Sir, – I have the misfortune that my usual bus-stop in Nassau Street has a Dublin Bus “real time” noticeboard. I’ve studied its behaviour since first introduced, and it offers much the same interest as watching a slug trying to crawl up it in the rain. A bus is apparently due in four minutes, this crawls up to three minutes, immediately slides back down to five minutes, crawls back up, slides down several more times, and eventually arrives on average 100-150 per cent later than initially predicted.
In addition, it’s quite common that “phantom” buses appear on the noticeboard, but are not actually running. On the evening of June 12th, the system excelled itself. When I arrived, a bus was scheduled to arrive in two minutes, this became “due” and then moved off the noticeboard without ever arriving. The next bus was due in eight minutes, so I continued to wait and duly watched this work its way down to one minute, become “due”, and also disappear without every having appeared. Ditto for the third and fourth phantom 14s! After one hour of waiting, a bus finally came.
For at least the Number 14 route, the “real time” system is shambolic, seemingly designed to lend a spurious air of efficiency to the service. It is a complete waste of money, merely adds to passenger uncertainty, and should be immediately scrapped. Perhaps those Irish pubs buying our electronic voting machines could be interested in a system which deems ideal for justifying late closing? – Yours, etc,