BusConnects Dublin - Bus Network Changes Discussion

Victor

Spanish Eyes wrote: »

You know what I mean, leaving at 08.03, 08.17 etc. as an example. why not on the hour and every five ten fifteen minutes afterwards for consistency.

Yes, consistency is useful, but service needs to match demand and funding.

I agree that the bus numbers need to be sorted. All Northside originators that cross CC should have odd numbers like the post code, opposite on the South side.

And cross city routes?

markpb

devnull wrote: »

Presumably because they believed that an integrated product that didn't penalize people for changing modes was a better option rather than one which uses just one mode?

Travel 90, as a product, suited DB users who make up the vast majority of public transport users in Dublin.

What we've ended up with is worse for DB customers and slightly better for everyone else. travel 90 could have been moved to Leap and extended to cover more/all operators. That would have been amazing.

punisher5112

markpb wrote: »

Travel 90, as a product, suited DB users who make up the vast majority of public transport users in Dublin.

What we've ended up with is worse for DB customers and slightly better for everyone else. travel 90 could have been moved to Leap and extended to cover more/all operators. That would have been amazing.

They have been slow to change but it is coming so no stress.

bk

markpb wrote: »

Travel 90, as a product, suited DB users who make up the vast majority of public transport users in Dublin.

What we've ended up with is worse for DB customers and slightly better for everyone else. travel 90 could have been moved to Leap and extended to cover more/all operators. That would have been amazing.

Travel 90 was better for the small number of DB users who actually knew about it and actually went to the bother to buy tickets for it.

Leap 90 and fare capping are better because they not only apply to DB, but also because they apply automatically to all Leap card users even if they don't know it!

I have no proof of it, but I suspect more people benefit from Leap 90 and fare capping then people who benefited from Travel 90.

devnull

markpb wrote: »

Travel 90 could have been moved to Leap and extended to cover more/all operators. That would have been amazing.

That would not have been possible without a massive impact on farebox revenue for multiple companies as the fare is having to be split across multiple operators which apparently was one of the reasons why it wasn't extended.

punisher5112

bk wrote: »

Travel 90 was better for the small number of DB users who actually knew about it and actually went to the bother to buy tickets for it.

Leap 90 and fare capping are better because they not only apply to DB, but also because they apply automatically to all Leap card users even if they don't know it!

I have no proof of it, but I suspect more people benefit from Leap 90 and fare capping then people who benefited from Travel 90.

More would benefit of course but many still don't even understand or know it actually does it all auto and many know nothing about any of it.

People always complained about huge fares and there were always them other options that could make a good saving.
Well for many years.

Stephen15

punisher5112 wrote: »

People always complained about huge fares and there were always them other options that could make a good saving.
Well for many years.

Well compared to other countries fares our fares are high when when T90 was scrapped it was what €2.90 for an unlimited ticket for 90 mins and it was only valid on buses. Compare that to a city I visited recently Rome where an unlimited 90 minute ticket valid all buses, trams, metro and suburban rail cost €1.50.

Irish Steve

Slightly sad, I've skimmed through nearly 600 messages, and what's missing for me in most of it is the bigger picture, in that nothing's been said about issues like the interaction between Dublin Bus and Bus Eireann, which for people in places like Ashbourne, Dunshaughlin and other places around Dublin is a major issue, in that for most of those areas, there's one , or if they are lucky 2 routes, and they only serve Busaras, which makes working in vast swathes of Dublin impossible, because of the time involved in going into the centre and out again.

For me, the lack of any integrated rail in much of the city centre is a massive issue, we spent a long weekend recently in Hamburg, which is not dissimilar in size or population to Dublin, but they have a much bigger rail network, both above and below ground, and in some areas both, with a very impressive service quality, the most evident aspect of that being the airport, which has a train to the city centre every 10 minutes, 8 coach train, so significant capacity, and it links with a significant number of other areas on the way in, and runs for 20 of the 24 hours in the day.

What I think is going to have to happen in the longer term is that the city inside of the canals will need to have a much higher LUAS style service, with the buses providing a feed into the LUAS that will serve the centre, simply because one LUAS style tram can carry a massive number of people when compared to a bus, and at peak periods, the critical issue to to move a lot of people quickly, and a LUAS style system, or an orbital underground can do that, but multiple buses cannot, because the dwell time is just too long in comparison to the time needed for the train equivalent.

In the same vein, there needs to be oribital feeder systems that link places like Clare Hall, the Airport, Blanchardstown, Liffey Valley, Red Cow, Dundrum, Sandyford and Dun Laoghaire, or similar, with high frequency feeds from the areas around the interchanges. At one time, there was a plan to do this with a rail service, but that seems to have been killed off, but it's going to have to be revisited at some stage, for all sorts of reasons, the biggest being the inability to upgrade the M50 to the size that is now needed, an acceptable, reliable and fast alternative is going to be needed sooner rather than later.

