Worst Public Transit

[Mark Hennessy]

Right people,

I pose a fun little question here. ;)
We have all been to various cities round the world and we marvel at the quality
of their public transit systems, with seamless integration between modes etc.
I'd like people to name places they've visited that make Dublin look a dream for getting about in comparison.
I guess the only rule is the that the city has to have the pretence of Public Transit, ie it is supposed to exist.

[PaulM]

Do other Irish cities count? If not I'm stumped.

[sean]

Dunno. Maybe some place in India? or Africa?

[Mark Hennessy]

Do other Irish cities count? If not I'm stumped.

Nope has to be foreign. I'm not allowing any city on the island of Ireland.

Maybe some place in India? or Africa?

You have to have visited the place and as I said, the pretense of Public transport has to exisit,
so some "private" operators with Rickshaws dont count.

I thought of this question because I was hard pressed to think of anywhere worse than here.
One of the worst "western" cities for public transport was Auckland.
A confusing ( for a tourist anyway ) mish mash of private buses and limited rail services.
Dont think it is any worse than Dublin though.

[philip]

I can't think of any city I've been to that I had to use PT where it was worse PT than Dublin. I've been to a fair few places for work where we'd use hire cars/taxis but I'd still say those places had Dublin licked.

Even supposedly dodgy PT cities in the UK tend to allow the private bus operators to at least seel an all-day pass for their own company on board the bus, even that's impossible with Bus Atha Cliath (DoT thing I know) but when you can't get on a bus and buy an all day ticket for that company on board your first bus it's pretty hard to get any worse.

I can't even say Valetta because the buses are so cheap and frequent (if a little slow) that they still present better overall value than in Dublin.

Maybe some North American sunbelt city could be in the running for many don't even have pavements in housing estates to walk along.

[ACustomer]

While many US cities have much better public transport than we might sometimes think, there must be candidates in the West, mid-West and South. LA, Phoenix, Las Vegas anyone?

[Mark Hennessy]

LA has a poor enough system but the Public Transit operator, LA county transit shames CIE.
The sprawl of LA ensures that PT provision is a nightmare, but if you happen to live nearby the any of the
5 rail lines ( one of them is a dedicated busway ) then the service is okay.
You can get an all pass for only $3 also and bus transfers only cost an extra 25c on top of the regular bus fare.
Again from my experience LA is margainally better than Dublin, though only by a small margain.

[markpb]

My experience from LA is much, much better than Dublin but again, I lived close to the red line.

Integration between the public and private operators is a little confusing because some operators allow cross-ticketing with LACMTA and others don't. When it works, it works beautifully and (until now) without the need for any kind of magstripe or smartcard. Indeed, the entire ticketing system is very simple.

All the staff, without exception, are incredibly friendly and helpful. The only downside are the metro drivers because they're actually worse than dart drivers when it comes to understanding what they're saying.

Buses, on selected routes, run all day and all night and are 1/3 cheaper at night. Between 9pm and 5.30am, buses will stop for drop-offs everywhere, not just at bus stops.

Security on buses ans trains is fantastic with the police, sheriffs, transport police and MTA security all doing regular checks. I felt safer on the blue line in Compton than I did in many of the buses in Dublin at night.

The red line stations (not sure about the others) in North Hollywood all have huge carparks, great integration with MTA buses. All of the stations are beautifully decorated and maintained and usually themed to go with the local area. Strict enforcement of the no littering, nofood, no spitting, no loud music rules ($250 on the spot fine) makes using the train a pleasure unlike the 13/13A buses in Dublin.

The system maps on the website show the exact routes of all the buses, per route, per area and (in the train stations) of the entire city. The journey planner on the website and on 1800 commute is a fantastic tool.

I'm sure there are outlying areas of LA where public transport isn't as good but where its good, it blows the socks of Dublin.

The only major advantage that Dublin (Dart) has over LA is that the metro system lacks a real-time system. It's offset by the fact that trains in LA are actually regular and frequent unlike the Dart and, like most tunneled systems, you can feel the train coming when its a few minutes away.

