Bus Eireann network improvements - Limerick

Poxyshamrock

Bus Eireann are pleased to announce the introduction of a significantly enhanced bus network for our customers in Limerick City. This follows the Bus ireann/National Transport Authority review of services in Limerick City and takes account of the feedback received from members of the public.

The amended services will be introduced on Sunday, 4 December 2016.

There will be changes on the following routes:

Route 301: Westbury City Centre Bus/Train Stn Hospital Fr. Russell Rd
Route 302: City Centre Thomond Park LIT - Caherdavin
Route 303: Pineview City Centre O Malley Park
Route 304: University City Centre Hospital Ballycummin - Raheen
Route 304A: Raheen Hospital Bus/Train Stn City Centre University - Monaleen
Route 306: Ballynanty City Centre Bus/Rail Stn Edward St

These changes will provide the following service improvements:

An increase in frequency across the whole city network and in particular on weekend & evening services
The introduction of Route 304A which will operate every 30 minutes and will link the University & Monaleen to Raheen via the City Centre & the Bus/Rail Station
Later services on all routes with the last departure from the City Centre at 23.30 daily
Improved Saturday, Sunday & Public Holiday Timetables on all routes.
More services to the Regional Hospital
Over 240 daily weekday services linking the Regional Hospital to the City Centre
Over 130 daily weekday services linking the Regional Hospital to the Bus/Rail Station
More services to the University of Limerick
Over 180 daily weekday services linking University to the City Centre
Over 70 daily weekday services linking the University to the Bus/Rail Station
Over 70 daily weekday services linking the University directly to Raheen
More services to Limerick Institute of Technology
Over 90 daily weekday services linking the main Limerick Institute of Technology Campus to the City Centre.
Over 70 daily weekday services linking the LIT School of Art & Design Campus at Clare to the Bus/Rail Station
More services to Raheen Industrial Estate & The National Technology Park
Over 240 daily weekday services linking the Raheen Industrial Estate to the City Centre
Over 180 daily weekday services linking the National Technology Park to the City Centre
Travelling on our improved network of services also provides the following benefits:

Best value fares when using a Leap Cardo
27% discount on a cash single fare from 1st December 2016.
24 Hr Unlimited Travel on the City Network only 4.50
7 Day City Network Ticket only 20.50 for 7 days consecutive use
Great value Taxsaver monthly & annual tickets
Free on-board WiFi on all buses
The following gives a brief summary of the changes on a route by route basis:

Route 301: Westbury City Centre Bus/Train Stn Hospital Fr. Russell Rd

The Weekday & Saturday Timetable will be enhanced to operate every 30 minutes throughout the day and will serve the Raheen Industrial Estate directly in both the morning & evening peak. The Sunday/Public Holidays Timetable on this route will be doubled to now operate every 30 minutes, with the last service from the City Centre now departing at 23.30 every day. The route will now operate in both directions on Fr Russell Rd and also serve the Regional Hospital in both directions

Route 302: City Centre Thomond Park LIT Caherdavin

The Sunday/Public Holidays Timetable on this route will be doubled to now operate every 30 minutes, with the last service from the City Centre now departing at 23.30 every day.

Route 303: Pineview City Centre O Malley Park

The Sunday/Public Holidays Timetable on this route will be doubled to now operate every 30 minutes, with the last service from the City Centre now departing at 23.30 every day.

Route 304: University City Centre Hospital Ballycummin Raheen

This route will no longer operate via the Bus/Rail Station and will operate a revised routing in the Ballycummin/Raheen area to better serve this large residential area with all services terminating at the bus stop adjacent to Raheen Industrial Estate. Peak Hour services also serve Vistakon at the National Technology Park.The Sunday/Public Holidays Timetable on this route will be doubled to now operate every 30 minutes, with the first bus at 08.00 and the last service from the City Centre now departing at 23.30 every day.

Route 304A: Raheen Hospital Bus/Train Stn City Centre University Monaleen

This route will now provide a daily 30 minute frequency timetable linking Raheen to Monaleen via the Regional Hospital, Bus/Rail Station and University of Limerick. It will link the growing School House Rd Residential area of Monaleen to the Public Transport Network for the first time facilitating trips to the City Centre, Bus/Rail Station and Regional Hospital

Route 306: Ballynanty City Centre Bus/Rail Stn Edward St

The Sunday/Public Holidays Timetable on this route will be doubled to now operate every 30 minutes, with the last service from the City Centre now departing at 23.30 every day.

If you have any feedback in relation to the enhanced service offering please forward your comments to customercare@buseireann.ie

Bus Eireann would like to thank our customers for their continued support of the public transport network in Limerick City and we look forward to welcoming you on board our improved services in the near future.

