Dublin - BusConnects

MJohnston

Continuous bus lanes are *nowhere* near as effective for capacity as bus-only roads. That is demonstrably true every single day in Dublin city.

SortCrude

The busiest bus corridor in Europe in Manchester:

"The 3.7 mile stretch of route between Piccadilly Gardens and Withington has a timetabled average of at least one bus per minute in each direction on Monday to Friday daytimes during university term. However, particularly during rush hour, there are many buses which do not appear on the timetable and rather repeat the journey as frequently as possible."

So there's a route that exceeds 60 buses per hour in rush hour.

https://www.nationaltransport.ie/wp-...ork_Report.pdf

What page is the 30 bus/hr maximum capacity discussed on?

Idbatterim

The best way to get more frequent buses and capacity , is to give them more priority and designated lanes. What’s the point in putting more buses and drivers on the road and having them sit in gridlock ?!

Would it make any sense at peak hours , to offer free buses? To get more cars off the road?

Last Stop

SortCrude wrote: »

The busiest bus corridor in Europe in Manchester:

"The 3.7 mile stretch of route between Piccadilly Gardens and Withington has a timetabled average of at least one bus per minute in each direction on Monday to Friday daytimes during university term. However, particularly during rush hour, there are many buses which do not appear on the timetable and rather repeat the journey as frequently as possible."

So there's a route that exceeds 60 buses per hour in rush hour.


What page is the 30 bus/hr maximum capacity discussed on?

Is it designed to handle that many?
Page 50

MJohnston

Idbatterim wrote: »

The best way to get more frequent buses and capacity , is to give them more priority and designated lanes. What’s the point in putting more buses and drivers on the road and having them sit in gridlock ?!

Would it make any sense at peak hours , to offer free buses? To get more cars off the road?

It's been shown in countless cities the world over that the only way to get people to switch from using cars is to make it undesirable by targeting them directly.

Last Stop

Idbatterim wrote: »

The best way to get more frequent buses and capacity , is to give them more priority and designated lanes. What’s the point in putting more buses and drivers on the road and having them sit in gridlock ?!

Would it make any sense at peak hours , to offer free buses? To get more cars off the road?

Studies have shown that free public transport actually reduces the numbers walking and cycling as there is no financial penalty.

Dyr

Idbatterim wrote: »

The best way to get more frequent buses and capacity , is to give them more priority and designated lanes. What’s the point in putting more buses and drivers on the road and having them sit in gridlock ?!

Would it make any sense at peak hours , to offer free buses? To get more cars off the road?

What would be really fun would the make every second bus at rush hour available only to taxsaver tickets. Imagine the uproar, the poor gawms who use buses to actually get to work being given priority.

SortCrude

Last Stop wrote: »

Is it designed to handle that many?
Page 50

Page 10:
"At the beginning of this report, it was stated that it was necessary to define an expected service level that will operate on the core bus network to optimise its benefit. For the purposes of this report, a core bus corridor will have a minimum of 10 minutes during the peak hour and 15 minute frequencies during the off peak period.... It is expected that on the busiest core bus corridors that this could increase to a maximum of 2 minute frequency in the peak hour. This will ensure that there is sufficient capacity during peak hours"

So 2 minute frequency in peak hour is a level of service that would optimise the benefit of BusConnects.

That doesn't strike me as a limit on bus frequency.
There are examples of bus routes that run buses twice as frequently as this.

Last Stop

SortCrude wrote: »

Page 10:
"At the beginning of this report, it was stated that it was necessary to define an expected service level that will operate on the core bus network to optimise its benefit. For the purposes of this report, a core bus corridor will have a minimum of 10 minutes during the peak hour and 15 minute frequencies during the off peak period.... It is expected that on the busiest core bus corridors that this could increase to a maximum of 2 minute frequency in the peak hour. This will ensure that there is sufficient capacity during peak hours"

So 2 minute frequency in peak hour is a level of service that would optimise the benefit of BusConnects.

That doesn't strike me as a limit on bus frequency.
There are examples of bus routes that run buses twice as frequently as this.

So why are we exceeding the optimum?

SortCrude

Last Stop wrote: »

So why are we exceeding the optimum?

The report is discussing an improvement of the existing bus network, using bus frequencies in line with current bus usage. Discussing bus frequencies that would accommodate increased usage is beyond the scope of the report. You are extrapolating to come up with a 30 bus/hr network limit infrastructure bottleneck.

Last Stop

SortCrude wrote: »

The report is discussing an improvement of the existing bus network, using bus frequencies in line with current bus usage. Discussing bus frequencies that would accommodate increased usage is beyond the scope of the report. You are extrapolating to come up with a 30 bus/hr network limit infrastructure bottleneck.