[philip]

Security on buses ans trains is fantastic with the police, sheriffs, transport police and MTA security all doing regular checks. I felt safer on the blue line in Compton than I did in many of the buses in Dublin at night.
Funny you should say that Mark. I and a group of lads did America coast to coast by train a few years ago (amazing trip) and on the day we were due to leave from LAX we ended up getting off at Compton to change to a bus for the airport. We knew the place had a rep but it felt perfectly safe there, even though we were obviously tourists. From a visitors perspective LA beat Dublin but I think we might have been lucky that where we wanted to go we could take the metro.

Even Vegas beat Dublin when I was there-they had FREE buses running along the 'strip' anyway, most welcome in the 45 degree heat!

[Red Alert]

I'm sure even Milton Obote and Idi Amin Dada had better systems than we do.

[Donal Quinn]

I was in Muscat in oman - now there's urban sprawl for you damn thing is 30 miles long with barely any identifiable centre - just strip malls - and apartment blocks - bit like parts of blanchardstown

public transport consists of minibuses and shared taxis - once you get the hang of them they're not bad and if you put on a scowl they don't even try to rip you off

all in all though I would have to say it was worse than dublin - although with rising oil and gas prices i forsee a maglev running from kuwait all the way to muscat!

[alek smart]

Qoute : "Strict enforcement of the no littering, nofood, no spitting, no loud music rules ($250 on the spot fine) makes using the train a pleasure unlike the 13/13A buses in Dublin."

A very valid point and one which Nobody wants to address.
Put at it`s simplest it leaves Public Transport users at a strong disadvantage as the savages are constantly seen to have the upper hand.
Very few of the CIE companies appear to have the stomach to face down the anti-social element and woe betide any staff member who does attempt to make a stand against them.....
Much of the current Customer Friendly ethos has proven to be little more than an opportunity for the monkeys to stage a management buy out of the Zoo. :p

[comcor]

In Europe, I can't think of any cities the size of Dublin with public transport that is as bad. A lot of medium-sized, regional, French cities have poor public transport, but looking at a city like Lyons, which would be roughly the same size as Dublin, public transport is far better.

[Thomas J Stamp]

Alex,

Drivers aren't allowed out anymore, due to the threat of getting killed ect.

Bring back conductors.

Oh, and there isnt a candidate so far than worse public transport than Ireland yet....

[Maskhadov]

Iraq or Somilia ?

[Mark Hennessy]

Iraq or Somilia ?

I'm not allowing those!
The notion of Public Transport must exist, either a transit authority or a government agency.
It is interesting that nobody has yet found an example, I have been thinking about this for
a while and I cant for the life of me find a worse example than Dublin. :(
Even in cities where bus based transit is the main form of public transport, ticketing and transfers between routes via bus interchanges are commonplace.
Right there is a pint on offer from me on the 25th if anyone produces an example of a city they have visited that makes then wish for public transit - Dublin style! :D

[Thomas J Stamp]

no, no, no - it's outside of IRELAND!

Cork, Limerick, Waterford, - all worse than Dublin, but see the rules above!!

Iraq!!! :D

[TomB]

Right there is a pint on offer from me on the 25th if anyone produces an example of a city they have visited that makes then wish for public transit - Dublin style! :D

Oh, so there's a *pint* in it! Well why didn't you say before...

I know this isn't really an example of what you're looking for, but I think it gets me my pint...

I lived as a volunteer for two years in the depths of nowhere in Ghana, West Africa. I did manage however to escape to the capital, Accra, for my fix of running water and electricity every few months...

Public transport in Ghana is primarily provided by the most ungainly acronym ever, the GPRTU of TUC (Ghana Public Road Transport Union of the Trades Union Congress -- just in case you were wondering!). The GPRTU is basically a drivers union setup that fixes fares, looks after stations and allocates services, and it works quite well - perhaps because any attempt at profiteering by the GPRTU is prevented by the simple inability to pay of the majority of the population.