The service enhancements on Route s 301, 302, 303, 304, 304A & 306 will be introduced on Sunday, 4 December 2016 and have been approved by the National Transport Authority.

Tuesday, 22nd November, 2016

Mainly improvements on Sundays and Bank Holidays. It's a pity not to see any new routes except for a minor extension to the Castletroy route.

limerickabroad

Thanks for the info. I wonder what route the new 304A is going to take - my Mum lives out that way. Will it turn right at Monaleen School and turn right again on to Golf Links Road (i.e. past the Golf Club) and turn left again onto Dublin Road? Or will it turn somewhere past the school and go back by Monaleen Church?

ricimaki

The links at the bottom of this page gives a rough idea of the routes.
The 304a route is marked as:
University of Limerick (Stables)
Kilmurry Hotel (Milford Rd)
Castletroy Shopping Centre (Castletroy Shopping Centre)
Monaleen National School (Monaleen National School)
Dublin Rd Lim (Jcn Golf Links Rd)
Dublin Rd Lim (Parkway Retail Pk)
Pennywell (Opp Limerick Paint Supplies)
Bus/Rail Station (Hyde Rd PO)
O’Connell Ave (Carmel O Connell Ave)
St Nessans Rd (Crescent Shopping Cent)
St Nessans Rd (University Hospital)
Raheen (Opposite St Nessans Church)

highlydebased

Monaleen area is crying out for a bus service, good to see. Also good to see service restored to Clare St.

Folks, does the bus route in Raheen Industrial Estate go up to the "newer" part as I call it (Flextronics side) or does it just stop outside the training centre?

iguana

Does the creation of the 304A mean there will be less frequent 304s or will that remain as every 15min? The route will be shorter now as it will presumably continue down O'Connell Ave instead of going up around the People's Park, then back down Roches St around Henry St and onto William St, which was a total pita of a journey if you were trying to get from Raheen to Castletroy.

James Bond Junior

iguana wrote: »

Does the creation of the 304A mean there will be less frequent 304s or will that remain as every 15min? The route will be shorter now as it will presumably continue down O'Connell Ave instead of going up around the People's Park, then back down Roches St around Henry St and onto William St, which was a total pita of a journey if you were trying to get from Raheen to Castletroy.

A 304 every 15 mins? Never when I've used it!

miralize

Does the 304/304A still down the Dooradoyle Road and up Mulcair Road? New bus stop was only installed on Dooradoyle Road last year! I wish they gave us a comprehensive list of stops

iguana

James Bond Junior wrote: »

A 304 every 15 mins? Never when I've used it!

That's the timetable aspiration anyway . Though I was 45 minutes waiting for one yesterday.

James Bond Junior

iguana wrote: »

That's the timetable aspiration anyway . Though I was 45 minutes waiting for one yesterday.

2 out of the last 3 times we decided to get the bus and leave the car we gave up after 45 minutes and got a taxi instead. The 3rd time a bus actually arrived before a taxi did. It's extremely annoying.

Cityslicker1

Don't understand why there's no city bus service to Annacotty village.

Poxyshamrock

Always wondered that myself. Annacotty is a bit of a mess. I hate how it just got swallowed up by Castletroy housing estates instead of growing as its own little self contained town.

paulers06

Just saw the 304A drive down the schoolhouse road. There's a stop between Kylemore and Ashfort. Anyone know where the other stops on the route are?

hurpederp

So does the new 304 bus route go to Ballycummin area at all ? Theres always loads of people waiting at the Ballycummin bus stop.

I'm suspicious that rather than actually improve the bus service, they just cut off a large part of Ballycummin, which ofc will make the bus faster, but will make journeys very hard for a lot of people, and called it a day.

Special Circumstances

Is there an up to date map? I couldn't find anything. For people who rarely use the bus the experience can be pretty off putting when they eventually do, a few small steps could make things a lot better.
Last time I tried to use the bus the whole ballycummin/industrial estate thing seemed to be driver discretion. Or I just couldn't see from the information available how things actually worked.

zulutango

Tried looking for a map there too but no joy. If there isn't one that's a serious deficiency in the service.

Special Circumstances

Yeah, its 2016 like - the oul black and white page with 6 different footnotes "FE - friday service diverts via drivers mothers house for tea every 3rd week" and "*** no stops at industrial estate when mercury is in retrograde" etc should be a thing of the past.

iguana

Special Circumstances wrote: »

Last time I tried to use the bus the whole ballycummin/industrial estate thing seemed to be driver discretion. Or I just couldn't see from the information available how things actually worked.

There definitely seems to be driver discretion at the other end. On more than one occasion I've been waiting for a bus at Kilmurray, where there is a digital display of the next bus, only to see each bus disappear once it gets within 6 minutes of the stop. This obviously means that the bus driver comes out of UL and turns back toward town instead of continuing on to the last stop on the route. And this happens with bus after bus after bus until either the non-Bus Eireann 308 shows up or I give up and make my own way away.

