Number of Cork city bus trips set to drop by 872 per week

There will be 872 fewer bus journeys each week in Cork city under new Bus Éireann changes proposed for later this month.

Bus Éireann said the changes — involving service reductions in five of Cork’s most frequent bus routes, meaning there will be 152 fewer buses daily from Monday to Friday — will “improve reliability and punctuality”.

The 208 route, which ran every 10 minutes, will now run every 15 minutes, with 50 fewer journeys on the route daily as the service reduces from 192 bus journeys to 142, Monday to Friday.

On Saturday there will be 34 fewer buses, and on Sunday there will be 32 fewer, with the last bus to leave five minutes earlier each day.

There will be 152 fewer buses per day from Monday to Friday across the 202, 202a, 205, 208, and 220.

The 202 and 202a currently runs once every 20 minutes but will change to once every half an hour, going from 96 to 70 buses during the weekdays and 88 to 68 on Saturdays, with no changes on Sundays.

The last bus at night will also leave 15 minutes earlier — changing from 11.15pm to 11pm from October 20.

The 205 will go from running every 15 minutes to every 20 minutes, with its Monday to Friday service dropping from 122 buses a day to 100, though Saturday and Sunday will remain unchanged.

Finally, the 24-hour 220 route will see a reduction of 32 buses Monday to Friday and 14 on Saturdays, as the bus goes from every 15 minutes to every 20 minutes. Sunday will remain unchanged.

Driver recruitment

The service reductions have been made amid ongoing issues with driver recruitment for the company which, despite frequent recruitment drives, has spent over €0.5m in Cork to hire private coaches over the last 12 months.

A Bus Éireann spokesperson told The Echo: “These alterations are being made as a temporary measure to improve reliability and punctuality, with frequency returning to current levels as quickly as possible as driver recruitment increases.”

Sinn Féin Cork North Central TD Thomas Gould said the figures show that the bus crisis “is much worse than the NTA or Bus Éireann have admitted publicly”.

Nonsensical

“To see now that instead we are going to see services slashed on buses at times when they are already full is completely nonsensical. The timetables still do not reflect the reality of traffic in Cork with the 220 still given only 14 minutes to travel from Washington Street to MTU in rush hour traffic with 11 stops.

“These timetable reductions will not make the buses any more reliable. People who live on these routes will still have to leave earlier now.

“Instead of worrying that their bus won’t turn up, they’ll be worrying that it will be full! It’s robbing Peter to pay Paul.”

The new timetables are available on BusEireann.ie.