BusConnects Dublin - Bus Network Changes Discussion

Stephen15

Jack O'Connor has also updated his position on these changes

http://www.jackoconnor.ie/2018/07/03/ntas-plans-for-bray-145-bus-route-are-totally-unnacceptable/

LeinsterDub

The news is not so good for people using the 145 bus to get to Heuston Station – these commuters will have to change buses in Dublin to get to Heuston.

Sure you can't move on the current 145 with the amount of people wanting to go to Heuston :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

Dyr

LeinsterDub wrote: »

We on here are all just transport nerds and knew the gist of the plan long before this document was published. This guy is a councilor and has a national party to back him. He should had known better long before this document was published

Well no, we're not all transport nerds. I'm just someone who has to use buses. It is funny though how furious the self proclaimed nerds become when the normies ruin the echo chamber by having the temerity to suggest that the NTA/DOT are not infallible and this Jarret Walker character might not actually be Christ returned or, heaven forbid, they don't rejoice at the honour of being chosen to offer up their neighborhood as a CPO sacrifice the Great Transport Leap forward

The NTA don't need politicians to ruin a plan or a street, they can do that themselves and have done in the past. A careful eye needs to be kept on these bucks rather than cheerleading.

LeinsterDub

Bambi wrote: »

Well no, we're not all transport nerds. I'm just someone who has to use buses. It is funny though how furious the self proclaimed nerds become when the normies ruin the echo chamber by having the temerity to suggest that the NTA/DOT are not infallible and this Jarret Walker character might not actually be Christ returned or, heaven forbid, they don't rejoice at the honour of being chosen to offer up their neighborhood as a CPO sacrifice the Great Transport Leap forward

The NTA don't need politicians to ruin a plan or a street, they can do that themselves and have done in the past. A careful eye needs to be kept on these bucks rather than cheerleading.

I obviously didn't mean literally every single poster. I meant those who've been posting on this topic for a while.

Who's furious ,cheer-leading or suggested the NTA/DOT are infallible ? You appear to just be name calling here.

neighborhoods being CPOd is just hyperbolic nonsense

Dyr

LeinsterDub wrote: »

I obviously didn't mean literally every single poster. I meant those who've been posting on this topic for a while.

Who's furious ,cheer-leading or suggested the NTA/DOT are infallible ? You appear to just be name calling here.

neighborhoods being CPOd is just hyperbolic nonsense

I'm not calling anyone names

I've seen terms like muppets and morons being thrown around here like snuff at a wake though

The NTA wanted to CPO a whole section of Mobhi road not too long ago, to you may remember it caused something of a stir before it was shot down as I predicted it would be (despite the resounding cheers of support around these quarters) and was accused of being a member of a certain GAA club for my troubles

LeinsterDub

Bambi wrote: »

The NTA wanted to CPO a whole section of Mobhi road not too long ago, to you may remember it caused something of a stir before it was shot down as I predicted it would be (despite the resounding cheers of support around these quarters) and was accused of being a member of a certain GAA club for my troubles

No they didn't.

Bambi wrote: »

I'm not calling anyone names

I've seen terms like muppets and morons being thrown around here like snuff at a wake though

What would call the reactions we've gotten from some councilors based on incorrect information?

Dyr

LeinsterDub wrote: »

No they didn't.


What would call the reactions we've gotten from some councilors based on incorrect information?

The councillor who it turned out got his incorrect information someone in ...*gasp*...the NTA :eek:

Jarrett Walker Verified account@humantransit
We can now confirm the Mr O’Connor was misinformed by someone at NTA. The story is still entirely false but I apologise for appearing to blame him or @Wicklow_News.

Busgate starts here lads :P

LeinsterDub

Bambi wrote: »

The councillor who it turned out got his incorrect information someone in ...*gasp*...the NTA :eek:

So he claims , oddly no names given. Did you watch DCC stream yesterday ? it was clear half of them either hadn't read the report or hadn't understood it.

