Long-standing issues with the Wexford to Dublin Airport bus, which services Wexford town, Enniscorthy, Gorey and Arklow, resurfaced on Thursday afternoon when approximately 20 passengers waiting on the 5.25pm service from Bus\u00e1ras were left stranded.<\/p>\n
With no announcement of a delay forthcoming, the departure board ticked over to show the 6.25pm service, before a Bus\u00e1ras employee approached passengers and explained that staff were in the dark as to the whereabouts of the 5.25pm and could not reach the control room.<\/p>\n
Returning five minutes later, he told passengers that the bus had never reached Dublin Airport and that the next service was running at least 15 minutes late, advising them to stay put \u201cjust in case\u201d, prompting one disbelieving commuter to say: \u201cWell, we might as well get our sleeping bags out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mary, who had arrived at Bus\u00e1ras at 4.45pm to \u201cmake sure she didn\u2019t miss it\u201d, said the lack of information was particularly galling, adding: \u201cI\u2019ve been waiting here over an hour and a half and I still have no idea when the bus is going to arrive.\u201d<\/p>\n
As 6.25pm came and went, the departure board updated to show the 7.25pm as the next service, eliciting a collective sigh from those waiting.<\/p>\n
After reassuring passengers that the 6.25pm was likely still on the way, and that the departure board updates automatically even if the previous service hasn\u2019t arrived, another commuter \u2013 who did not wish to be named \u2013 said the issues \u201cnever happen with Wexford Bus, because they are privately owned\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Expressway 2 bus finally arrived at Bus\u00e1ras just before 7pm, but customers were not given an apology or explanation.<\/p>\n
The ordeal renewed questions about the consistency of the service, which Bus \u00c9ireann had said in September last year was running above 98pc reliability, with a promise to reach 100pc by the new year through the allocation of additional drivers and buses.<\/p>\n
At that time, Wicklow-Wexford TD Malcolm Byrne raised concerns about the reliability of the service at a meeting with Bus \u00c9ireann management, where he was told the Expressway 2 service was operating at 89pc reliability until summer 2025, meaning that more than one in every 10 Route 2 buses was not showing.<\/p>\n
Asked for comment on Thursday\u2019s events, a Bus \u00c9ireann spokesperson confirmed that the 5pm Dublin Airport to Wexford bus was \u201ccurtailed due to a mechanical failure of the vehicle on the Wexford to Dublin route\u201d, with the service operating \u201cfrom Arklow to Wexford only\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll customers who pre-booked a seat on the 17:00 service received a customer notification at 16:37 notifying them that the service was only operating from Arklow to Wexford,\u201d the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was also a notification placed on the Bus \u00c9ireann website to notify customers. We sincerely apologise to customers affected by this curtailment and for the inconvenience caused to them.\u201d<\/p>\n
They also reminded customers to book online to ensure they receive notifications of service changes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Long-standing issues with the Wexford to Dublin Airport bus, which services Wexford town, Enniscorthy, Gorey and Arklow, resurfaced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":357308,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[27801,72,5718,61,60],"class_list":["post-357307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-bus-eireann","tag-business","tag-eoin-mac-raghnaill","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}