Redesigning Dublin Bus

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 Extracts from The Dublin Bus Network Redesign Public Consultation Report (above) and its author Jarrett Walker (top) at the RHA Gallery this morning;

In the proposed network, most of the existing bus routes that flow into the centre of Dublin would be reorganised into seven simple spines.

Spines are very frequent lines. With a bus coming every 4 to 8 minutes all day, and even more frequently at peak hours, there is always a bus coming soon.

This high frequency makes it very fast to connect from one spine to another, as well as to other frequent lines like DART, Luas and the frequent orbitals.

Spines are designated by the letters A to G, which separate into branches further out from the city.

Each bus would be designated by a letter following by a digit (e.g. A1) where the letter indicates the spine and the digit indicates the specific branch the bus follows.

A customer would be able to navigate much of inner Dublin by treating the letter as identifying a line, and ignoring the number.

Signs and information in this area should use a terms like ‘all A buses’ to reinforce this simplicity.

From the National Transport Authority’s Dublin Bus Network Redesign Public Consultation Report – which can be read here – which was published this morning.

The public consultation period will run from  July 16 until September 16.

Rollingnews

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20 thoughts on “Redesigning Dublin Bus

  1. Christopher

    That actually sounds amazing and well thought out. Hopefully it can be implemented.

    1. scumbellina

      That was my fear. Faster buses at the cost of the convenience for older people and those who can’t get around easy as it is.

      1. Cian

        the suggestion is that there will be more people within 400m of a bus-stop; but the ‘cost’ of this is that some journeys will now require 2 busses.
        They are proposing a simple 2 fair structure: (a) short hop; and (b) 90 minutes fare – you can transfer to any other bus/luas/dart within 90 minutes of starting.

        On the face of it – I think it looks good.

  2. bennny

    Looks pretty good but we all know in reality it will be an utter cock up
    Remember their computerised bus stop arrival screens
    Taking the bus routed into the city in ballybrack was like watching musical chairs
    Suddenly the bus would disappear then reappear just as you decided to take a bus to dunloghaire (and then the dart to town )and you pay your fare the bus suddenly appears behind the bus you have just bordered

    1. Cian

      I always found those bus-stop arrival screens were quite accurate. I suppose it might have depended on the route.

      1. Christopher

        I had a dissapearing bus yesterday on Cork St. It’s incredibly frustrating!

      2. bennny

        evidently your route most probably carried more passengers and extra busses were taken from routes like mine
        The 7 route must be the worst for disappearing busses

    2. Barry the Hatchett

      I always find those signs pretty reliable. The odd time a bus will disappear or arrive sooner than it should, but I think those are inevitable glitches in a system with so many moving parts. They’ve made a big difference for people I think. Remember when we used to have to look at paper timetables and try to figure out when a bus might be coming past??

      1. Adama

        I’ve noticed on certain long routes (like the 44) buses used to disappear and then reappear. Turns out these are driver changes on Parnell Sq in the case of the 44. Annoying in the extreme if a bus the display says is 2 mins away disappears only to reappear while you’ve moved stops to get another bus!

      2. george

        The displays are fundamentally dishonest. A bus that is late will say “due” for a minute and then will disappear from the screen and the passenger is left unsure if the bus is coming at all. They obviously decided not to use the work “late” on their displays.

        When I took the bus daily it was late virtually every time leaving the first stop on the route. Anything from 2 to 10 mins was normal and during this time the bus would have disappeared from the display altogether. More than once I had to tell people there was one due to arrive because they were about to walk to the Dart station instead.

      3. SOQ

        glitches in a system with so many moving parts.

        A mobile phone can real time pinpoint within 2m and most companies who have firm vans can have those who break speed limits reported back within seconds yet Dublin Bus just have glitches in their system?

        Don’t blame technology, this is PECAK… Problem Exists Between Chair And Keyboard.

  3. Termagant

    Seems like a well-thought-out system. I’ll reserve judgement until I see how hard and how far the other shoe drops.

  4. Stan

    I imagine we’ll see an end to cash being taken on buses as well? Stopped in London maybe two/ three years ago

      1. Stan

        you can use contactless debit/ credit cards in London, along with Oyster cards.
        This plan looks, on the surface, to make a lot of sense. Refreshing to see a lot of planning regarding transport in Dublin coming together. We could get to a situation where < 10% of non-commercial travel in Dublin is by private car quite quickly and without huge expense.

    1. shortforBob

      Four years ago apparently but the article says 99% of people were already on travel cards before the change
      https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jul/06/london-buses-cashless

      As an infrequent bus user who sometimes forgets to top up my Luas card it can be very annoying.

      By all means make the Leap card significantly cheaper but doing away with cash completely is a not good for customers. The recent Visa outage should have served as an object lesson as to why cash should always remain an option.

      I’m sure the bus company love having all that credit on deposit making money for them too.

  5. George

    So if you live in Clontarf what do you do? Clontarf road dart station is basically in Fairview.

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