The DART

Imagine this scenario for the DART, you are a tourist from Germany. You've just seen the book of Kells and decide to get the train out to Dun Laoghaire on the DART, and you are close to Pearse St. DART station. So far so good, you as the tourist buys a return ticket to Dun Laoghaire. You then walk up to the sign trying to figure out which is north and which is south bound, while it's nice to have the sign before you walk up, sometimes you just make a mess of it. So you walk up to the platform and assume that you are on the correct platform. You get on the train, and behold! you are on the wrong train! because you didn't pay attention.

What can the DART do to make the system much more usable? Add a sign with on it, on each platform and at each station pointing to the next station and put the names on it. That would help tourists and users who don't use the system often a lot. It's bad to assume everyone knows which direction is North and which is South and where everything is.

Dublin Bus

Full disclosure, I haven't regularly gotten the bus in a long time now.

While those fancy new digital displays are cool and fancy. You'd think they could have done some useful things like perhaps put maps at all bus stops or at key bus stops if it is too expensive, put a list or a schematic of where the lines are going, where the stops are, but more importantly if there is an intersection of buses mark it clearly on the map or list.

It could even be a simple schematic of a few bus lines with key points of where routes might intersect, cross over. There are times where I want to get a connecting bus to somewhere, but most of the time, I have no idea where to interchange and what routes go where. Listing key stops on the bus stops may be of use to locals who know the area, but for someone just visiting, it's pretty useless without a map.

Also, what is with the the silly stage system of charging users, are they still doing that? I never know how many stages I need to get, and can I be sure that the bus driver is clued in enough to figure it out and not over/under charge me. Why can't there just be a flat rate or zoned rates to simplify things?

Loop lines for buses (and trams and trains)

Another useful thing that could be done, which some commuters might appreciate is to create a loop line. Perhaps do something sensible like create a loop line that connects the two Luas lines? There is now a smart card system, so offer people a discounted ride if they tag on and off the loop line when connecting to the Luas lines. You could apply the same approach with Connolly station and Heuston station. Those old City Imp buses would be perfect to shuttle people around quickly on a few loop lines.

This brings me to the next point, why the Luas wasn't joined in the first place? Seriously, I need to walk 30mins between the two lines? sigh I guess it's just a dream to expect that all these transport systems will work together to provide a better service. It shouldn't be that hard to do a few simple things to provide a better transport network.

Now a happily married man, I need to make a new year's resolution!

• Get back into the swing of posting stuff, I have months worth of Windmill Lane graffiti pictures to post.
• Take more photos!
• Spend more time doing stuff to make me and the wife happy.
• Eat more vegetables.
• Bake more bread.
• Read more.
• Learn how to brew beer.
• Perhaps really learn go when it goes stable.
• Install Linux on my mac, I'm beginning to really miss Linux and being able to change and fix things as I see fit.

There's probably more stuff, but let's be realistic, I'm lazy :P

I should have done this long ago, I should have separated the technical rants, commentaries and other technical things that aren't personal to me to another blog. I thought it might be an interesting experience to setup a new blog at http://jcftang.github.com, just go there for more random mutterings which you may or may not agree with. It's just an experiment for now to see how much I like or dislike publishing in something other than this.

It's my yearly trip to the GNIB offices to get my stamp to legally allow me to stay in Ireland to work. Though this time it was less frustrating that previous years.

I arrived at 8am on the dot and queued up to get a ticket, I got number 30. Thankfully they were processing approximately 1 person per minute. I got to see a representative of the GNIB by ~8:40, showed him my documentation, paid my 150e in processing fees. I then proceeded to wait till 10:10am before I got my passport and GNIB card back.

Hopefully I won't need to do this next year when (if) I get naturalised.

Related posts:

What 2011 holds for me in work, naturalisation and marriage
Posted Thu Jan 6 07:17:50 2011

State of the Irish Banks
Posted Fri Dec 31 00:10:36 2010

Another year another GNIB card
Posted Thu Oct 7 08:49:39 2010

How long does it take to get naturalised in Ireland?
Posted Sun Feb 28 20:52:09 2010

Otaku and in Ireland?
Posted Thu Feb 18 19:30:59 2010

After many years of doing work as a Systems Administrator on High Performance Computing Systems and providing support/development work; I have now changed roles to being a software engineer. This will be interesting as I will get to learn new things and expand on what I know already. I'll have to put down those old fashioned tools I used to use and now use more modern ones!