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NINETY NEW BUSES have been officially unveiled at Dublin Bus today.
They began entering service in January and are operating on routes 13, 15, 27 and 40.
The buses will replace older vehicles in the fleet and have an average age of 7 years.
Speaking at the launch, Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport Paschal Donohoe said he also welcomed the news that passenger numbers have increased by 700,000 (2%) in the first half of 2015.
They buses are equipped with a number of features, such as:
The 90 new buses are being funded by the National Transport Authority through the government’s capital programme. They represent an investment of €34.7 million in the Dublin Bus fleet replacement programme.
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Any chance they’ll ever open the middle door on these shinny new buses?
There are no middle doors!
The Irish are not to be trusted with the middle door. It’s not like anyone anywhere else in the world uses them anyway… like… London or anywhere.
Shouted down to the driver a few times to open them when the bus was busy and he/she did!
David you might want to take that up with the illegally parked tour bus/aircoach/private bus operator/white van/delivery van/truck/unofficial taxi rank etc that prevail at too many bus stops in the city centre. If it can get in to the kerb the only the front door opens. Or would you prefer if the bus continued to the next unobstructed stop?
Don’t be disingenuous Matt. The middle doors are almost never opened – whether the stop is semi-obstructed or not.
Is it not amazing that Dublin Bus don’t trust us with the middle door. Yet Irish Rail trust us by opening the gates and having entire weekends where there are no staff in stations, entire commuter routes (most of them) with no inspectors relying on the automated checking at each end. Yet Luas is a total honor system and makes a profit….Sky didn’t fall with the other two DB so let us use the door.
I’ve seen a few schneaky goblins bunk on through the middle door.
It’s a curiously Irish phenomenon that in order to stop a few troublemakers we will ruin an entire experience for everyone else.
I get the 27 or 151 to work and they always open the middle doors at busy stops. particularly the 27 at central bank
On my route there are only two drivers that regularly use the middle doors. Middle doors are used in the rest of the world without problems. In Munich you can get on at any door as well.
talkingsense, Some depot’s drivers seem to be better than others for middle door usage. I find Donnybrook drivers are better for middle door usage than Harristown drivers.
your probably right, I’m just speaking from my own experience. I only ever get the 27 or the 151 to work and both regularly open the middle doors in the morning. don’t know about other times of day as I walk home from work(I’m too lazy to walk in!)
Majority of drivers do use when pulling into city stops when large footfall exiting bus. if stop is obstructed tho this may not happen..
Wasn’t intended as being disingenuous Billy, I’d never suggest every stop is continually blocked or impeded just that an unacceptable number of stops in the city centre are.
Ryan the reason the luas and the only reason the luuuaas makes a profit for the foreign company who run it, is we the tax payer give it the biggest subvention of all the transport companies operating in Ireland nearly €2 for every full journey taken so that’s why you have tram check to make sure the profit margin the french company signed up to to run super luuuaas is maintained. check your facts you clown
A foreign company run it? A FOREIGN COMPANY? Well being that all foreigners are devils, we are the superior race and this is 1935 with protectionism being all the rage, that is an outrage. Has anyone informed DeValera? If we can get him to take his eyes off the comely maidens dancing at those crossroads for a bit maybe he can start an economic war with someone, get a good Irish company running things, then the Luas can make an explosive loss like CIE?
…and paying a private company to manage the service is not the same as giving it a subsidy because of the huge loss it makes even after it’s already been given public money, as was the case with Dub Bus until recently
Calling someone a clown is also not a great way to convince them of your side of the argument, and resorting to it just makes you look like you can’t win on the merits of your argument.
There is a middle door!!
Any chance they could add drivers to the busier routes? Four buses went by me this morning without stopping as there was no space in them. Adding new buses is great, but if you can’t get onto one it’s pointless
Same! I’m already at the bus stop 30 mins earlier than I need to be just so I’ll fit on the bus. Dreading the kids going back to school.
Its the special “summer timetable”
Exact same problem here with buses not stopping when I’m trying to get to work. Some drivers go by even when there is room on board. I also notice passengers choose to stand near the driver end of the bus instead of taking a seat, then the driver won’t stop so as not to add to the bottleneck. It’s become every person for themselves! The closer you live to the city, the harder it is to get to work.
The new bus for the 40 route will know boast, bullet proof windows, armed personnel, detention cells and Ireland’s first mobile methadone clinic
Why, are you planning on bringing all your family?
Sick burn bro
The filthy 50 got your back bro, sorted
Neil, you’re an unfunny moron.
ah relax. He’s only tickling your pickle.
By ‘bilingual’, do we mean English and Irish?!
That will come in handy…
Ogham and Gaelic I believe, no point having english as its widely spoken…
It can actually get very annoying. On the DARTs and LUAS instead of the Irish maps being faced with english ones you have one entire section of the wall where there are Irish onlys and so the tourists look down the carriage and assume the rest are Irish too, a few meters down, when they are english, and it just causes confusion. This is even more moronic when safety signs are in Irish only in some stations with the English one nowhere in sight.
On top of that on the LED scrolls the Irish seems to linger for ages before a brief switch to English
So passenger numbers have gone up by 700,000 yet they still increase fares each year citing a drop in numbers?! No doubt we’ll see another big hike come January cos they can’t cover costs…
Shiny new buses, same overpriced unreliable service.
