r/Dublin • u/rajanrahulraj • Dec 06 '25

Is Dublin Bus 7, 7A the worst route?

I’ve been in Dublin for about 3.5 years now and use Dublin Bus daily, across a bunch of different routes as I’ve moved around the city. Out of everything I’ve tried, the 7/7A has easily been the most unreliable: it’s late more often than not, when it isn’t just outright cancelled.

Any time I contact Dublin Bus support, the response is basically “services may be disrupted due to unforeseen circumstances”, which doesn’t really explain how this particular route seems to have “unforeseen circumstances” on what feels like most days, while plenty of other routes manage to run far more smoothly.

Is there any way to get historical reliability data per route from a government source or TFI, or has anyone seen route-level stats on cancellations and delays? I’m curious if frequent disruptions on specific routes have ever actually been investigated.

And yeah, it probably comes across as a bit of a rant, but I’m genuinely trying to figure out whether others have the same experience and whether there’s anything useful that I can do from a software/tech perspective to analyse or even help reduce these disruptions.

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12

u/ariafen Dec 07 '25

27 is the most cancelled route according to the data

4

u/helloraphone Dec 06 '25

The problem with 7/7A is that the buses don’t have an actual GPS system so we can track it, because they’re really old. But yeah, from my experience, they can be either accurate or 100% out of their official time.

3

u/Outspoken_Idiot Dec 07 '25

https://bustimes.org/services/7-rathmichael-brides-glen-bus-stop-summerhill-dubl

The buses are tracked with GPS built into the radio system.

Some buses are old but all should have the radio system.