The ticketing systems need to allow for any service to be used within a zone without issue, in Hamburg they have rail, bus and ferry services that are all part of an integrated ticketing system, with options for zone travel, or day travel, or commuter season tickets for longer distances, and there is no issue about changing from one to the other, or using different routes, if you are in a zone and have paid to travel in it, then that's what you can do, and it works very well indeed.

The key issue for me is if the right questions are being asked in this review, and if the brief of the people who will be producing the final report gives them the scope to address all of the issues related to public transport, or if the review will only focus on dealing with the bus services in Dublin to the exclusion of all other transport options.

Time will tell, but 25 years of watching the snail's pace of transport reform in Dublin does not fill me with optimism.

Dyr

Irish Steve wrote: »

For me, the lack of any integrated rail in much of the city centre is a massive issue, we spent a long weekend recently in Hamburg, which is not dissimilar in size or population to Dublin, but they have a much bigger rail network, both above and below ground, and in some areas both, with a very impressive service quality, the most evident aspect of that being the airport, which has a train to the city centre every 10 minutes, 8 coach train, so significant capacity, and it links with a significant number of other areas on the way in, and runs for 20 of the 24 hours in the day. .

We don't have metro systems because every rural TD and Minister can't stand the idea of investing in one unless every village in their county gets a bypass first.

Zebra3

bk wrote: »

Travel 90 was better for the small number of DB users who actually knew about it and actually went to the bother to buy tickets for it.

Leap 90 and fare capping are better because they not only apply to DB, but also because they apply automatically to all Leap card users even if they don't know it!

I have no proof of it, but I suspect more people benefit from Leap 90 and fare capping then people who benefited from Travel 90.

Travel90 was fantastic when it first came out. The book of ten tickets. It was like DB were forced into the concept but didn't want anyone to know about it!

The fact that it's now automatic as you say is great as well as the fact that it's not just restricted to DB.

IE 222

The country needs to invest in tunnel boring machines for rail and some road tunnels. We need to quit this messing about of spending MILLIONS on upgrading and adding extra bus stops, ticketing systems and repainting buses thinking this is going to resolve Dublins transport issues.

Even with a reduction in private cars bus travel will remain slow. The addition of more stops and worst of all the ever increasing amount of traffic lights popping up anywhere and everywhere is out of control. For example from the end of the Finglas Rd at Hearts corner to the quays (roughly 1 mile) there is no less than 16 sets of traffic lights with a second Luas crossing soon to be added.

Money needs to put into rail or removing / bypassing junctions. It's the same with the M50. Half of users use the junction to junction Lane as a mile long slip road the other half wait till the last min to change lanes leading to others having to slow down or even stop.

Stephen15

Irish Steve wrote: »

Slightly sad, I've skimmed through nearly 600 messages, and what's missing for me in most of it is the bigger picture, in that nothing's been said about issues like the interaction between Dublin Bus and Bus Eireann, which for people in places like Ashbourne, Dunshaughlin and other places around Dublin is a major issue, in that for most of those areas, there's one , or if they are lucky 2 routes, and they only serve Busaras, which makes working in vast swathes of Dublin impossible, because of the time involved in going into the centre and out again.

For me, the lack of any integrated rail in much of the city centre is a massive issue, we spent a long weekend recently in Hamburg, which is not dissimilar in size or population to Dublin, but they have a much bigger rail network, both above and below ground, and in some areas both, with a very impressive service quality, the most evident aspect of that being the airport, which has a train to the city centre every 10 minutes, 8 coach train, so significant capacity, and it links with a significant number of other areas on the way in, and runs for 20 of the 24 hours in the day.

What I think is going to have to happen in the longer term is that the city inside of the canals will need to have a much higher LUAS style service, with the buses providing a feed into the LUAS that will serve the centre, simply because one LUAS style tram can carry a massive number of people when compared to a bus, and at peak periods, the critical issue to to move a lot of people quickly, and a LUAS style system, or an orbital underground can do that, but multiple buses cannot, because the dwell time is just too long in comparison to the time needed for the train equivalent.

In the same vein, there needs to be oribital feeder systems that link places like Clare Hall, the Airport, Blanchardstown, Liffey Valley, Red Cow, Dundrum, Sandyford and Dun Laoghaire, or similar, with high frequency feeds from the areas around the interchanges. At one time, there was a plan to do this with a rail service, but that seems to have been killed off, but it's going to have to be revisited at some stage, for all sorts of reasons, the biggest being the inability to upgrade the M50 to the size that is now needed, an acceptable, reliable and fast alternative is going to be needed sooner rather than later.

