Bus service ‘a joke’, say Cork commuters

Cork city buses made people late for work, college, driving lessons, and visiting a sick family member in hospital, complaints have shown, with one passenger saying she had to spend her lunch money on a taxi to work, and still ended up being late.

Complaints about the Cork city bus service from May to October 2024 made to the National Transport Authority were provided to The Echo on foot of a freedom of information (FOI) request.

The data shows that 26% of complaints referred to the route 214 (CUH to Glanmire), and 23% were about the 220 (Ovens to Fort Camden via Carrigaline), with 14% about the 215 and 12% referring to the 207. There were smaller percentages of complaints made about the 203, 205, 206, 208, 202, and 225 routes.

People described the bus service as “appalling and unreliable”, with one person saying they take the 214 five days a week “and almost every day a bus to or from the city is cancelled, late, or a no-show. Often when the bus does eventually show, there will be one after another, which is useless to those using the service”.

Another had a similar complaint, writing that “the 203 bus again did not show up, the 9.28 arrived at 9.54, along with the next bus, travelling together. Ridiculous for two buses to travel in tandem when one is meant to be there 26 minutes earlier.”

One person said that they “stood at bus stop for over 40 mins waiting on 208 with three kids. No bus came, and we had to walk home.”

Another said: “They’ve cancelled the last three buses 202 and 202A. After a long day working (standing), I have to walk more than 40 minutes to my house because there aren’t buses.”

One customer said: 

“Today, three 215 bus services to Blarney (17:21, 17:49, and 18:23) from AIB South Mall failed to show up, leaving passengers, which included elderly individuals and children, standing and waiting for almost two hours.”

Some outlined that, along with long waits, there was inaccurate information regarding when the bus would arrive.

“I queue for the Cork 220 at Grand Parade on June 1 at 19:00. The info at bus was bus to arrive in 3 min, at 19:05 it said 4 min, at 19:10 it said 3 min, at 19:15 it said 3 min. Bus arrived at 19:22.”

Another wrote: “The bus scheduled for 8:28 didn’t pass. Bus announced for 8:58 didn’t pass. And it’s always like that. Are you planning to do anything to have bus on time? Traffic is not responsible since two cars passed in the last 30 minutes.”

Many of the people said they depend on the bus to get to work, with one saying that the 205 “is consistently late or does not arrive at all, forcing me to have to get a taxi to make it to work on time. I leave my house at 5:25 and it takes me over two hours to get to work due to the absolute joke of a public transport infrastructure in Cork city.”

Another complainant said: 

“This morning I was waiting at bus stop for almost an hour waiting for a bus to take me to the city centre for work. At 9.50am, I had to order a taxi as I knew at this stage I was going to be late. I had to pay the taxi €20.30 to get to work. Now I was late for work so I am going to be docked. I actually didn’t have food today as that was my lunch money.”

They continued: “The bus service in Cork is a joke, you never know if a bus is going to turn up or not. I always leave well on time as you never know when the bus will turn up but it’s getting worse. I lived in Galway for a year and the bus service was fantastic, I actually don’t think there is a bus service worse than Cork.”

Another person wrote: “I don’t want to be late for work anymore. For the last two days, there has been no bus from Cork city to Carrigaline between 8-9am. We have been waiting for the bus at Broadale stop for minimum 30-40 minutes.”

Another said of the 214: “Having continually to call a taxi to ensure that I am not late for work is unfair to say the least. The trust has been badly damaged and nothing is being done to resolve this. The amount of anger you can witness at the various bus stops ... there does not seem to be a plan to resolve the situation.”

The 214 was the subject of more than one in four complaints. One person wrote: “I can go on all day about how much I depend on the bus and how many times it has left me stranded or late for work, causing a serious financial impact, as I have to get taxis constantly.”

Another said: “I was waiting for the 214 which, according to TFI Live, was to arrive in four minutes. That bus did not come and disappeared from the listing. Subsequently the next three buses are listed as cancelled. Four missed services in a row is ridiculous. Why is your timetable so unreliable?”

Many complainants said that they were late for other important arrangements, with one writing that the 214 bus drove straight past them after they had waited 15 minutes: “I needed to be in CUH to take over the care of my special needs brother who is in hospital there.”

“I am so furious, I am in tears. My brother is waiting for me and I now have to hope the next bus in 40 minutes will stop. Yet again this bus has let me down. I went out to the bus stop with 10 minutes to spare. The bus after this is also cancelled, forcing me to wait for the bus after that.

“What an embarrassing service. This is not my first complaint and I have yet to see an improvement, so I will continue to send complaints until something changes — I expect to be sending a lot of complaints.”

One person wrote one day, at 14.45: “I have been waiting for the bus line 214 since 13:50 and it has not arrived so far. My appointment for a driving lesson supposed to start at 14:30, plenty of time to be there if the bus had followed the timetable. I am going to miss it and lose €40 I had paid for having it.”

One person wrote, after waiting an hour and 10 minutes: “I will now miss my connecting and only bus to Castletownbere as a result of this.”

One passenger, outlining ongoing issues with the 207, said: “On two separate occasions this week, the bus was scheduled to arrive but did not show up. This lack of reliability is a major concern, particularly for those of us who depend on public transport for commuting, attending appointments, and other essential activities.”

Many had questions of the bus service, such as one customer, who complained after being 20 minutes late to work one day and having to spend €35 on a taxi the next: “Do you even care that you can’t run a service?”

Another person asked: “Why don’t you provide decent public transport, without delays? You make passengers angry waiting for a bus that never arrives on time, old buses, smelling of mould.”

Another said: “I thought we were all being encouraged to switch from cars to public transport? The budget to run an efficient service is there, but something somewhere is going very wrong.”

Further data provided to The Echo on foot of an FOI request showed that more than 150 complaints were made about Cork city buses to the National Transport Authority from October 2024 to May this year, with just over 1,353 complaints made in total.

The Echo contacted Bus Éireann for comment.