The main form of public transport in Ghana is a tro-tro: definitions vary but typically a beat-up mini-bus, four seats across (the aisle has a seat that folds down). It's very cramped, as you can imagine 4 people across in a hiace might be. The tro-tros don't leave until they're full, so you can be waiting a whole day just to get somewhere. They're all emblazoned with phrases such as 'In God We Trust', and rarely have functioning brakes.

For short-hop routes in cities, tro-tros just travel along a set route, stopping off at various places. The fares are also fixed (a 3 mile journey might cost you 10p) Similar level of cramped-ness, but not as many chickens sharing your legspace. Still no brakes, mind...

Inter-city buses are provided by the state bus operator, similar to bus eireann, except there are five seats across (again, one in a fold-down aisle seat).

There are trains in Ghana, the lines form a triangle between the three biggest cities. In the early eighties some East German stock was bought for one side of the 'triangle', which included some relatively swish sleeper cars. The journey would take about 12 hours though, with the equivalent road journey taking about 5.

Verdict: only slightly better than Dublin. Comfort wasn't exactly great, and more than once I had to dodge urine dripping down on me from a goat tied on to the roof. Having said that, being packed in like sardines meant there was never any skanger behaviour. Frequency was probably better on the municipal services than on DB routes...oh and you got change...

For perspective, Ghana's per capita GDP is about 7% that of Ireland's. Even though it is held up as an African economic success story, malnourished children and abject poverty are still commonplace...

[Mark Hennessy]

Right Thomas,

A pint on its way to you for your description of Ghana's transit system!
It is sad that we have to use an impoverished African state as a comparison for my question but my only hope is that we will see T21 improve greatly the public transit in the greater Dublin area.
As an aside, a friend of mine works in Tripoli, and his description of the local transit would make one pine for Dublin's transit :D

[Kevin K Kelehan]

Ghana sounds rough but it is West Africa and I will at later stage tell the story of the bus in Bolivia where three children managed to puke, **** and piss five feet away from me and throw bags filled with same a further 5 feet down the aisle needless to say the mother had bought only a single ticket and the person to my left had paid 5 bols more for his ticket than me and the guy to my left had paid 10 bols less :)

North Wales;

I left Birmingham on the 2033 Arriva trains service that departed at 2105; arrived in Shrewsbury 30 minutes late which resulted in a missed conection; got a train with 4 passengers to Chester where a 2 hour wait in sub-zero temps was encountered with the coffee machine turned off and the toilets all locked. The train for the boat left 30 minutes late and amazingly arrived only 5 minutes late so the boat was caught by the skin of the teeth. Any line that can have a 25% time padding margin is a joke and since arriva took tha franchise from Virgin this line has gone seriously south.

[comcor]

For worst public transport experience, I'd go with a rail trip from Rotterdam to Brussels...

I could have taken my trip on the Saturday or the Sunday, but there were engineering works on the line, which involved a bus transfer for part of the journey on the Saturday, so I opted to go on the Sunday on the 09:20 train, which was the first one after the engineering works finished. This one had a slight restriction, because it terminated in Brussels North rather than Brussels (this will become significant later).

Now, I've had experience of Dutch railways and engineering works not finishing on time, so when I bought the tickets, I specifically asked if the 09:20 train was running and was told that it was. So, I went up to the platform with my travelling companions and the train was on the departure board. At about 09:30, when no train had appeared, I started reckoning something was going wrong.

One thing about the trains between Holland and Belgium is that the announcements are normally made in Dutch, English and French. Of course, these are all automated and when things go wrong...

So, at 09:35 an announcement was made in Dutch asking passengers to go to the back of the station for a bus connection to Roosendaal, where we could pick up the international train. Fortunately, I speak a little Dutch, so I understood it, but we met another couple of people on the platform, a Frenchman bound for Paris and a German who had a serious limp (another fact which becomes relevant). As I speak French, and one of the people I was traveling with speaks German, we ended up adding them to our group.

So, out to the back of Rotterdam Central Station. By 09:50, there was no sign of a bus, so I went off to find someone who could tell me what was going on.

