Keeping the Promise
November 20th, 2007
Our timetable (download PDFversion for easy printing) is our promise. Part of the reason we designed our route the way we did was so we can keep the promise as well as we could, whilst keeping prices reasonable (remember we don’t have state investment or a state subsidy).
They said it couldn’t be done (well one commenter said so anyway on our timetables page) but we kept the core promise of Swords Express on the first day. We managed to get around the route regularly in the target time of 35 minutes to town, 30 minutes out. Quite often we were able to do it even faster. The odd time we were a bit slower in the heavy rain, but not by much.
We are very proud of this and we want to thank all the people involved, the drivers, the crew at the depot and many more. Most of all we want to thank the passengers who decided to come out and take a chance on something new on a fairly murky day.
We also gave customers a decent level of comfort and a reasonably friendly service.
That’s not to say everything was perfect on our first day. There was a mix-up between drivers about a mid-afternoon service due to a rostering issue and this led to some rightfully irate phone calls. Another trip started about 9 minutes late, again issues to do with briefing and drivers’ growing knowledge of the route and its practices. We should be able to sort these things out in the coming days. There are many other small issues. We appreciate your comments and phone calls when something goes wrong.
One thing to remember is that it’s impossible to get arrival times bang-on, especially at peak times. Because of the changes in traffic lights, there is often going to be some discrepancy. We try to avoid arriving too early at a stop because we can cause problems for all the other buses if we wait too long. So the service timetabled at 5.56pm arrived at 6pm. This is annoying, but it is very hard to avoid.
November 20th, 2007 at 8:30 am
One of my abiding memories of growing up is walking across a short riverbank to get one of the Dublin Bus buses that serviced the area. I had to arrive at the stop 10 to 15 minutes early because the drivers routinely flew past at speed up to 20 minutes before the scheduled time, while I was still hundreds of metres from the stop sometimes, often with an hour to 90 minutes to wait and try my luck again. I’d implore you, whatever about being 5 minutes late to depart a stop, yes, that can be a tad frustrating, but leaving early in infuriating. If one bus leaves early then that bus is effectively a half hour late to the passenger who has to wait for the next one. Incidentally, I’m not saying this happened, I drove yesterday! I’ll give it a go today, well done on your first day.
November 20th, 2007 at 10:14 am
The target journey times are admirable, however they are useless if the buses do not leave on time. The 7.57 bus this morning did not get to Pinnock Hill till 8.16. That is 19 minutes out of a target time of 35 minutes to town. The traffic this morning was not that heavy, so one would expect that it would be there at 8.05 at the latest. The prices are at a premium to Dublin Bus, so that premium has to be justified by a reliable service. It is early days for your service, and I hope that you do achieve your aims, but I personally will not watch 41X buses go by while awaiting a bus that is erratic in its arrival time. Good luck with the service. I hope that the teething problems can be overcome.
November 20th, 2007 at 10:21 am
Hi there Cathal, there is no 7.57 service, only a 7.53 service. The service you actually got was almost certainly the 8.09 service. Could you have missed the earlier one? Thanks for your patience.
November 20th, 2007 at 10:50 am
Your header at the top of the page states that the service is Swords village to O’Connell Bridge. This is misleading as the destination stop in the city centre is actually Butt Bridge at Tara Street Dart Station.
November 20th, 2007 at 12:26 pm
Hi admin, apologies. It is more than likely that I missed the earlier bus, as i was at the stop at about 7.55. Thanks for your response.
November 20th, 2007 at 12:44 pm
As a man that travelled in from swords to city centre for the last 13 years, this competition is good to see. yet the key has to be reliability reliability reliability, especially at the cost. People will pay for a reliable – departing on time - service, well I would. And the travel times as with the above, are admirable, we will see. From the past, by and large Dublin bus’s reliability on the bus’s departure time was/is poor. Yet the 7.15am 43 bus driver is/was a legend. I have left swords recently (mainly due to the difficulty in commuting from swords to city centre). I know how frustrating commuting from swords is/was… Yet I hope this service will provide what it says it can. Because swords - city centre travel can be nuts at times.. you only really know this when you do it day in day out. all the best to the swords express, i hope it is a success
November 20th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
Hi
I waited last evening for the 17.56 departure outside the Laughter Lounge but as there was no sign of it or any representative from your company I abandoned the wait at five minutes to six and headed to Abbey Street for the 41X - I believe the bus arrived shortly after this - would it be possible for you to have a representative present at the stops, at least until the service is established and people are familiar with it.
November 20th, 2007 at 11:10 pm
When are you going to add your GPS tracking and SMS updates to your service?
November 21st, 2007 at 9:57 am
I think the real question here, is whether the Swords Express can attract “big name” 41X regulars, such as Ian Tierney. Best of luck with the new service.