Bambi wrote: »

Busgate starts here lads :P

It actually starts at College Green

kerplun k

LeinsterDub wrote: »

Did you watch DCC stream yesterday

I tried too, but when I clicked on the stream to view, all I was getting was a Parks and Recreation episode.

Amirani

Bambi wrote: »

The NTA wanted to CPO a whole section of Mobhi road not too long ago

You're really not one for hyperbole are you? :D:D

marno21

Bambi wrote: »

Well no, we're not all transport nerds. I'm just someone who has to use buses. It is funny though how furious the self proclaimed nerds become when the normies ruin the echo chamber by having the temerity to suggest that the NTA/DOT are not infallible and this Jarret Walker character might not actually be Christ returned or, heaven forbid, they don't rejoice at the honour of being chosen to offer up their neighborhood as a CPO sacrifice the Great Transport Leap forward

The NTA don't need politicians to ruin a plan or a street, they can do that themselves and have done in the past. A careful eye needs to be kept on these bucks rather than cheerleading.

The NTA aren't perfect but they are a whole lot better than what came before them.

marno21

I have removed my comment on Jack O'Connor from last night if he indeed was misinformed by a staff member at the NTA.

However, if there are people working in the NTA with responsibility for furnishing information to the public there really needs to be focus on making sure that all information being furnished is accurate. There's enough misinformation on projects going around without adding to it.

Thrashssacre

I notice that route 7 and both spines E and F are to meet at the proposed metrolink/maynooth line/phoenix part tunnel line station at glasnevin. That'll be one hell of an interchange. Nice to see plenty of joint up thinking there

LeinsterDub

Thrashssacre wrote: »

I notice that route 7 and both spines E and F are to meet at the proposed metrolink/maynooth line/phoenix part tunnel line station at glasnevin. That'll be one hell of an interchange. Nice to see plenty of joint up thinking there

I think you maybe reading a bit to much into it. There simply isn't any other road into town for those buses.

bk

LeinsterDub wrote: »

I think you maybe reading a bit to much into it. There simply isn't any other road into town for those buses.

Perhaps, but it is true that it will make for a fantastic interchange point once Metrolink and DART Expansion happens.

dublinman1990

There is another benefit of the 7 between Glasnevin & Dun Laoghaire is that it does not go down through Blackrock Main St along it's route.

It proposes to go through both Frascati Road & Blackrock Bypass in either direction. In this case; if you were waiting for the 7 to Dun Laoghaire; you have to wait outside the new soon to be built Zurich Insurance building & Blackrock Shopping Centre, where the 4 & 703 currently stop, on Frascati Road instead of waiting outside the Organic Supermarket or near The Wicked Wolf in the Main Street.

The current bus stop located in Blackrock's main street will become a drop off stop for the S6 & S7 from Tallaght before it turns left for the DART Station.

Victor

The orbital routes highlighted. Doesn't include Swords-Malahide, Maynooth-Leixlip-Celbridge-Newcastle, some local routes and some peak-only routes that skim the city centre.

LionelNashe

How do people think the validators and the fares should work? I was thinking, maybe two validators, one clearly marked as 'short-hop' and one as 'long hop', neither of which needs driver interaction. Is there a way to do it with one validator (which would be simpler)?

The guy at the DCC meeting said the Leap fare would be somewhere between 2.15 and 2.60 - I presume this is the fare for long journeys. So maybe 1.25 for shorter journeys? What about two short journeys; say 10 minutes to a hub, and then a transfer onto a spine that brings you a couple of miles. Should that be charged at the lower rate, or should it cost the same as Ongar to UCD?

What about putting the validators on the stops (or some of the stops) instead of on the buses, to speed boarding? The advantages would outweigh the downsides of the small amount of fare evasion that might result, I'd say.

One weakness of the current validators is that they don't have location tracking; so if I'm getting a bus that's not too far from the terminus, I have to go to the driver to specify the lower Leap fare, whereas if the validators were smarter they would know not to charge a full fare. If the validators were smarter or if they were on the stops, there could be a tag-on tag-off system, but I don't think this would be needed if the simpler fare structure comes in.

bk

LionelNashe wrote: »

How do people think the validators and the fares should work? I was thinking, maybe two validators, one clearly marked as 'short-hop' and one as 'long hop', neither of which needs driver interaction. Is there a way to do it with one validator (which would be simpler)?

