BusConnects Dublin - Bus Network Changes Discussion

The other routes will change stops when the E Spine launches in November.

Same will happen on the Swords Road when the A Spine launches.

There are plenty of examples of this.

As I’ve posted before several times, switching stops around means recasting entire route timetables and a lot of additional back office work.

Hence the NTA appear to be taking the approach of only changing stops when the routes are “BusConnected”.

It’s not that simple.

To drive RTPI and journey planners and all the other apps etc, you have to have stop-by-stop timetables for every single departure on every bus route.

Without redoing the timetables you wouldn’t have any RTPI for the new stops and they wouldn’t feature on google maps or other journey planners.

Changing timetables is a lot more complicated now than it was in the past.

Just to be clear here, I was only explaining what my understanding of the NTA's approach here is. I am not saying that it is the correct approach to take, given the circumstances of the revised network taking so long to implement.

I happen to agree with you, and I do think that, given the length of time that the phases are taking to implement, that they ought to be switching the stops on the "non-BusConnected" legacy bus routes at the same time as these new orbitals are implemented rather than waiting till God knows when the relevant phase of the revised network happens.

Unfortunately, we are dealing with people who are more idealist than practical minded at the NTA in this regard, and hence my suggestion that if there is a stop (or indeed stops) that you have in mind, that you write into them and ask them to change the stops officially now, rather than wait until whenever that phase of BusConnects may finally happen as it is taking far longer than anyone wants for the new network to happen.

My long experience of dealing with the bus companies before the NTA says that there were plenty of examples of where a quick letter/email highlighting something like this produced results quickly enough. I've found the NTA less responsive unfortunately, but there have been some occasional victories for common sense nevertheless.

It is however better to raise these sorts of things officially regardless, in my view, and if you don't get a sensible answer, raise it with local TDs.

In the situation that you are outlining, you would then have the flip side of people waiting at the stop with your "local arrangement" who are then wondering why those "non-BusConnected" bus routes aren't appearing on the RTPI for that stop despite the route numbers physically appearing on it. That then creates more confusion. Interchange stops are where real time info is most important.

Personally, I think that "local arrangements" like this won't cut it anymore at this stage of reliance on RTPI and the increasing reliance on journey planners rather than timetables. All of the stops need to appear officially on the RTPI systems for each route.

They need to bite the bullet on this and redo the other schedules.