Have you seen what they are calling taxis these days?
Iv seen mine Paul a 2015 Skoda Superb why ?
Well done Shane,
What were you driving last year?
Leave your car at home, they say. Take the bus, they say. Left home several mornings around 7.30. Buses (from Rathfarnham) which used to come every 10-15 mins now come every 25-40 mins and pass by FULL! its usually after 9 by the time I get into work. Back to the car again ……
Good news.
So they’re not new? “they’ll replace other busses. … and have an average age of seven years’. Or should that be an average life expectancy? Confusion caused by speed? lack of proof reading?
They are new, the capital replacement programme is to replace the busses every 6-7 years unlike pre the Bertie era where the same busses would hold out for decades rocking along the road
Why was there over a thousand protesting in sallynoggin over service closures and now there’s brand new buses?
Because for years nobody in Sallynoggin used the bus, but they won’t let Dublin bus reduce the frequency on the route they don’t use
So nobody uses it but everybody comes out to protest to save it? Odd. ..
Kevin the man at the head of the protest claims the maximum travel expenses and car repairs permitted as a TD every year! He obviously is t using it, much like clearys nobody was shopping there but everybody wanted to keep it open
Well Kevin the guy running the Croke Park Residents group wasn’t even from the area.. some people love a good protest.
It was the usual suspects protesting, the routes in the area wherre not deleted (Except the 8 and 111 which basically mimic the DART) they were straighten out to kill 15 minutes off the journey time so they don’t go into every meandering housing estate now it’s much better, 15 minutes off a bus trip is a huge improvement.
The area is getting a slightly diff route in the same bus stops to replace it going to nearly the same places to make THAT route straighter. The ones protesting protest everything
ehm, here’s people at the protest who actually use the very buses we are talking about. – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0dHyzFxFC4
I mean if you think a 1000 people turn up to a protest for a bus that nobody uses then you need your head examined. I mean if they were tag alongs looking for political gain then surely they would cover an issue people care about (Assuming nobody uses the buses). If its the case that nobody uses it then why would these political entities even turn up?
Kevin why would a man who lives in castelknock object to a concert in Croke park? If you discover the answer to this than maybe you will understand how 1,000 including children who are dragged along, people who are not from the area but members of AAA, or people before profit can protest something that has nothing to do with them.
Yes but your original assumption is that nobody uses these buses, so assuming these parties are tagging along for political gain then why bother turn up to gain from a protest that nobody cares about? do you see the paradox im analysing here?
Because people want something in their area even if they don’t use it for prestige, increased property values etc!
But you seem to ignoring the point that Richard Boyd Barrett despite living on the route drives to the Daíl every day, well he claims the maximum allowance for his car so he uses it a lot, plenty of history of AAA,PBP etc bussing protestors in to make it look like they can generate support
So you think PBP & AAA shipped protesters into a protest that nobody cared about because nobody uses these buses despite the fact ive shown you video evidence on at least 2 dozen genuines sallynoggin dublin bus customers. Yet despite as you claim nobody cares they do care about prestige, increased property values which is why PBP & AAA shipped people in so they could get these votes off these supposed property value protesters. excuse me I must go now and retain my sanity, slan.
Kevin maybe if you had the misfortune to be a tired cynical jaded anorak like some of ourselves you’d know that around half the people you see in these kinda usual suspects protests are the same roving band that go everywhere protesting about everything, it’s not all locals it’s people who would literally bus it to the Aran Islands to protest about something if there was a protest to be had.
Sure some of them are locals, like elderly who think it will be a pain to walk the extra bit to the new bus stops but we while we have to design the service with social obligations as well as commercial ones that is only to an extent, it’s utter madness to put 3-4 huge bends in a route to pick up the odd person who gets the bus now and then adding a huge chunk of time to the overall route. People in Ireland protest progressive policy changes all the time look at the Luas cross city, they can’t stop moaning aboout that, they moan about the tunneling for Metro which will be a huge short term economic stimulus, long term economic bonus too. If you actually look at the Dub Bus proposals in the maps on the website some of them are huge improvements, esp the 7 going all the way to the Luas stop instead of dumping people 200 meters down the road and expecting them to walk the rest
4 new buses, same old grumpy drivers.
Ever try to use their website or their app? A joke. That and the fact that there appears to be no joined up public transport in Dublin.
Who’s the fool in the driving seat?
Great news to have more bus’s on the roads, however what is blocking there speed and efficiency is having to share the roads with private single occupancy cars. Trying to squeeze a large bus into a space which is little more than a small painted bus lane on the road just won’t do, especially when the bus lane is shared with empty taxi cabs, cyclists and private motorists who like to use bus lanes to speed around the city…
Taxis are legally entitled to use bus lanes when hired or available for hire. No doubt the 100K+ people who travel in taxis every day are glad of this.
what happens to the old bus’s ??? are they sold or scrapped just asking.
They sell them to the best of my knowledge.
Bring back the green busses!
Random question I know. I assume these buses are made in the UK. How do they come here? Are they carried on trucks or driven?
What is it with upholstery on public transport? Or is it just me that finds it hideously obnoxious?
It’s that way for a reason. it hides dirt.
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