Routes introduced under BusConnects among most often reported on no-show bus tracker

Twenty-year-old Libby Brennan said she loves university. 

She loves studying English literature, she says – it’s her commute from west Wicklow to University College Dublin (UCD) on the S6 bus that’s hard. 

“The bus causes so many tears. So many breakdowns. So many, just like, sick days from college,” said Brennan, who just finished her second year. 

"When the bus just drives past. There's nothing more devastating," she said. That’s when she misses class, she says.

She used to take the 175 bus to class, but that was replaced with the S6 in November 2023 as part of the BusConnects network redesign.

Since then, the service has gotten a lot worse, Brennan said. Other UCD students, a professor, and another teacher who take the bus regularly said the same. 

After the launch of noshowbus.ie in October 2024, to collect reports of ghost buses and cancelled buses, the S6 quickly became the most-reported. And an analysis of more than 2,600 reports received so far in 2025 shows it still tops the list – with 242.

The rest of the top 10 most-reported buses from 1 January to 5 August 2025, in order, were the 15, S8, 37, S4, 14, 16, W4, 123, and E1. Half of those – the S4, S6, S8, W4 and E1 – were introduced under BusConnects, and most of those are new orbital routes.

Asked about the top five most-reported routes, a spokesperson for the National Transport Authority (NTA) said it meets regularly with operators Dublin Bus and Go-Ahead Ireland to monitor performance and “identify routes requiring improvements in the punctuality and reliability of planned journeys”. 

“A number of routes, (Including those services outlined in your query), have been recently identified as requiring such improvements, these are planned to be rolled out sometime during Q4 of 2025, subject to operational readiness and availability of resources, including additional buses and drivers, where these are required,” he said.

The NTA is also working on two other major changes to its systems to try to eliminate ghost buses from Dublin, across both operators and all routes, the spokesperson said.

“It’s really, really bad”

In the meantime, Brennan, the UCD student, says she’s “given up on certain aspects of my college”. 

“Like, I kind of say, Thursdays aren't worth going in for," she said. “You lose the kind of inspiration.”

Getting to campus from west Wicklow takes hours, starting when her parents drive her about 45 minutes to the end of the route, in Tallaght. 

Getting back takes just as long, ending when her parents pick her up. Brennan feels bad for them, she says. Guilty. Because she’s always late.

“I feel like I'm a hassle and I'm a bother because I'm calling down, I'm saying, okay, the bus is due in 20 minutes, so I should be in Tallaght for X time,” she says. 

“And nearly always, I'm calling and saying, the bus hasn't shown up. I've been waiting here for however long, it hasn't shown up. I don't know when it's going to show up,” she says.

Not only is the S6 bus always unreliable, but it can be very competitive to get onto, she said. She avoids getting it between 3:30pm and 7pm, she said, it’s too hostile. 

“It is people pushing and shoving, because that's the only bus that's been there for an hour and a half,” Brennan said. “And it's really, really bad.” 

“Like, everyone has multiple bags, because most people are playing sports, or they're going to have friends, or they're commuting like myself. And it literally might be that you are begging the bus driver to let you on, And he's like, ‘No, I can't take any more.’”

Plans for improvements

Thomas O'Connor, assistant general secretary of the National Bus and Rail Union (NBRU), points out that the S6 is operated by Go-Ahead Ireland. 

So are other buses in the top 10 most-reported on noshowbus.ie: the S8, S4, and W4. 

“They're a multinational company, and their first priority is profit,” O’Connor said. 

The company is understaffed because they do not offer attractive-enough supports to drivers and mechanics, O’Connor said, and that results in buses that don’t run. 

Six of the top-10 most-reported buses on noshowbus.ie are operated by Dublin Bus, which has long struggled with recruitment and retention of drivers. 

As the bus operators deal with their staffing issues, the NTA says it is working with them on revising the route timetables.

Ghost buses occur “when the Operator does not cancel a planned service with enough time in advance for the Real Time Passenger Information (RTPI) system to pick it up”, the NTA spokesperson said. 

So the bus continues to appear on the apps and on the digital signs at the bus stops, and the minutes tick down to zero but the bus never shows. 

To tackle this, so that would-be passengers can at least know for sure whether a bus is coming or not, and if so when – the NTA “is currently in the final stages of introducing an entirely new implementation of the RTPI system”, the spokesperson said. 

“This involves examining performance of bus antennas (in how they acquire satellites), electrical cabling on older buses, operational practices in terms of service cancellations, driver logon practices, and data analytics to identify black spots in communications and associated factors that are leading to inaccuracies in the data,” he said.  

“Various initiatives are being taken, including the installation of replacement antennae on about 200 buses during this summer period in order to address these identified communication difficulties,” he said.

Also, the NTA “is in the advanced stage of a major project to install a single new AVL (Automatic Vehicle Location) system that will replace the five disparate systems currently in use”, he said.  

The NTA in December 2023 awarded a €68.5 million contract to Trapeze Group UK Ltd to bring in a new automatic vehicle location (AVL) system.

“This project will begin to come on stream next year and will ensure a single source of real time data in a single data feed and in a single consistent format including the provision of better arrival time prediction algorithms,” the NTA spokesperson said on Tuesday. “This will lead to better quality information being made available to customer.”

Cost-benefit calculations

Twenty-one-year-old UCD student Louise Irving says she, like Brennan, also finds her commute on the S6 anxiety-inducing because of how unreliable it is. 

It’s early, it’s late, it doesn’t come. The schedule doesn’t match reality, she said. This is every day.

So, even though she lives just 8km from campus, she said she leaves at least an hour and a half early.

“I felt like I was leaving earlier every single time to try to get in. And I still wasn't getting in,” she said.

It affects her school work at UCD, her job, her social life, and her stress levels, Irving says.

She is haunted by one exam experience, she says. She had left hours early, she said, and managed to make a bus so she barely made it – but she was the last one allowed on. “I remember, like, genuinely feeling like I was gonna have a panic attack”

Others behind her told the driver they had exams, she said, but he said it was full. 

“So since that, anytime now, doesn’t matter how prepared I am for an exam. Doesn't matter how early I'm leaving for the exam. I get like, sick, twisted pains in my stomach. Because I'm remembering that,” she says.

Yes, she could drive or cycle to college, she says. 

But driving is really expensive. Plus she studies sustainability, and it’s not sustainable. 

As for cycling, she doesn’t feel safe on the roads, she carries a lot with her to campus, and the weather is often bad.

UCD lecturer Keith Wilson, who also used to rely on the S6, says he has made the switch to cycling. 

Hearing about the students’ experiences, he said he empathised. “I do know that we have a lot of – we have an issue with attendance, that a lot of students are not showing up,” he said.

“Obviously, as their professor, I want them to come in and I, you know, it's – I would advise them to go to everything,” Wilson said. “But students are being forced, I think, to make these kind of cost-benefit decisions about what should they attend, and what's the optimal way to use their time.” 

“If that's just a one hour lesson, and they don't have anything else that day, or they don't have anything else that morning, as you say, it's not, it's not worth a four hour round trip for them,” he said.

“And you know, it's not only the bus service that's affecting that,” he said. “It's also the high price of housing. But it doesn't help.”

Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.