Calls for NTA to review Ashbourne bus service

An Ashbourne resident frustrated by frequent cancellations, delays and no shows on the 103 bus service from Ashbourne to Dublin is calling for a review to be carried out by the National Transport Authority (NTA) similar to that recently announced for the NX service on the Navan-Dublin bus corridor.

Eimear Michaels has blasted the unreliability of the service and says it is a daily issue at this stage. She regularly uses the service to commute but says her daughter, like many others, relies on it on a daily basis to get to work in Dublin city centre. Like many other commuters, they have frequently found themselves waiting at bus stops for buses that either get cancelled last minute or just don't turn up.

On Friday morning, Eimear told how she needed to use the 103 to get to work and intended to get the 8.45am bus from Ashbourne. When she checked the app at 8.30am, it showed the 8.45am was cancelled, the 9.04am was scheduled and the 9.25am was cancelled.

“I was at the bus stop to get the 9.04am bus but it never showed up. I had to get my husband to stop work and drop me to Finglas and get a bus from there, because there was not another bus scheduled until close to 10am.

“As you can imagine this is extremely stressful. It's a daily occurrence and the NTA have not been able to give me any good answer to how they plan to address this.”

Eimear welcomed the NTA's consultation and proposed improvements to the Navan-Dublin bus corridor and says the same must to be done for Ashbourne.

“Despite being the second largest town in Meath, one of the fastest growing commuter towns in the county and having no rail link or alternative high-capacity transport option, Ashbourne is not currently included in any similar review or consultation process.

“At the same time, residents are dealing with reliability issues on the 103 bus service, including frequent last-minute cancellations, often notified only moments before scheduled departure; services disappearing from the TFI app with little or no explanation; passengers being left stranded with no contingency or communication; and no visibility on the causes of cancellations or any recovery plan.”

By contrast, she said the Navan corridor is now benefiting from a formal NTA-led review and public consultation, a data-led redesign of services, planned increases in capacity and frequency and defined timelines for implementation.

Local Cllr Helen Meyer has supported the call for a review and has also pointed out that despite the fact that 1,000 new houses are coming on stream in Ashbourne this year, not a single additional service has yet been put on to cater for the increased demand.

Cllr Meyer said Sinn Féin had met with the NTA in December in Leinster House to highlight all the new houses coming on steam and to ask about increasing capacity but nothing has been done. She also pointed out that buses at peak times are often already full when they leave Ratoath and there needs to be a Ratoath service that bypasses Ashbourne and then other buses that come though Ashbourne.

Cllr Meyer also said there are regular breakdowns and often a coach is sent in place of a double decker but these don't have the same capacity and are not accessible for someone in a wheelchair, citing a recent incident where a wheelchair user was left in the rain to wait for the next bus as the coach couldn't accommodate her.

She added that she had requested for the NTA to come to the Ashbourne MD meeting and to full council meeting and motions were passed to this effect but they had not yet replied.

Bus Eireann and the NTA have been contacted for comment.