I suspect the 90 minute ticket will become new max ticket and given by the right hand validator.

I assume the short will be the current Stage 1 - 3 fare at €1.50

I assume you will get that from the driver, they will want to discourage it's use to stop fare evasion. Which is disappointing from a dwell time perspective.

I'm hoping that the short is just a temporary measure to get people use to the 90 and then drop the short completely.

LionelNashe wrote: »

The guy at the DCC meeting said the Leap fare would be somewhere between 2.15 and 2.60 - I presume this is the fare for long journeys. So maybe 1.25 for shorter journeys? What about two short journeys; say 10 minutes to a hub, and then a transfer onto a spine that brings you a couple of miles. Should that be charged at the lower rate, or should it cost the same as Ongar to UCD?

I assume it will be current €1.50, so two shorts add up to €3. I assume the Leap card would just work that out and charge the equal to the 90.

LionelNashe wrote: »

What about putting the validators on the stops (or some of the stops) instead of on the buses, to speed boarding? The advantages would outweigh the downsides of the small amount of fare evasion that might result, I'd say.

That was the plan with Swiftway/BRT. I'm hoping they might eventually do it at least on the core Lettered routes, A, B, etc. and maybe at interchanges.

As you say fare evasion would be an issue and would need a big ramp up in ticket inspectors. But it would lead to a better, faster service for the majority.

LionelNashe wrote: »

One weakness of the current validators is that they don't have location tracking; so if I'm getting a bus that's not too far from the terminus, I have to go to the driver to specify the lower Leap fare, whereas if the validators were smarter they would know not to charge a full fare. If the validators were smarter or if they were on the stops, there could be a tag-on tag-off system, but I don't think this would be needed if the simpler fare structure comes in.

Actually the validators are in fact linked to location tracking/GPS. They record what stop you get on when you tag-on. I've no idea why they don't use this to work out a lower fare as you approach the terminus. Could be due to how old and crappy the ticket machines are or maybe they just want to maximise their income.

LionelNashe

bk wrote: »

I assume it will be current €1.50, so two shorts add up to €3. I assume the Leap card would just work that out and charge the equal to the 90.

That's the thing - I don't think that a short trip should cost 2.50 just because it happens to contain a transfer. I hope there'll be a better solution in place.

bk wrote: »

Actually the validators are in fact linked to location tracking/GPS. They record what stop you get on when you tag-on. I've no idea why they don't use this to work out a lower fare as you approach the terminus. Could be due to how old and crappy the ticket machines are or maybe they just want to maximise their income.

Interesting. I think the reason I had assumed some time back that the bus validators are stand alone and not linked-up/networked is because when you top up your Leap Card online, you have to go to a Luas machine or a train station to 'collect' the credit. i.e. you can't just go straight to a bus and use the card on a bus, which is a bit nuts. Edit: Thinking about it now, I guess that the card holds some information so that the server doesn't need to be checked instantly for every validation, which could slow down the process.

Fizzy Duck

It seems this map (https://www.busconnects.ie/media/1247/map2-proposednetwork.pdf) may have 1 or 2 issues on it.

https://twitter.com/dan_costantino/status/1014195354621759488
https://twitter.com/dan_costantino/status/1014198029681754112

For example the 266, which appears in Tyrellstown is a mistake, the 35 will terminate at Tyrellstown, There is a 235 service replacing the 161 and the 252 service extend to Blanchardstown at times from Lucan.

These are seen in the proposed network map in Chapter 7 (https://www.busconnects.ie/media/1239/chapter7recommendednetworkplan.pdf) and correspond with the frequency pdf (https://www.busconnects.ie/media/1256/proposed-service-hours-and-frequencies.pdf)

bk

LionelNashe wrote: »

That's the thing - I don't think that a short trip should cost 2.50 just because it happens to contain a transfer. I hope there'll be a better solution in place.

