Dublin Bus' night service is called Nitelink, and is put on for the partygoes who stay out till very, very late (Friday and Saturday are the big nights to go out in Dublin, but Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are pretty busy as well). While Dubliners may complain about late buses and awful service from the drivers, it's good to see that Dublin Bus' advertisers have a sense of humour. Their Nitelink buses have allegedly been running amusing campaigns like these for the last two or three years. <Go to http://chrisdowding.blogspot.com/>

In a way, the advertising campaign is a brilliant way of saving money. Why put on more services or friendly drivers, when a good advertisement might keep the passengers from thinking about how late they are?

Sadly though, it's clear that Dublin Bus remains the inefficient hopeless service that it was when I lived there in 2002. See this blog (April 2008) from a passenger:

"This morning i was getting on a 145 in stillorgan. The bus in question didnt even have 1 person standing up. I was just about to enter my ticket into the machine when the bus driver started screaming and i quote "get off the bus, get off the bus" "we are full!!! I said GET OFF". (There was only me left to get on-how much space can one person take up?) At half eight in the morning tell me who could put up with that." <Go to http://busrage.com/forum/topic/5304#post-5348>

When Kerryn and I lived in Dublin, bus drivers drove past frantically waving people standing at different bus stops (in the rain). The bus services were always running late, and to make up time, some drivers would shortcut their route. This cut several minutes from their time, but it also cut several passengers off from their intended destination!

It's true that passengers say thanks as they pass the driver to get off a Dublin bus, but in my case this was short for 'Thanks, driver for not abusing me' or 'thank God I'm still alive.'