it used to happen a lot on the old Ballinteer/Dundrum route. Its annoying when you're on the bus but vital if you're waiting for it at a stop. People in Ireland aren't used to it because DB don't bother with trivialities like sticking to intermediate timetables.

patrickbrophy18

homerjay2005 wrote: »

how? for those of us who use the greystones route and want to get to and from the airport quick, this is a disaster. its adding potential for long delays during peak times.

i used it last weekend and the driver was bizzare. he pulled in twice (once opposite the BG theatre and then again near the gibson hotel for no reason. didnt pick up anybody, didn do anything just pulled in, stopped the bus and drove off again a few minutes later both times - overall journey took about 45-50 mins when it used take me 30 minutes maz.

If you had read the sentence directly before the one you quoted, I said:

I might have rerouted the Dalkey service through Ballsbridge instead given that the Greystones service is significantly longer prior to Tara Towers.

In essence, the fact that the Dalkey service is a much shorter route makes it more of a suitable option to reroute through Ballsbridge leaving the Greystones service with a quicker route from Merrion Gates. You dig?

devnull

patrickbrophy18 wrote: »

In essence, the fact that the Dalkey service is a much shorter route makes it more of a suitable option to reroute through Ballsbridge leaving the Greystones service with a quicker route from Merrion Gates. You dig?

I would guess that part of the reason they picked the Greystones route was the fact it had higher capacity vehicles and by adding ten minutes to the timetable if it ran on time, they could avoid the need for more drivers and staff therefore no real increase in costs.

If they wanted to increase the Dalkey route and keep it clockface this would be quite hard to do if they increased the journey time without needing a couple of extra vehicles and drivers to operate it, which therefore increases costs which I guess they wanted to avoid.

The other thing which has not been talked about here (which also is very wrong) is the lack of notification to passengers on existing stops of the route, pre adding Ballsbridge, that their journey time would be being increased by 10 minutes to allow for the new sections, with the bus scheduled to arrive 10 minutes later at the airport from Greystones, and 10 minutes later at all stops after Ballsbridge from the airport. This is not right.

The only news articles they posted was about a new service being added to Ballsbridge, not mentioning the fact that this actually was part of the Greystones route, and only stating the fact certain stops were being dropped. Nobody even mentioned the changes to journey time or arrival times at existing stops. This is not right either, and I see someone on twitter has complained about this, only for Aircoach to tell them it was advertised when it was clearly not - more customer service failings.

Also the promised new website and tracker feature is still not here several months later.

joegriffinjnr

Aircoach are now reading this thread so hopefully they can learn from it.

devnull

Doubt they read it or took anyting on board since the same typical issues are still ongojng.

According to what someone has just said to them on Twitter though, there is a further twist to that. The Schoolhouse Hotel stop from the airport has an Aircoach stop there, from when it was to the airport on the old Ballsbridge route. However, the actual place that is now used, does not have a stop or any information there, so people are waiting on the wrong side of the road, and missing the bus. You couldn't make it up.

Aircoach - if you are reading this, why don't you pull your finger out, get bus stops at places where your coaches stop (May as well remove them from places your coach do not stop for around a year at the same time), ensure EVERY stop (Yes, I'm including Suffolk Street too that has been blank for a year) has a timetable on it, fix your website, communicate with your customers better and take some proactive action and sort out the timings of the route.

If you can't deal with these issues, you have nobody to blame but yourself when you lose passengers or don't attract as many as you should.

AlekSmart

devnull wrote: »

Doubt they read it, apparently there are still no stops at the stops.

According to what someone has just said to them on Twitter though, there is a further twist to that. The Schoolhouse Hotel stop from the airport has an Aircoach stop there, from when it was to the airport on the old Ballsbridge route. However, the actual place that is now used, does not have a stop or any information there, so people are waiting on the wrong side of the road, and missing the bus.

You couldn't make it up.

I'm afraid Devnull,this is par for the course on the South Side of the City Centre.

I regularly have to re-direct Luggage Laden Aircoach customers waiting at the OUTBOUND Stops on Leeson St/Burlington .

In addition to the inconvenience,it can also lead to dangerous stuff as a panic stricken luggage toting foreign person suddenly legs it across 4 lanes to the approaching Big Blue.

In Aircoach's defence the Outbound Stops ARE identified as being "From Dublin Airport",however it's far from clear enough and needs to be in VIVID YELLOW or some other noticable colour ?

ScottSF

Yes the Ballsbridge Schoolhouse Hotel stop TO the airport needs a bit of help. There actually is a rectangular sign across and down the street, but it is attached to a refuse bin and faces in the opposite direction. It is located at the closest Dublin Bus stop (doing double duty).

So if a tourist goes to the Schoolhouse Hotel to head back to the airport, there is no way for them to see the presence of separate bus stop going towards the airport. At the very least there should be a poster on the permanent bus stop telling passengers going to the airport where to wait. I doubt many people will be traveling on AirCoach to Greystones from the Schoolhouse Hotel