Well I suppose two short trips currently cost €2, €1.50 + €1.50 = €3 - €1 (for second trip). So I suppose they could handle it that way.

LionelNashe wrote: »

Interesting. I think the reason I had assumed some time back that the bus validators are stand alone and not linked-up/networked is because when you top up your Leap Card online, you have to go to a Luas machine or a train station to 'collect' the credit. i.e. you can't just go straight to a bus and use the card on a bus, which is a bit nuts.

The validators are connected to the ticket machine and the GPS on it. The ticket machine is actually connected to the network over 3G, that is how RTPI works. So it all is actually networked.

However the issue with not being able to collect credit seems more to do with how little storage space the ticket machines have. Probably not enough for all pending top-ups.

Bus based top-ups do work in other countries, like Atlanta. We need a new, better ticket machine, I agree it is stupid.

Qrt

Fizzy Duck wrote: »

It seems this map (https://www.busconnects.ie/media/1247/map2-proposednetwork.pdf) may have 1 or 2 issues on it.

https://twitter.com/dan_costantino/status/1014195354621759488
https://twitter.com/dan_costantino/status/1014198029681754112

For example the 266, which appears in Tyrellstown is a mistake, the 35 will terminate at Tyrellstown, There is a 235 service replacing the 161 and the 252 service extend to Blanchardstown at times from Lucan.

These are seen in the proposed network map in Chapter 7 (https://www.busconnects.ie/media/1239/chapter7recommendednetworkplan.pdf) and correspond with the frequency pdf (https://www.busconnects.ie/media/1256/proposed-service-hours-and-frequencies.pdf)

I noticed there are a lot of mistakes, spelling etc. Also the Tallaght Circulator is labelled as 250 on the main map, but as 240 within the other documents.

devnull

LionelNashe wrote: »

I was thinking, maybe two validators, one clearly marked as 'short-hop' and one as 'long hop', neither of which needs driver interaction. Is there a way to do it with one validator (which would be simpler)?

There would be way too much over-riding for this to be acceptable. A large number of people would simply always use the short hop validator so in order for this to work you'd have to massively increase the number of inspections which at the moment in Dublin Bus is just a single team. Be worth an evaders while of taking the chance, even if they're caught a couple of times a year they'll still be quids in.

What about putting the validators on the stops (or some of the stops) instead of on the buses, to speed boarding? The advantages would outweigh the downsides of the small amount of fare evasion that might result, I'd say.

It's going to be an expensive job to maintain and fit all of them and then you have the downside of the fact that people will merely get off a bus at these stops when they see an inspector coming, this is what I've seen in other places where such a system is in place, and in Dublin where so many stops are close together, it'd probably happen.

The system that I would propose would be one where there is no such thing as a short hop fare. Instead I would have a single flat fare (of say €2.50) taken at time of boarding which gives a rebate of the difference between the flat fare and a short hop fare by tag-off when leaving the bus after a short journey.

Obviously this depends on the validators being smart enough to know roughly where they are in order to make this calculation, but it removes driver interaction as well as helping to prevent over-riding.

Stephen15

You could have two validators at the front and middle doors with a timer on them. If you get off within 15 mins of tagging on it will sense and it will remove part of the balance let's say €1 will be removed when you tag off within 15 mins. If you try tag off after 15 mins then the full balance will remain.

G_R

devnull wrote: »

There would be way too much over-riding for this to be acceptable. A large number of people would simply always use the short hop validator so in order for this to work you'd have to massively increase the number of inspections which at the moment in Dublin Bus is just a single team. Be worth an evaders while of taking the chance, even if they're caught a couple of times a year they'll still be quids in.



It's going to be an expensive job to maintain and fit all of them and then you have the downside of the fact that people will merely get off a bus at these stops when they see an inspector coming, this is what I've seen in other places where such a system is in place, and in Dublin where so many stops are close together, it'd probably happen.

