Secret bus timetables in Dublin

[Springs Branch]

Not sure whether this question should go into the Buses & Coaches or Trip Planning forum, but here goes . . .

I was recently looking to plan a bus journey in Ireland, involving a route operated by Dublin Bus.

Specifically, I want to travel between the centre of Dublin and Chapelizod, just to the west of Phoenix Park. It was easy to determine that I needed bus route 26.

I decided to confirm the 26's frequency & operating hours, so went to 'the horse's mouth' and checked the timetable on the official Dublin Bus website.

This website seems to operate on some kind of 'need to know' basis - and since I'm having the cheek to research this from Australia, I obviously don't need to know! See attachment.



A step back plus a couple of clicks and I can access the full 26 schedule easily on bustimes.org, or Moovit, or via the transit function on Google Maps (it's every 15 mins M-Sa / 20min Su, until 23:30-ish - but shh, keep this info to yourself!)

• Anyone know why a workaday utility like a big city bus operator needs to go to the trouble of blocking basic info requests from outside Ireland?
• Does Dublin Bus feel particularly vulnerable to overseas hackers? I can look up Irish Rail timetables on their website with no problem.
• Does any other major bus operator block access like this?
  (I have a vague memory of once finding one while participating in the forum's 'International Transport Game' but can't remember where it was. One of the Baltic states, maybe?)
• Does Dublin Bus only allow access to its timetables from UK and/or EU IP addresses?

 

[johncrossley]

Transport for Ireland should be the default place to look for information these days. Dublin Bus no longer have a monopoly of city bus services, as several routes have been put out to competitive tender.

 

[berneyarms]

That's very odd - it has to be something that they overlooked.

You can see the full stop-by-stop timetables on www.bustimes.org in any case.

I've attached the route 26 timetable. Note that at night, the C5 and C6 services also serve Chapelizod which I've attached too.

 

[northken]

One small piece of advice: don’t use Google Maps for public transport journey planning in Ireland, as it’s been out of date for months now.

 

[delt1c]

Have you tried using a VPN

 

[berneyarms]

Use the journey planner at www.transportforireland.ie to plan journeys - as above google maps is months out of date.

 

[Springs Branch]

I've attached the route 26 timetable.

Thanks for that. That's just what I'd hoped to find at www.dublinbus.ie - all the info I needed within a 5 second glance.

Use the journey planner at www.transportforireland.ie to plan journeys

Unfortunately another niggle trying this approach from Australia. I enter a plausible time for travel - say 10:00am - and the journey planner helpfully makes some sort of time zone correction for me and shows buses as running around 03:00am the next day. It isn't even the correct time zone calculation. Lucky the 26 bus operates at a turn-up-and-go frequency.

Have you tried using a VPN

I know I need a VPN for some stuff like streaming the BBC from overseas, but didn't expect all that malarkey to view a simple city bus timetable.

 

[pm2304877]

Although not Dublin but the subject of secret timetables . A decade or so ago I asked Merseytravel about their 800 series industrial routes. The reply was "We don't publicise them". Ergo no one uses them so we can cancel them.l in other words. Thank goodness that policy has been scrapped !