Bus trips promoted despite teething issues on new route

BUS Éireann is encouraging passengers to take the bus to explore the Wild Atlantic Way in the south this summer, despite a number of issues having arisen over the recently introduced Skibbereen to Killarney route.

‘With the summer holiday season in full swing we would like to encourage our passengers to take some of the stress out of their holiday plans,’ said Aled Williams, Bus Éireann’s senior operations manager for the south.  ‘Travelling by bus to the Wild Atlantic Way is the ideal way to spend your journey. Our services are frequent, with Intercity connections linking passengers to West Cork and Kerry seven days a week,’ he added.

But the launch of the campaign comes just days after The Southern Star reported two separate incidents involving the new 270 route from Skibbereen to Killarney. In the first instance, a lunchtime bus from Killarney was a no-show, while the following weekend the Transport for Ireland (TFI) app showed the same bus as ‘cancelled’. Bus Eireann later said this was an error on the app and the bus had, in fact, shown up on time.

When this second incident was posted on the Star’s social media sites, a user commented: ‘I went to drop a teenager to the bus that was due to leave Bantry for Skibbereen at 1.50pm on Sunday July 30th. It pulled away at 1.44pm as another bus pulled up behind it that needed space. We ran behind it waving our arms but the driver didn’t stop. We caught up with it as it drove into Skibbereen so it would have passed all the other stops way ahead of time. I was so frustrated. We really need this route to stick around but it’s not a good start.’

Local TD Deputy Christopher O’Sullivan (FF), who had earlier welcomed the new route, said it was a shame these issues had since arisen.

 ‘This is a new route and sometimes new routes take time to bed in,’ he added, ‘but I will be contacting Bus Éireann and TFI to enquire as to how these miscommunications and cancellation have come about and hopefully over time the route will run smoothly and will be reliable.’