The future of Dublin Bus

It looks like there are big changes coming to the Dublin Bus route network over the next few months.

Dublin Bus plans to "increase efficiency and frequency, with a five-minute waiting time between services". Good, though my bus is scheduled to run every 20 minutes and in the evening waits of an hour to an hour and a half would not be uncommon. There is a big difference between aiming to run a bus every 5 minutes and achieving it in Dublin traffic. I fear that the solution Dublin bus will opt for in some areas is to avoid traffic bottle necks completely which would remove the current bus service from many parts of Dublin. I'd rather have a bus that serves my area every 30 or 40 minutes than a bus every 5 minutes but with the bus stop miles away on the N11.

"The overall number of routes is to be increased, but some existing routes will be straightened out with fewer diversions off quality bus corridors, while others will be combined." Sounds good again in theory but as with my previous point does this mean that many busses will run on main routes only and will not divert into housing estates or down side roads as they do at the moment? That actually reduces the service for many people especially the elderly or those with mobility difficulties.

Finally "A real-time passenger information service will also be rolled-out later this year". Very good and I hope Dublin Bus have the sense to make this freely available online and to open up the API so that developers writing applications for iPhones and other smartphones will be able to write apps to allow consumers to look up the location and timing of different busses at home and on mobile phones without having to go to bus stops.

Ryanair in-flight phone service suspended

My new job requires me to travel. The first few months were mostly spent in Italy, back and forth every week. I cant complain, it's a job, many people dont have one, and the travel has reduced a bit lately, less training and more Irish customers.

Unfortunately the days of fancy business travel are long gone so I was on the Ryanair cattle truck. Scrambling for seats and hoping on a Friday night to not be sitting close to the stag parties being fed booze by the cabin crew.

On several of the flights we were supposed to have the in-flight phone service. The one that allows you to make calls and send/receive SMS. It is xpensive but the gadget nut in me wanted to try it out and send a message from the plane to tell my fiancee I was on the way home. Unfortunately I never got it to work. The signs were lit up, the announcer would tell us that it was available on this flight but my iPhone never connected or even saw the network.

Now I hear that Ryanair have terminated the contract with their supplier and are seeking tenders from other companies. I'm not surprised. If people cant connect it's just a chunk of useless hardware eating up some of Michael O'Learys jet fuel.

Despite wanting to play with it I hope they never get it fixed. It might be novel and worth trying, just once, but the idea of sitting on a plane for 4 hours with a stag party behind me sending txt messages and some business man beside me shouting down his blackberry over some contract or sale sounds like my idea of the lowest level or Ryanair hell.

The Reshuffle

Brian Cowen reshuffled his cabinet by well changing noting. Does it matter? Probably not. My initial reaction was "is that all they can do"? Then I thought, if Cowen had scrapped two of the useless departments would that have changed anything? Not likely, after all the civil servants in the scrapped departments would just get moved into the remaining departments and end up doing less work. New ministers? That would just be more ministerial pensions to pay in years to come. In fact the less false change the better in my opinion. Why spend millions for the appearance of change when no real change can happen under the current government?

All we can do is hang in there until the next election and hope for a large scale clear out of the existing and washed up TDs. It's clear now that Fianna Fail have no fresh ideas or talent left so what would be the point of a large reshuffle?

Papal Letter

I went to mass this morning and got a copy of the Papal Letter to the Catholics of Ireland. The priest didn't bother to read it out. He said is was 22 pages long (it's 12 but maybe he was reading the directors commentary version or something) and he would summarize the ideas for us since he had read it once and almost finished reading it a second time. Somehow I got the impression his heart just wasn't in it.

The most interesting thing was the choice of gospel. In either a comic coincidence or cynical timing todays gospel, printed on leaflets well in advance of the papal letter being announced, was "let he who is without sin cast the first stone". I wonder if the idea was let the cleric not linked to abuse or the cover up of abuse throw the first sermon.

St Patricks Day in Dublin

This years St Patricks Day parade in Dublin was a great success with huge crowds in attendance once again.

Paddy Drac

North Carolina State Band

Flags at the ready.

More of the photos I took on the day can be found here.

Update:
Clondalkin Youth Band




Update 2: More photos of the Clondalkin Youth Band can be found here.

Bonner the Grand Marshal

This years Grand Marshal for the 2010 St Patricks Parade in Dublin has been announced and it’s Packie Bonner. The former Republic of Ireland goalkeeper is a national hero for his save in the penalty shootout against Romania during Italia 90. I think we can say the parade is in a safe pair of hands this year (oh God did I really just say that?)

Special Effects

Everything, even the simple stuff is computer generated now. Sad...


[via Whoppers Bunker]

Transport Canada

And I thought ryanair was bad...

Noel Dempsey Minister for Holidays

Noel Dempsey the Irish Minister for Transport has just arrived back in the country after more than a week of freezing temperatures and transport chaos in Ireland, all which Minister Dempsey observed from sunny and warm Malta. You see the Minister was on holidays. With the country in a state of emergency he bravely put his sun tan first and decided not to come home. Dempsey is interviewed in the Sunday Independent today saying:

I don't want to bring my family into this -- they are very private -- but, you know, I am entitled to have a family life as well.

Which is true, but no one said the Minister should bring his whole family home, the country would have been happy if just he himself had managed to put in an appearance in his office. After all, given how much he gets paid it would have been nice if he showed up to help coordinate a response to what is likely to be the biggest transport crisis in his time as Minister for Transport.

My favourite quote from the, I suspect soon to be former, Minister has to be:

"Politically, it's a lot of hoo-haa, a lot of nonsense," he said from the airport in Valetta, where he was stranded most of yesterday.

Yeah Minister, secret Fine Gael squads have been driving around the country in the middle of the night throwing fake snow everywhere just to make you look bad.

I think it's time for a cabinet reshuffle. Cowen could appoint Dempsey to a job more suited to his lifestyle. Perhaps Minister for Holidays or maybe Minster for Sun Tans though perhaps we could just appoint him Ambassador to Malta and he can feck off back where he came from and let someone else run the Department of Transport.

Happy 2010

Happy new year to you all. We had a white Christmas and now a white New Years hopefully it's a sign of an eventful but happy year to come :-)