Evening Herald tests the Swords Express promise
November 21st, 2007
Moving past the now-gutted Point Depot it was clear that it would take a multi-vehicle pile-up to stop us getting to our destination on time. Crossing the Liffey in jig time, the Swords Express dropped me at a bus stop just outside Tara Street Dart Station at 14:33, a journey time of just 22 minutes.
(Quote from article by Conor Feehan in yesterday’s Evening Herald.)
Not all our journey times are that good I should warn you. We may even have to slow down the afternoon service a little bit to keep more in line with the timetable. Still, it shows the difference a new approach to public transport can make.
Update: scan of full Evening Herald article.
November 21st, 2007 at 1:02 pm
Yesterday evening I hopped on at IFSC House at 17:42. I got off Texaco beside Airside at 18:13 or so. Not bad at all!
November 21st, 2007 at 2:46 pm
Love the new service. Got on outside the Laughter Lounge yesterday at 19:15 and was at Pavillions for 19:38. 23 minutes home!
November 21st, 2007 at 10:29 pm
as usual dublin bus was late, not service in rivervalley for 8.30, ended up walking down to main street swords, waited in the rain for another half hr and no sign on bus. decided to try the new service, bus arrived at pennys at 09:45, goin through the port tunnel and outside tara dart station for 10:10 in peck time traffic, well worth €3, and ill be on it from now on, 41x can go on strike for good!!
November 21st, 2007 at 11:49 pm
Whats the capacity like? I.e. are the buses filling up before their last stops. My other half was standing at the Texaco garage to go into the city and put her hand out for a Swordsexpress bus sometime around 1ish. She said the driver waved at her and drove past. She couldn’t see how many people were on the bus so we don’t know if it was full.
November 22nd, 2007 at 5:20 pm
Any plans for the disabled yet Antoin?
November 24th, 2007 at 11:31 am
Tried this bus from town yesterday.
Was waiting outside the LAughter lounge at 5:05 for the 5:09 bus. The bus arrived at 5:22. Took about 5 minutes to fill up so left at 5:27 (not 5:09).
The bus was now full, so noone else could get on.
Then as we were going down the quays we passed several bunches of people (one of them my friend who called me to tell me the Swords Express had passed without stopping).
He ended up walking back to Abbey street to get the 41.
The bus took 35 mins to get to the Pavillions which was great, but if you wait for it and cant get on it or if it leaves 20 mins late, not very helpful.
I’ll stick with my Dublin bus pass for now though.
Im not really thrilled about paying €3 X 10 = €30 per week = €1560 per year when i can get a bus rail and Luas ticket for that price or just a bus ticket for half that price that allows me to travel anywhere in Dublin.
Im afraid your service is just too expensive. I’ll get the 142 (I called DB and they are trippleing the amount of 142’s per day soon) instead when i need to travel between Swords and City Centre.
November 26th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
Great new service! Lucky for you that your competitor’s staff are so workshy and unreliable. I will happily pay the extra.
Sickcert, your name says it all. Your concern for the disabled is touching. I presume you count yourself and your colleagues amongst that number, suffering as you do from congenital torpor and apathy.
November 26th, 2007 at 4:54 pm
Waited for the bus at 6 pm outside pavillions last sat. Bus sailed by and as driver gave us a wave. Taxi into town. will never use this bus again.
November 26th, 2007 at 5:14 pm
I used your service for the first time on Saturday and then again on Sunday. I must admit to being very impressed. It is a far cry from the service of the 41c which is extremely unreliable and is breathtakingly slow. The 41x is the only reliable bus that goes to Swords and that is not frequent enough. The only complaint I would is that your buses need to run until at 9pm in both directions 7 days per week. Also a bus leving the Quays at 16.30 would very covenient. I so wish you luck with this new service.
November 26th, 2007 at 5:16 pm
One other point some Bus Stop signs would be handy as it is hard to say where the stops are.
November 26th, 2007 at 10:11 pm
Hi Declan,
Sorry you had a bad experience, where were you waiting? I took this bus on Saturday evening myself, got on it at Penney’s
November 26th, 2007 at 10:14 pm
Re bus being full and late on Friday:
There was congestion and this slowed everything down. The bus certainly left late, as did many buses from the city centre that evening. When a bus arrives in late, it overfills. The comfort is that there is another bus behind. It runs quicker, because it doesn’t have to pick up as many passengers.
We are working on the scnedule for this, it may make sense to bring the peak time buses closer together in departure time, to suit when people are coming out of work.
November 27th, 2007 at 6:41 pm
The service was advertised as from the pavilions - I waited at the bus stop outside the pavilions. It should be made clear that its form penny’s, Dublin St. Swords. I thought Pavilion was first stop and pennys second. no ned to mention pav at all - Pennys, dublin st is perfectly clear………………..Is penny’s part of the pavilions?
November 27th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
Pennys isnt in the list of shops in the pavilions…
November 28th, 2007 at 5:33 pm
Last night I waited at IFSC house for the 5.09pm service. However when it arrived at this stop it was full!! Any plans to increase volume at peek time as I know there is currently no bus for nearly an hour before this time and naturally this is peak time..
Really want to continue to get this bus but need to be gauranteed I can get on it!!
November 30th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
Disaster yesterday evening! - partly my own fault as I didn’t know about the hour-and-a-bit gap in the timetable, but I stood at the IFSC for an hour and ten minutes, only to have the 1709 bus whizz past me! I ended up getting a taxi home. I am so disapppointed, as I can’t possibly use the service, if I can’t count on it to get home.
I’m sure the reason the bus was full was because of the long interval since the 1606 - not great planning there for rush-hour.
Lots of people are deciding this week whether to reorder annual Dublin Bus and DART tickets, so it’s a critical time for the Swords Express.
November 30th, 2007 at 4:22 pm
Hi Mel, I just posted about this. You are highlighting a couple of very good points and they are all things we are working on. The reason for the gap in the timetable there, by the way is that that allows for higher frequency over the rush hour because we get all the buses positioned to reach town at the right time. Also, we should have timetables on stops. What time do you normally need to commute/finish work?
Best,
Antoin.
December 5th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
Yesterday ( 4/12/07): 17:09 service from city centre eventually turned up at 17:31, I was at the stop at 16:50 so waiting 41mins for the bus is not ideal.(could have got the 41c at 16:45 but favoured the express comfortable method). Note 1hr+ gap between 4pm and 5 is not ideal either a lot of people finish at 4!!.Again last week I had similar problems waiting for the 11:06 service in the morning from the City which turned up approx 11:20.From what I experienced the problems seems to be on journeys out of the city with the bus being delayed coming into town. I feel you should examine your running times if buses are failing to meet the advertised departure times. Maybe another solution would be to pre-position a bus, so it has enough time to load and pull away at the stated time. Once on board very few problems so well done, quick & comfortable so keep working on the reliability issue.
Dave