Waiting for “Godot”: The Dublin Bus Never Shows up at the Right Time

 The Dublin Bus App and on-screen display unit  never shows the real time information.

‘‘I have had experiences of waiting for more than 50 mins and an hour for the bus even when the bus app and on-street display showed the bus is due’’

In a survey of 20 people it was concluded that 18 out of 20 has one or two problem with the Dublin bus app and the on-street display units at bus stops. Only two said the bus app works perfectly for them and 18 said the bus keeps them waiting. The issue with the bus app is not new, but little to no press coverage has been awarded to this issue which needs to be fixed. The bus apps and on-street display units work properly in most part of Dublin while it doesn’t work in some part. This is due to the fact that the NTA (National Tranport Authority) do not do a proper check-up on the bus.

A bus user Blessing Ezike said in an interview ‘the bus app is not accurate. It doesn’t come regularly and comes mostly late and sometimes comes as late as 1 hour and the worst part is sometimes it passes me by even after waving. It has done that to me more than twice now’. Ezike continued to say the on-street display keeps changing and reading one minutes for more than 5 minutes, although that is not the case for all the buses.

Teni Bamidele also a frequent user of the bus said, ‘the bus app is not accurate, but it is good and useful at the same time’. Then continued to say ‘although, the on-street display works properly but not all the time. Buses even makes me we wait for more than 30 minutes, it will write on the on-street display that the bus is coming and ends up not showing up or shows up late’.

 ‘In some places the bus app works well and in some places it’s just terrible. The on-street display at the stops does not work well either there has been a case where the display showed me that the bus will come in the next one minute, but it disappeared then showed up later reading its coming in the next 23 minutes’.

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Adenuga also continued saying ‘I have had experiences of waiting for more than 50 mins and an hour for the bus even when the bus app and on-street display showed the bus is due’.

Idara Micheal also a bus user said ‘the Dublin bus app works perfectly well for me. The problem is the bus not the bus app. Bus sometimes the on-street display says the bus will come then it just disappears and there was a day I waved for the bus, but it did not stop’.

Ezike said she will like the government to fix any on-street display that has technical problems or regulate the bus app so as not to ruin people’s appointment or day.‘Some bus even moves in an hour interval which is very bad. If I miss the bus I had to wait for the next one hour for the next one. I beg the government to do something about that.’

In an article written by the Journal on the Dublin bus. A bus user claimed that the bus app doesn’t work properly by saying ‘when it says I have 4 mins to get to a bus stop that is 30 seconds away, and the bus comes flying past and (is) gone within 6 seconds of checking that, something needs to change. It’s a TRACKING app, where did those 4 minutes go?

All these are proving that the bus apps have been having problems for a long time but little to nothing is done to make the bus app work.

Mark Beegan form the Media and Communications Department of the Dublin Bus, in their defence said ‘’Independent surveys of the accuracy of the system show that the Dublin Bus RTPI system is over 97.5% accurate. This is one of the more accurate systems across the world.’

Beegan also said that the reason why the on-screen display unit shows the bus coming and doesn’t come is because ‘Every trip a bus is scheduled to make is programmed into our RTPI system. Scheduled predictions for every trip appear on the RTPI app and the on-street screens automatically from 60 mins before the start time of the journey. This prediction remains in place until a bus commences its trip.’

‘Each trip is also associated with a ‘‘board’’ (daily assigned trips for a bus). Once the bus communicates with the system for its board this essentially takes over and provides real-time information for all trips assigned to that board.  This is when the GPS element kicks in and tracks the bus as it moves along its route. If the bus assigned has not communicated to a particular board (i.e. doesn’t operate) the first trip on the board will continue to be displayed for all stops within 60 minutes of the trip start time.’

‘Predictions will continue until the trip is removed from that stop in our system by our team of inspectors in Central Control or the start time of that trip from the terminus has elapsed. Therefore a trip may appear for stops close to the terminus, countdown to due but then the

bus may not arrive’.

When Beegan was asked how frequent the bus app is being regulated he said ‘NTA and Dublin Bus closely monitor this system and will continue to make adjustments to provide as accurate information as possible.’

In an interview with Dermot O’Gara the Head of Public Affairs of the National Transport Authority (NTA) on why the bus app does not work properly he said research has been done into the real time information and it works properly and its 90% accurate.

O’Gara said that NTA do their own research on a larger scale and its more than 90% accurate and does not think that there is a problem with the bus app and the on-street display unit.   During the interview O’Gara said the bus app is regulated once a year and is done regularly.

This investigation reveals that there is a problem with the regulatory body in charge of the Dublin bus, as the NTA and Dublin bus thinks there is no problem with the app and on-street display whereas there is big problem. The regulatory body needs to see the peoples view about this matter to know how bad it is.