The ticketing systems need to allow for any service to be used within a zone without issue, in Hamburg they have rail, bus and ferry services that are all part of an integrated ticketing system, with options for zone travel, or day travel, or commuter season tickets for longer distances, and there is no issue about changing from one to the other, or using different routes, if you are in a zone and have paid to travel in it, then that's what you can do, and it works very well indeed.

The key issue for me is if the right questions are being asked in this review, and if the brief of the people who will be producing the final report gives them the scope to address all of the issues related to public transport, or if the review will only focus on dealing with the bus services in Dublin to the exclusion of all other transport options.

Time will tell, but 25 years of watching the snail's pace of transport reform in Dublin does not fill me with optimism.

Firstly Fair play for going to the trouble of taking to write up a good well constructed post.

I can see where your coming from about Bus Eireann and DB but that is changing with the the increasing amount of NTA control over the two companies although this is being blocked by unions if your a BE user I can be sure your well to fimilar with the misery they've caused you as of late anyway differant argument for a different time. The thing is many DB only commuters have to do the exact same thing to go to certain parts of the city for example I live in Dun Laoghaire and want to go to Swords impossible without having to first go into the CC first.

In fairness Hamburg is a fair bit bigger than Dublin. Hamburg Metro Population: 5 million, Dublin Metro Population: 1.9 million. So a considerable difference really. I think there are better comparisions.

On the subject of orbital transport my belief is that we really need to get rid of private vehicles from the cc and encourage them to use the M50 and Port Tunnel or use public transport to get into the cc. We should be looking to ban cars from the cc.

There should be more rail really speaking. My belief is that overground heavy rail solutions would work better for Dublin than a metro as Dublin is quite a sprawling city. We should expanding our Dart network out to places like Maynooth, Drogheda, Navan, Newbridge and Wicklow Town. The Luas does a good job and it'll be great when the cross city section is fully complete.

The ticketing system has improved with the introduction of Leap but I agree there is room for improvement.

BRT is good cheaper solution to rail it might not have the same capacity but it dosen't get caught in traffic or have riddiculous dwell times like current buses.

I wouldn't change over the last 25 years has been at a snails pace. We now two Luas lines with one soon to be finished expanding. Dart extensions to Malahide and Greystones. A new intagrated ticketing system. Some improvements to the bus network such as Rtpi and despite what some may tell network direct did improve some routes. Improvements to commuter rail which was nearly non- existant 25 years ago with the reopening of Phoenix Park Tunnel, introduction of 8 car trains, double tracking of Maynooth line, new trains, new lines like the M3 Parkway line, improvements to stations and the opening of new station. So to suggest that pt in Dublin has more or less stayed the same in the last 25 years is a little rich. Just because there haven't been flashy new Metros or Dart Undergrounds built dosen't mean things haven't in 25 years.

dfx-

lxflyer wrote: »

Being honest many of the issues that arise with the Dublin Bus service are not macro ones (I accept that stuff like ticketing and consequently dwell time is a serious macro issue), but rather more micro ones like:
* getting the running times on the rosters that support the timetable wrong, and not correcting them in a timely period,
* poorly designed timetables that don't give proper headways mid-route,
* not marrying the driver Boards with the AVLC timetables (driver changes or official waiting times mid-route not reflected correctly in the latter),
* not dealing with route variations correctly on AVLC, etc

These are things that, while detailed in nature, are the very things that make the service look bad and which DB have a very poor history of getting right.

If they could sort out the Network Direct cuts and 30 minute frequencies on major routes, that would be a major help above all else.

Trying to service a network created by Network Direct in order to cut services and make other routes 'cover' the gaping holes left behind is a battle you can never win.

Tonight, a 27 and 77A (10pm, 30 minute frequencies) both inbound together in Tallaght Village both busy after the match. The 77A route is ten minutes longer than the 27, yet it got to the city first. That should not happen and does not get resolved by tickets or doors or BRTs or new liveries or corridors.

lucernarian

Stephen15 wrote: »

I wouldn't change over the last 25 years has been at a snails pace. We now two Luas lines with one soon to be finished expanding. Dart extensions to Malahide and Greystones. A new intagrated ticketing system. Some improvements to the bus network such as Rtpi and despite what some may tell network direct did improve some routes. Improvements to commuter rail which was nearly non- existant 25 years ago with the reopening of Phoenix Park Tunnel, introduction of 8 car trains, double tracking of Maynooth line, new trains, new lines like the M3 Parkway line, improvements to stations and the opening of new station. So to suggest that pt in Dublin has more or less stayed the same in the last 25 years is a little rich. Just because there haven't been flashy new Metros or Dart Undergrounds built dosen't mean things haven't in 25 years.

The double tracking of Maynooth was only from Clonsilla to Maynooth, and only one level crossing has been removed in recent times. The M3 parkway line was not exactly new as it was on an existing alignment, which the recently-built M3 itself actually more or less destroyed further towards Navan. That and Meath County Council's water pipe.