The system that I would propose would be one where there is no such thing as a short hop fare. Instead I would have a single flat fare (of say €2.50) taken at time of boarding which gives a rebate of the difference between the flat fare and a short hop fare by tag-off when leaving the bus after a short journey.

Obviously this depends on the validators being smart enough to know roughly where they are in order to make this calculation, but it removes driver interaction as well as helping to prevent over-riding.

That's actually a good idea.

Everyone taps on at the front regardless on the validator on the right. Then have a second tap off machine at the middle door, and if someone has gone less than 5 stops or whatever the amount for the short journey is, it will refund the difference.

The validator at the middle door could check how many stops since you boarded, and if you're eligible for a rebate you get it. If not, no action would be taken, there would just simply be a message that says NOT SHORT TRIP or something and you would then still be able to use it to transfer to another service within 90 mins if you find yourself needing to.

If you know you're not eligible for a rebate you won't need to tap off, so it shouldn't have too much of an effect on dwell times.

Will also encourage people to use the bloody middle door and mean that drivers have to open the f*cking thing

G_R

Stephen15 wrote: »

You could have two validators at the front and middle doors with a timer on them. If you get off within 15 mins of tagging on it will sense and it will remove part of the balance let's say €1 will be removed when you tag off within 15 mins. If you try tag off after 15 mins then the full balance will remain.

Snap. But your version is far more concise than mine haha

bk

devnull wrote: »

The system that I would propose would be one where there is no such thing as a short hop fare. Instead I would have a single flat fare (of say €2.50) taken at time of boarding which gives a rebate of the difference between the flat fare and a short hop fare by tag-off when leaving the bus after a short journey.

Obviously this depends on the validators being smart enough to know roughly where they are in order to make this calculation, but it removes driver interaction as well as helping to prevent over-riding.

That is quiet a nice idea. It is basically how the Luas works. But it would require in the region of 7,000 validators, given how many bus stops are there.

Maybe an alternative would be a second tag-off validator at the rear door.

Tag-on on getting on, charged the T90 €2.50. Most get off as normal, but if you think you are due a "short" then tag-off as you get off.

The danger though would be people tagging-off shortly after they begin the journey to get the short.

To be honest I don't think there is really a good solution to this.

Perhaps they could do off bus ticketing on just the core A, B, etc. routes. You don't need as many validators then and the ticket inspectors would patrol just those routes.

I suspect we will just have to continue with the pain of driver interaction for the short and the resulting dwell time issues. Hopefully they would just drop it completely eventually.

EDIT: Snap

Stephen15

devnull wrote: »

There would be way too much over-riding for this to be acceptable. A large number of people would simply always use the short hop validator so in order for this to work you'd have to massively increase the number of inspections which at the moment in Dublin Bus is just a single team. Be worth an evaders while of taking the chance, even if they're caught a couple of times a year they'll still be quids in.

I suppose it's more embarrassing for someone over riding going up and lying to the driver about their destination than to use a validator. But these people will not do this if they are returning within 90 mins as they won't have to pay again.

I suspect people will start timing their journies within 90 mins in order for their return to be free.

bk

Here is a possible SciFi solution.

Use Ultra High Frequency RFID tags in the leap card, then make the entire front and back door the reader.

UHF RFID can be read and written over a few meters, depending on design.

So you could just step on the bus with the card in your pocket and you are automatically charged the max fare without even taken the card out of your wallet. Then when you get off the front or rear door, you pass the reader again and if you have only travelled the short, you are only are refunded that.

It would certainly massively speed up dwell times.

Downside is UHF RFID setup like this is more expensive and might be issues with you getting charged by just a passing bus, you would have to design it carefully to make sure it only charged you as you go through the door.

Another option would be to use a camera overlooking the rear ticket machine and some AI on it. If a person tagged off for a short, but didn't get off the bus within 30 seconds the camera informs the driver. Again a bit complicated, but possible (see Amazons new stores).

Unless someone can come up with a simple and cheap solution. Then the easiest is probably just a single flat fare for all.