Campaign seeks those fed up with late buses in Cork

A college student is urging fellow passengers to jump on board his campaign for a better bus service in Cork.

Fed up with late bus arrivals and no-shows, CIT student Sam McCormack, from Rochestown, is postering city bus stops asking passengers to log complaints with him at [e-mail], in the hope that passenger-power will lead to improvements in the service.

“Only last week, I was left standing with over 20 others on the South Mall for over an hour for the 216 bus, which never showed up. I was advised afterwards by Bus Éireann management that the service didn’t even run,” he said.

My local routes, the 223 and the 216, are the main offenders for me, but I’ve experienced most of the other services in Cork City, and they are really not much better most of the time. By putting up these posters, I wanted to raise awareness about the issues and encourage those who have to rely on the services to speak up. I have been compiling all the complaints and have handed them over to Bus Éireann management.

And while Dublin’s BusConnects plan advances, he criticised the National Transport Authority (NTA) for delays in the publication of the Cork Metropolitan Area Transport Strategy, which is expected to set out the development of a BusConnects plan in Cork.

“It seems as if Cork is being put to the side by the NTA. Our city deserves better,” said Mr McCormack.

Another bus user, Angela Harris, used Twitter to record several instances of no-shows, late arrivals and inaccurate “real-time passenger information” on the high-volume 220 and 220X Ballincollig to Crosshaven service in recent weeks, sparking a flood of responses from other bus users with similar experiences.

“The 220 and 220x routes have over 35,000 people along the route (according to the last Census) but it does not serve us adequately,” she said.

We simply want a reliable and frequent service to allow us to get to work, school and about without wasting hours over the course of a week waiting for buses that are either ridiculously late or simply vanish. The Minister for Transport, Shane Ross, needs to step up to the other part of his brief which he has been neglecting and work in conjunction with the NTA, Cork City and County Councils, Bus Éireann and us, the public, to get us out of our cars and using public transport.

Brendan Fehily was so annoyed with the 208 service which links Bishopstown to Mayfield via the city centre that he wrote to the Irish Examiner to complain.

Despite signs in the bus station saying buses should depart to Bishopstown every 10 minutes, Mr Fehily said that on December 13, he waited 20 minutes for a bus, before three arrived at the same time, with one displaying a “Sorry. Out of Service” sign.

Bus Éireann said it aims to reply to all complaints within 15 working days and that during October and November, 91% of all complaints nationwide were closed in that time period, and that the 220/220X attracts 44 complaints per 100,000 customer journeys, which is a “similar level to other high-volume routes”. But it said all services in the Cork urban area have been “impacted negatively” by increased traffic, with congestion varying depending on the time of day or day of the week.

It said the worst congestion delays for the 220/220X are in Douglas village, Douglas Road, the city centre, the Western Road, Model Farm Road and Ballincollig’s Main Street.

It also warned that unless more bus priority measures are introduced, buses will continue to be caught in delays: “In Cork City and suburbs, just 14.3km of the 625km of road network — or 2.2% — is bus lane. More bus priority measures are required to ensure reliability and punctuality. The St Patrick’s Street bus priority helps, but this is only a small part of the network, and operates for a limited time period each day.”

Major improvements to the 220/220X service are planned for early next year.