The integrated ticketing system is a do-minimum effort which is actually resulting in slower interactions with passengers on dublin buses, than the old ticketing and cash it has tried to replace.

The 8-Car stations, particularly in the case of DART, were a consequence of foolish cutbacks to proper plans, by FF around 1980, I thought.

The opening of Clontarf Road is more a tragedy considering the slowly rusting and unfit-for-purpose station that was built in the boom times. And at a location far enough away from everything to be almost pointless, compared to the original Clontarf Station.

Adamstown station has a lot of potential but again it's located far away from existing housing.

Clongriffin was a decent enough job, but its potential remains untapped and a passing loop on the eastern side has still been left out.

So almost despite ourselves, there have been modest improvements.

L1011

lucernarian wrote: »

only one level crossing has been removed in recent times.

One could be removed in the morning if the Taoiseach-elect didn't feel so worried about his seat as to protect it due to a few moaning mammies who don't want 200m added to their morning and evening drive to drop their sugar babies to school.

Clontarf Road's Eastpoint purpose could be easily replaced by northbound exits from Connolly and allow moving the station further north. Having south-facing exits only and keeping the commuter entrance closed really hurts Connolly's catchment area. Forcing the gates on Sheriff Street to the side to be opened would even help a bit there (but not for Eastpoint)

StreetLight

The Jarrett Walker consultation on the Dublin Bus network is due to be launched this morning.

(from BreakingNews.ie) : http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/public-asked-for-views-on-re-design-of-dublins-bus-network-792518.html

"A consultation on the re-design of Dublin's bus network will be launched this morning.
Dublin's public transport network is facing a number of challenges as the population in the city continues to rise and more people face long commutes.
People will be able to have their say during the process with a detailed online survey launching later."


More from the Jarrett Walker blog: http://humantransit.org/2017/06/dublin-imagine-a-better-bus-network-design.html

devnull

This is further info as well:
http://humantransit.org/dublin-area-bus-network-redesign-background

murphaph

If this all comes to fruition then it slots nicely into any future underground lines we might build (yeah yeah, I know). You could "simply" replace a bus spine with an underground line.

thomasj

http://busconnects.ie/media/1113/dublin-area-bus-network-redesign-choices-report-17-06-05-web.pdf

Report is out

Spanish Eyes

There's a lot of reading in all that. Seems to be well researched. Will give me hours of pleasant reading later on ha ha.

Just having skimmed it I wonder about bus connectivity to Luas Rail and DART. But maybe I missed that for now!

At last a plan anyway.

TheChrisD

I always scoffed at those people who were all "rabble rabble our local service will be cut with these plans" by not thinking of the bigger picture; but Page 51 and the suggestions of my 70 are making me rabble a bit inside 😔

brokenarms

Looks like the 24 hour thing is in the bin. Little demand for a bus after 11pm by their charts.

munchkin_utd

TheChrisD wrote: »

I always scoffed at those people who were all "rabble rabble our local service will be cut with these plans" by not thinking of the bigger picture; but Page 51 and the suggestions of my 70 are making me rabble a bit inside 😔

Yea, but you're going from a direct service from Dunboyne to town every 60minutes compared to one every 10 minutes, with a change.

Dyr

thomasj wrote: »

http://busconnects.ie/media/1113/dublin-area-bus-network-redesign-choices-report-17-06-05-web.pdf

Report is out

Appparently nearly all of dublin has a bus frequency of 9 minutes or better at midday on weekdays

Sure why do we need a review at all if thats the case :rolleyes:

Which begs the question was this report based on stats provided by dublin bus rather than old fashioned field work

They're goosed from the get go if it was

LeinsterDub

brokenarms wrote: »

Looks like the 24 hour thing is in the bin. Little demand for a bus after 11pm by their charts.

Like there was little demand for a bus every hour to Cork?

brokenarms

LeinsterDub wrote: »

Like there was little demand for a bus every hour to Cork?

I know from driving the last buses. I usually pick up no more than 1 or 2 peeps after 11.30 midweek. Waste of diesel TBH. Survey seems right .

markpb

LeinsterDub wrote: »

Like there was little demand for a bus every hour to Cork?

Or on the Luas which is wedged at 00:30.

LeinsterDub

brokenarms wrote: »

I know from driving the last buses. I usually pick up no more than 1 or 2 peeps after 11.30 midweek. Waste of diesel TBH. Survey seems right .

I'll either avoid town or say **** it I'm having a good time ill just get a taxi. I know a lot of people think the same way

BonnieSituation

But there's a need for buses after 1130 alright... Just not on every single route. I don't get why this is ever in doubt.

Has anyone seen the Lucan Road and N3 routes at that hour?

Victor

Note that Nitelinks are now PSO services. I wonder if even a select few routes would get some late service during the week, e.g. 145, 16, 27, 13.