It's really insane, I wasn't a big bus user until my son stopped using his buggy during the summer. It's too far for him to walk into town, around town and back home again, so we've taken to getting the bus in once or twice a week. And it's honestly crap. I have a Leap Card so it costs me €3.30 for a return trip, he's just turned 4 so it's now an additional €2.20 for him. It would be cheaper to drive in and park for a couple of hours, in fact I can park for free at the playgroup we go to each week. Taking the bus is the far more expensive option and we're often left waiting for 30-45 minutes for a bus that it supposed to come every 15 minutes. I don't want to get in the habit of driving for such short journeys but I'm really starting to question why I'm paying so much more for a shítty service.

Mr.H

The City - Ul and City - Raheen should be two different routes

The way it is now will never allow it to be 15 mins. Although a lot of it is down to drivers taking a rest stop and waiting for the next run if they are already late

Poxyshamrock

Would be handy if BÉ put actual bus stops along their routes. Sometimes you just have to guess where the bus stops.

miralize

Their Real Time App has updated stops on it, but I had to do a double take to make sure they were actually up to date.

The new 304 will take a while to normalize and I'm surprised it doesn't serve the Ballycumin terminus of the last route, but it definitely has the potential to speed up the trip for lots of people.

The route around Dooradoyle/Raheen could take ages if like in my case today you dont know which way it goes and end up spending ages (30 mins easy) on the bus only for it to turn around and stop on the other side of the street of the stop that I got on!

Mrs OBumble

hurpederp wrote: »

So does the new 304 bus route go to Ballycummin area at all ? Theres always loads of people waiting at the Ballycummin bus stop.

I'm suspicious that rather than actually improve the bus service, they just cut off a large part of Ballycummin, which ofc will make the bus faster, but will make journeys very hard for a lot of people, and called it a day.

The NTA's journey planner / interactive map tool (http://journeyplanner.transportforireland.ie/rm/XSLT_TRIP_REQUEST2?language=en) is supposed to be the map.

However I've found that it's a bit economical with details around the edges of routes. And right now it thinks that the 304A is a train .. or a minibus (icons for both are being shown on the map) - and that it stops at Stables. So I'm not inclined to trust what it says about the 304, either.



The timetables try to say what hours the buses go into the industrial estates - but possibly the driver training may have been minimal and not covered small details like this.

LimkTeach

Is the ballycummin stop at Alfies still there? I saw some elderly people waiting at it for ages on Sunday. It was approx an hour as I went for a walk and they were still there on my way back. Then today I spotted a bus travelling on the church road/ballycummin road in the opposite dirction than it used to to.

hurpederp

No the Alfies stop, and the next one down the road within Glencairin are no longer on the bus route.

I take the bus everyday and so I drew a map of the new bus route - can others tell me if that is correct ? I am pretty sure it is. Thats the route for the 304. https://drive.google.com/open?id=1liZI91vrECmsc5jHxz2WOFP85TY&usp=sharing

Mc Love

It kind of makes sense that it doesnt go up through Glencairn as it's way too tight for the buses!

theparish

hurpederp wrote:

I take the bus everyday and so I drew a map of the new bus route - can others tell me if that is correct ? I am pretty sure it is. Thats the route for the 304.

Is there a new stop near ambassador cleaners side entrance to Ind.estate
Instead of Alfie's ballycummim

niallers1

There will be a few teething issues with every new route change but so far I think the 304A is working out great. Pity it didn't go by Annacotty Newtown though but you can't have everything.
Monaleen direct to the front of the industrial estate was long overdue but now that it is here it should be supported. You don't use it you lose it.
I recommend everybody to download the real time Ireland APP. It's got up to date arrival and departure times on it but in real-time. 

304A Goes from University, Kilmurry lodge hotel, Super-value , Monaleen School (Stops 75 yards before and after the traffic lights if needed) Schoolhouse road, Golf links road past the Golf course and back onto the Dublin road, Past the Parkway, Cherrydale court, Pennywell, Crosses onto Sexton Street at the horse and hound , Parnell street, Train/Bus station, Upper Mallow street, Pery Square , onto O'Connell Avenue, Ballinacurra, Crescent shopping centre, Avonmore Road and then Raheen Roundabout at the entrance to the industrial estate.

zulutango

niallers1 wrote: »

I recommend everybody to download the real time Ireland map. It's got up to date arrival and departure times on it but in real-time. 

Map or app?

niallers1

App Sorry:)  (corrected now)
A real time Map would be excellent though. That way you'd really know where the bus was.

zulutango

Just had a look. It looks great alright!

Any idea how reliable the real time info is in Limerick?

niallers1

It works for me most of the time.