You’ve just said “So 2 minute frequency in peak hour is a level of service that would optimise the benefit of BusConnects”. And now you’re saying it has nothing to do with the report. Which is it?

The report stages in its recommendations that - “That the proposed interventions will facilitate a frequency of up to 1 bus every 2 minutes at peak hours”
Up to being the key word.
As I’ve already mentioned this report will form part of the ABP application as it is referenced in the route selection reports which will be used in the EIAR.

AlmightyCushion

Bambi wrote: »

What would be really fun would the make every second bus at rush hour available only to taxsaver tickets. Imagine the uproar, the poor gawms who use buses to actually get to work being given priority.

Except that would exclude plenty of people trying to get to work. Plenty of companies don't offer the tax saver tickets to their employees and for low paid or infrequent users it doesn't work out cost effective.

SortCrude

Last Stop wrote: »

You’ve just said “So 2 minute frequency in peak hour is a level of service that would optimise the benefit of BusConnects”. And now you’re saying it has nothing to do with the report. Which is it?

You're seeing a contradiction that doesn't exist. Perhaps I should have put 'optimise the benefit of BusConnects' in single quotes. I was referring to the exact words used, to highlight that it's not necessarily an explicitly stated limit on what bus frequencies will be achievable.

Last Stop wrote: »

The report stages in its recommendations that - “That the proposed interventions will facilitate a frequency of up to 1 bus every 2 minutes at peak hours”
Up to being the key word.
As I’ve already mentioned this report will form part of the ABP application as it is referenced in the route selection reports which will be used in the EIAR.

My interpretation is that they are avoiding any reference to increasing the bus fleet, because that would drive up the cost of BusConnects and make it a harder sell. 2 minute bus frequency can be achieved with the existing fleet.

Last Stop

SortCrude wrote: »

You're seeing a contradiction that doesn't exist. Perhaps I should have put 'optimise the benefit of BusConnects' in single quotes. I was referring to the exact words used, to highlight that it's not necessarily an explicitly stated limit on what bus frequencies will be achievable.

Which is why I’ve been using design capacity... what the infrastructure is designed to handle. Yes you can add more but you’re pushing the infrastructure to its limits.

My interpretation is that they are avoiding any reference to increasing the bus fleet, because that would drive up the cost of BusConnects and make it a harder sell. 2 minute bus frequency can be achieved with the existing fleet.

You are correct, the current fleet can handle that frequency as a whole. Unfortunately, a number of corridors exceed that frequency. So while extra buses aren’t an issue, the NTA are applying for permission to build a bus lane designed to handle 30 buses per hour and their new network is proposing 39 buses on the N4 corridor for example.
Can you imagine Irish Water going to ABP looking for planning for a waste water treatment plant designed for 10,000 people to cater for a town of 15,000 people. You can imagine what ABP would say...

SortCrude

Last Stop wrote: »

applying for permission to build a bus lane designed to handle 30 buses per hour

Please provide a source detailing this 'design capacity' of 30 buses per hour.

Idbatterim

when I meant free buses, I meant mainly long distance north to south of dublin. Not necessarily through the city centre. I meant along the M50 to get traffic off it...

have large park and rides, potentially point to point, if there is enough volume, just direct to the likes of leopardstown and dundrum, sandyford...

The only relatively quick option that I see, is carrot and stick approach by using buses...

Last Stop

SortCrude wrote: »

Please provide a source detailing this 'design capacity' of 30 buses per hour.

“That the proposed interventions will facilitate a frequency of up to 1 bus every 2 minutes at peak hours”
What is not clear about that statement? If it was designed to handle 40 buses per hour would it not say that?

MJohnston

Your reading comprehension is letting you down again - just because they're only going to be utilising up to a certain frequency, does not mean that there's a design limitation on going beyond that.

Last Stop

MJohnston wrote: »

Your reading comprehension is letting you down again - just because they're only going to be utilising up to a certain frequency, does not mean that there's a design limitation on going beyond that.

You’re correct in your point but I agree with your first statemen.
What I have consistently said is that it has a design capacity of 30 buses per hour. The report states that CBCs should facilitate 30 buses per hour. That is the basis of design for the CBCs. If you are going over that, there is no way of guaranteeing how the CBC will function as designed.

MJohnston

This is so tiresome.

“Bus corridors don’t have enough capacity to accommodate all the car drivers”
“Removing cars from bus corridors will increase bus capacity”
“But you can’t remove cars because there isn’t enough bus capacity”

Who are you trying to convince with this mindless nonsense? It isn’t working on people in this thread, and increasingly the general public are fed up with the circular arguments made by car lobbyists too.