The conversation went

-We were trying to take the 09:20 to Brussels an...
-It's not running today
-Yes. And we went out the back to catch the bus an...
-What bus? There is no bus. Who told you to do that?
-There was an announcement

Cue her getting on a walkie-talkie spending 3 minutes giving a bollocking to the person who made the announcement, while ignoring the customer. Eventually, I got more info.

-What should I do?
-Take the 10:00 to Dordrecht and take a bus from there to Roosendaal. In Roosendaal, you can pick up the international train.

So, I went off to get the others. Going to the platform, it was becoming increasingly obvious that the German's limp was going to prevent us getting the 10:00 to Dordrecht. Fortunately, Rotterdam-Dordrecht has around 10 trains an hour, so we only waited another 8 minutes for a train.

By 10:30, we had made it as far as Dordrecht. So, we went to look for the buses. There were no buses to Roosendaal. The advice here was, take a bus to Breda, then a train to Roosendaal to pick up the international train.

So, we get the bus to Breda, get there around 11:00 and get a train to Roosendaal at 11:15 (roughly when we should have arrived in Brussels). We arrive in Roosendaal, shortly before 11:30. The next train is at 12:05. So, we find the cafe and get a coffee and some cakes.

12:05 no train.

Eventually, it turns up around 12:25. Getting on the train, I begin to realise from other passengers' conversations that this is the 11:20 from Rotterdam and that if we'd just had a lie in, we could have been on this train anyway.

So, now we are on a train bound for Brussels. When we come into Brussels North (at 1:30pm), I remember that the train isn't running to Brussels South and decide to get off. No announcement is made in any language. Brussels Central would have been a more convenient stop, so my travelling companions stay on the train near the door when I go to check. The departure board on the platform says that it's the train to Amsterdam, so I get them off. Just as they are leaving, the doors close, but we're off OK. At least half the passengers on the train are in for a 15 minute ride to Mechelen until their first chance to turn around.

In short, a journey, which should have taken just under 2 hours on a single train took slightly over 4 hours on three trains and a bus.

Staff didn't know what was going on. Announcements were infrequently made and when they were made they were somtimes wrong. It made me long to be travelling on Irish Rail...

[Mark Hennessy]

Comcor

Interesting story, my experiences on Dutch rail are nowhere near as poor as yours but it
is good to hear other tales. Hoever todays announcement of the "station" in the docklands has re-confirmed the shambles we have for public transit planning in this country.
It's been a long time since I have felt this aggrieved.....

[comcor]

Comcor

Interesting story, my experiences on Dutch rail are nowhere near as poor as yours but it
is good to hear other tales. Hoever todays announcement of the "station" in the docklands has re-confirmed the shambles we have for public transit planning in this country.
It's been a long time since I have felt this aggrieved.....
In general, my experiences of Dutch trains have been good. Trains are cheap and very frequent (e.g. 10 tph between Rotterdam and Dordrecht), so it doesn't even matter so much if your train is late.

I think this was just a case of everything breaking down as a result of the engineering works overrunning, but it is interesting to note that not everywhere is as perfect as we like to believe.

[Mark]

A country with worse public transport than Ireland? I can think of many countries which have had nowhere near the amount of investment but still get it right.

Answer is no other country has worse transport than Ireland.

[Mark Hennessy]

Answer is no other country has worse transport than Ireland.

Its so true and so disheartening. :(

[sponge]

I've lived in the Netherlands for a few months and took many trains, including that international train to Belgium every second weekend.

On a worringly high percentage of my journeys, trains broke down or were delayed. Not too much of a problem though because of the high frequencies.

On the international train, most times, because of delays, I missed my connection in Antwerp to Brugge making my journey an hour longer.

The transport system there is still better than here overall though :rolleyes:

(If you want to look at a country with a good transport infrastructure, I have found Finland to be great. See http://www.vr.fi/heo/eng/index.html. Especially Helsinki comuter rail and bus and long distance Pendolino services)