November 21st, 2007 at 1:39 pm
I turned up to get the 1910 bus from swords to the city, the bus arrived on time outside Pennys and I stood a few steps back waiting for the bus door to open,clearly in view of the driver. The door was never opened and after about 1 minute the driver drove off again without picking anyone up! Can you please explain why the driver did this.I ended up having to pay a 25 euro cab fare into town.
In my opinion its a pretty crap way to run a service, no matter how good the idea is.
November 21st, 2007 at 1:42 pm
It’s no good having a good idea if we can’t keep the promise. I will find out what happened and we will change our operating procedures if appropriate.
November 21st, 2007 at 11:40 pm
Elaine: you are right. Have to get that sorted out.
Eamonn: GPS tracking. We have a plan for that. But not yet, the main thing is to get the basics right.
liam: i have checked on this, and the operations apologises. Please be sure to signal clearly to the driver. I know it feels a bit silly waving your hand about but it really makes things easier for the driver. It’s worth it to minimise the possibility of a mistake.
November 22nd, 2007 at 12:30 am
Hi admin. Well done on this brilliant service! Swords has been waiting a long time for something like this. As a 41x long-timer I have been frustrated for years with the drive home which can take up to 90 mins!
The only question I have is
Could a policy that only deadly growler be allowed on this service?I do feel that this new service needs a gimic to attract young socialite studmuffins like myself?
Once again congrats on this brilliant service!
November 24th, 2007 at 11:45 am
Hi,
Thanks!
I’ve been looking forward to this service for a long time but sadly it doesnt suite us to travel into Swords village or out to Texaco because your stops are just not “handy” to get to. The Phantom 41X tunnel bus, with its inconsistent journey time 25mins to over 90mins runs right by Ridgewood. The 41X carot (will he, wont he us the tunnel)is enough to wait and take a gamble! Crazy I know! Finally, my question is: Any plans to run every second bus journey route up into RiverValley past Ridgewood? You’d see me alot!
November 25th, 2007 at 4:19 pm
There,
Got the bus a few times now and really pleased with it. Got to Swords in 18 mins on Sunday and drivers are sound and not stressed from traffic! On Friday got 8.56 and was at my desk on Westland row at 9:30!
Any Reason why you stop just before the Pavillion roundabout? Could we not get off at the starting stop? The last time the bus then went back the road it came in and presumabley took the left towards the Seatown entrance? If so can people stay on till this point? I think he needed to pass time as we were so early maybe.
I know admin can be a pain but could you consider a monthly or weekly ticket?
Wonder if at Christmas time can the customers use the storage in the bus for shopping?
If you could stick up a timetable at the first and last stop that would be brilliant.
Little thing. Your lights for reading in the cabin are about 3 inches too far back to actually hit the page of a newspaper! The back of your head is really well light though!
Thanks and well done for getting together a brilliant service. Town is so close now who needs a bloody Metro!
November 25th, 2007 at 6:40 pm
Well done on a great service. As a frequent traveller on the 8.09am service I have one small issue. Can the driver ensure he is at the bus stop at Penny’s at 8.09am rather than 8.12am, 8.13am? I think he probably leaves the Pavilion’s set down at 8.09am rather than leaving slightly earlier to ensure arrival at the first stop at the advertised departure time.
November 26th, 2007 at 3:04 pm
David, thanks for the comment! I will check this with the driver. It is a little trickier than it looks, because sometimes there is a backlog of traffic at the traffic lights.
Other David: The reason you can’t get off at the starting stop is because the bus has to wait a while before its next departure. We want to avoid ‘laying up’ at a location where there will be a lot of other bus traffic, so that we can minimise interference.
We will definitely be doing a yearly ticket soon. A monthly ticket will come too, but it will take a little longer.
I don’t know if anything can be done about the lights!
The main issue with using the storage under the bus is that it requires the driver to leave the cab, and we want to try to avoid that.
November 27th, 2007 at 6:29 pm
Hi
the 17.09 bus just passed me (Outside PWC office) I could see empty seats down the back but the driver didnt stop !!!!!! This is not the first time this has happened ??? what the problem are the drivers not aware of the amount of people on the bus !!!!
March 4th, 2008 at 9:40 pm
guys the 41x was turned down to use the port tunnel last monday,yet u cannot service even airside stop!!!, the 8.00 and 815 buses are all full before getting to the stop and has been for weeks,i spoke on the gerry rayn show last wednesday praising the service yet every person from this part of swords are saying its a farce,please sort this out because these are the people who made it possable for u guys to run this,i have a meeeting in town at 8.45 tomorrow and unless i get to swords village for the bus i have no idea if i will make it in,that is not what we all had in mind when pushed our tds for a service.regards