SortCrude

Last Stop wrote: »

“That the proposed interventions will facilitate a frequency of up to 1 bus every 2 minutes at peak hours”
What is not clear about that statement? If it was designed to handle 40 buses per hour would it not say that?

Unless additional sources are provided; this 30 bus/hr bottleneck is one interpretation of one report.

There are bus routes that handle twice as many buses as this '30 bus/hr' limit. The onus is on you to demonstrate what Bus-Connects is missing, relative to 60 bus/hr route examples from the UK.

If Bus Connects was promising to introduce a service to handle 40 buses per hour, they would need to add the cost of additional buses to the €2bn price tag.

Last Stop

MJohnston wrote: »

This is so tiresome.

“Bus corridors don’t have enough capacity to accommodate all the car drivers”
“Removing cars from bus corridors will increase bus capacity”
“But you can’t remove cars because there isn’t enough bus capacity”

Who are you trying to convince with this mindless nonsense? It isn’t working on people in this thread, and increasingly the general public are fed up with the circular arguments made by car lobbyists too.

1) bus corridors don’t have enough capacity to handle car drivers
2) removing cars won’t increase capacity
3) there isn’t enough capacity
4) I’m not a car lobbyist

Peregrine

MJohnston wrote: »

This is so tiresome.

Yeah. Just stop replying.

Last Stop

SortCrude wrote: »

Unless additional sources are provided; this 30 bus/hr bottleneck is one interpretation of one report.

There are bus routes that handle twice as many buses as this '30 bus/hr' limit. The onus is on you to demonstrate what Bus-Connects is missing, relative to 60 bus/hr route examples from the UK.

If Bus Connects was promising to introduce a service to handle 40 buses per hour, they would need to add the cost of additional buses to the €2bn price tag.

So you’ve asked me to provide additional reports but don’t supply any yourself?
The source I’ve supplied is from the same organisation who are proposing Busconnects. You haven’t even cited your source.
There may be bus corridors that handle more that 30 buses but they are designed to do so. Busconnects will be designed on the basis of the core bus network report which is based on 30 buses per hour.

You’re putting a lot of emphasis on buying buses which is completely irrelevant. The network published last week proposes 39 buses on the N4, 35 on the N11. That does not require additional buses to be purchased.

SortCrude

Last Stop wrote: »

So you’ve asked me to provide additional reports but don’t supply any yourself?
The source I’ve supplied is from the same organisation who are proposing Busconnects. You haven’t even cited your source.
There may be bus corridors that handle more that 30 buses but they are designed to do so. Busconnects will be designed on the basis of the core bus network report which is based on 30 buses per hour.

You’re putting a lot of emphasis on buying buses which is completely irrelevant. The network published last week proposes 39 buses on the N4, 35 on the N11. That does not require additional buses to be purchased.

As I've already said:

The onus is on you to demonstrate what Bus-Connects is missing, relative to 60 bus/hr route examples from the UK.

MJohnston

If others would be so kind as to stop quote-replying to a certain poster, I'm sure there are a few of us who'd like to make use of the ignore function

Last Stop

SortCrude wrote: »

As I've already said:

And why is the onus not on you to supply a source?
As I suspected, you didn’t supply one because it was Wikipedia and the same article continues:

“The Wilmslow Road corridor, although enjoying a level of service that no other route in England has in terms of the frequency of buses, is chaos...Although one has to wait literally seconds for a bus, the congestion at certain junctions because of too many buses and the unwillingness of these buses to stick to timetables makes travelling on this route an unpleasant and stressful one”.
Funny that you’d leave that out considering it clearly states that 60 buses is the exception rather than the norm and is as one would expect chaos.

Sam Russell

Mod: Can we cut out the bus/hour stuff.

The point is or should be the number of buses on a spine route should be high, and such that delays are minimised. Too many buses and they get in each others way. If the QBCs were kept for buses only (no taxis) that would help.

What passengers want is a fast reliable service.

Can we leave buses/hour. It has been done to death.

Thank you.

SortCrude

(Last comment)

The 'The Wilmslow Road corridor is' 60 bus frequency off-peak, considerable more on-peak. This is a bus service that you could argue is, at or beyond capacity. Dublin Bus routes have massive potential for expansion before they reach this level.

Last Stop

SortCrude wrote: »

(Last comment)

The 'The Wilmslow Road corridor is' 60 bus frequency off-peak, considerable more on-peak. This is a bus service that you could argue is, at or beyond capacity. Dublin Bus routes have massive potential for expansion before they reach this level.

<snip>

Can we leave Buses/hour.

Sanction issued