Bus Timetables Anti-Competition (Route 67)

by midge ure - ultravox Tue Dec 07, 2004 17:24

thanks for posting this as it explains a lot regarding the ridiculous time keeping of the 67/67a buses. a little story for ye all. was waiting for the 67a at the terminus in maynooth for the 1705 bus but no show. At 1735 a bus did arrive but the driver said that he was going off shift and could not accomodate us. I left the stop but could see the terminus where i was standing. the bus to pick everyone up arrived at 1800 almost an hour late. Between 1800 and 1845 five buses came through the terminus but when i went for the scheduled 1855 bus it didnt show till 1915. none of those five buses waited to fulfill the timetable requirement. dont mean to moan but it happens all the time.
Does anyone Know of a 'Bus Watch' website for sad losers like me to air their double deckered grievances.

by Bus User Tue Dec 07, 2004 17:34

The URL is http://www.busrage.com

by Thinking of unthinkable and buying a car Tue Dec 07, 2004 18:20

I understand your frustration Midge! There's nothing worse than standing in the wind and rain and then a warm looking bus swans back to the garage.
Bear in mind though that while drivers should be trying to keep to the timetable they can't really be blamed when they are so late that their shift is over, and they're still entitled to their breaks.
Some are quite decent and will carry you to either another stop or transfer you to another bus. In many cases the service ends up relying on whether drivers can be persuaded to work over, which is a limited option for obvious safety reasons.
None of this is much use to the put upon commuter however.
So what do we want? Properly funded publicly owned transport or a mish mash of private monopolies?

by Bus Driver - Dublin Bus Wed Dec 08, 2004 02:02 Phibsboro

Hate to tell you ,but the explaination you got is bullshit. Yes the government are trying to strangle us and hive off our jobs, but in this case thats not why you are waiting for the 67a.

The company recently opened a new garage at Harristown beside the airport,while closing down its Broadstown depot. As a result they reorganised and regigged a whole swath of routes, including the 67a, which now operates from Phibsboro garage and not Conyngham Road.
The result has been a disaster all over. On routes operating from Harristown such as the 40s and 27b there has been a collapse of the service simply because the company did not place enought resourses ie buses on the routes or give extra running time that it takes to get to and from this new garage.

Same thing happened in Phibsboro with the 19/19a and the 67a.
The company where repeatedly warned by workers that the way they where organising this move would result in a deterioration of the service on these routes. They ignored us.
To my knowledge there is no real bar for now on the company placing extra buses on a exsisting route, other than their own desire to cut costs and get more productivity from their drivers.
You are been lied to.
Ring the department of transport and ask them if Dublin Bus applied to place more duties (ie buses) on their exsisting routes.
My guess is no. Then ring DB back

by David Healy - Green Party Wed Dec 08, 2004 10:24

Dublin Bus recently informed Fingal councillors that they won't provide feeder bus services to Dart Stations in Fingal because “We’re a bus company and it is our intention to bring people to the city by bus not by train."

They also said that their suggestion of amalgamating up the 102 (Sutton to Portmarnock to Malahide) and 230(Portmarnock to Malahide to Dublin Airport) services was rejected by the regulator because it would compete with the Aerdart (€4.50 fare) service from Howth Junction!

by Terry Wed Dec 08, 2004 11:39

It's clear that this is a new strategy to bring in privatisation. The government have obviously decided to scale back on the frontal assault now that they are 'socialist', and have instead given the word to management to close down garages which no doubt were sold off to private developers -friends of FFs and to systematically degrade the whole service so that the public start complaining, and that pundits can write about how bad it is in the papers, and same on the radio. These are typical tactics of government. Never give up, just try another way.

The selling of the garages alone is sure to permanently mess up the whole system by ifself.

It's a little bit like how the car companies in the 1940s and 1950s secretly bought over the tram companies in most major US cities and purposely allowed them to run into disrepair so that the public would buy cars.

by Commuter NOT Customer Wed Dec 08, 2004 12:18

Thanks "Bus Driver", what you said agrees with what the 67 bus driver told me last night. "We've been moved to Phibsboro, and they won't put on extra buses." Apparently they used to do it in Conyngham Road. Bloody clever bit of spin though.
I use the 40 service at the weekend and I've noticed the drop off there as well.
I'll follow up on your advice and see what happens.

By the way you link isn't linking, if you could post it again.

by Commuter NOT Customer Wed Dec 08, 2004 13:54

Department of Transport confirm that day to day Dublin Bus operations are the province of Dublin Bus. However they have to apply for permission to implement new routes and buy new buses.

Spoke to DB Ops Manager at Phibsboro who advises that my previous information was "inaccurate" or "confused". Not sure where controllers lie in the food chain so didn't want to overplay the outraged consumer angle and get the gobshite into trouble.
I was informed it is down to the individual controller if buses are running late to persuade off shift drivers to cover the timetable.
My translation: Lack of resources.

On the Harristown angle there was apparently a management level meeting out there yesterday to iron out the problems. We'll see.

Be good to get a driver's perspective on all this.

For the rest of us weary commuters, the link below has contact details for the different garages. Give management the grief, not the drivers:

http://www.dublinbus.ie/home/contact_details.asp

by midge ure - thin lizzy ( US tour 1979) Wed Dec 08, 2004 17:27

I did not know that the 67 was moved to phibsboro garage. I promise to be more informed next time. i also suspect that there is a longer journey time from out to lucan, celbridge and maynooth now that the buses leave from Pearse St. but there is no ammendments to the time table to allow for the extra journey time. just a thought not a moan.

by Commuter NOT Customer Wed Dec 08, 2004 18:03

Moaning's understandable. Just direct it at the right people. See link above.

by kevin - bus driver Mon Jan 24, 2005 22:15 rornor at pceanfree dot net

Believe it or not the union rep,s from both Phibsboro and Conyngham Rd have been pleading with management of Dublin Bus to do something with the Celbridge route (67/67a) since the routes switched garages but all pleas have fallen on deaf ears, I know I hear it every Wednesday at our union,s branch meeting.When the 40,s moved from Phibsboro they lost two buses now management in Harristown say they dont have the buses to supply a proper service