Bus Éireann's main services are in Ireland but they also provide services to Northern Ireland in association with Ulsterbus including: expressway (intercity), commuter, local and school services. Additional services within Ireland include city services in Cork, Galway, Limerick and Waterford and town services in Athlone, Balbriggan, Drogheda, Dundalk, Navan, Carlow and Sligo.
Bus Éireann operates international services to Great Britain and mainland Europe, via the ports at Dublin and Rosslare Europort. Cities served include London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds. These are operated under the Eurolines brand.
When the company was first established in February 1987, there were no bus services between Dublin and Belfast. The Dublin/Dublin Airport/Newry/Belfast route was initiated soon after and came to be jointly operated by Bus Éireann and Ulsterbus. Reasons for the route's expansion in the 1990s and 2000s included the economic boom in the Republic, known as the Celtic Tiger; the Northern Ireland peace process which helped boost the economy there, and the rise of the low-cost airline industry, which greatly increased the numbers of people flying in and out of Dublin Airport from both sides of the border. By the 2000s the route operated an hourly service, each way, from 06:00 to 21:00 daily. In October 2006, further services were introduced on the route, departing at 01:00, 03:00, 05:00, and 23:00, thus establishing the route as the first "24-hour inter-city bus service" in the country. In November 2020 the service was suspended indefinitely by Bus Éireann but the service is now operated by Translink although private companies continue to offer bus services between the two cities. These include Aircoach route 705X which operates between Dublin-Belfast-Derry.
A similar service to the Dublin-Belfast route was implemented on route 2 between Dublin Airport and Wexford, which started on 18 January 2009. Services departed Dublin Airport for Wexford on the hour from 05:00 to 23:00, with services during the night at 01:00 and 03:00. As of May 2022, no services exist on this route now between the hours of 00:00 and 06:00.
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Expressway
'Expressway' is a division of Bus Éireann that provides intercity services throughout the country serving most of the main airports and cities in Ireland.
It is a commercial part of the company which, unlike the local and city services, does not receive government funding to operate.
Bus Éireann has also introduced regular clockface schedules on popular Expressway routes, such as hourly services on the routes Dublin/Athlone/Galway, Tralee/Killarney/Cork/Waterford, Cork/Limerick/Shannon Airport/Galway.
In 2021 with the launch of a new ticketing system for Expressway services, tickets ceased being interchangeable between expressway operated routes and PSO (i.e. Bus Éireann-branded) routes.
Nightrider
Bus Éireann introduced a number of Dublin 'Nightrider' services in the early 2000s, offering special Friday and Saturday night buses for people departing the city centre to return to locations in the Greater Dublin Area. Over busy periods, the Nightrider could also be extended to operate six days a week, Mon-Sat (observed during the Christmas 2005 period), offering late-night transport options to the towns of Newbridge, Drogheda, Navan, Enfield and Wicklow. The route numbers on the Nightrider services were suffixed with an 'N' to denote their night status.
Route 101N operated from Dublin to Drogheda via Dublin Airport, Swords, Balrothery, Balbriggan, Gormanston Cross and Julianstown. The service left Dublin at 00:30 and 03:30 each Friday and Saturday night. At some point after the year 2013, the route was scrapped as the regular route 101 began to operate on a 24-hours a day basis, with the largest gap between departures being those at 01:30, 03:30 and 05:30.
Route 109N operated from Dublin to Kells via Dublin Airport, Ashbourne, Ratoath, Dunshaughlin and Navan. On 30 May 2017, Bus Éireann announced it would be discontinuing the route. They did however notify that an alternative service was available on route 109A which operates hourly throughout the night, 7 days per week, 364 days per year. Route 109A operates hourly between 00:30-05:30 whilst the daytime route 109 is inactive.
Route 126N operated from Dublin to Newbridge via Heuston Station, Inchicore, Newlands Cross, Citywest, Rathcoole Junction, Kill Junction and Naas. The service left Dublin at 00.30 and 03:30 each Friday and Saturday night. On 19 November 2018, Bus Éireann announced the termination of the route noting that costs to run the service were not being covered due to insufficient passenger numbers and it had been loss-making for some time. The operation of the daytime route 126 remained unaffected, but the last departure now left from Dublin at the earlier time of 23.00. In early December 2019 Go-Ahead Ireland took over operation of the route, and the National Transport Authority reinstated late night departures from the city. As of May 2022, route 126 caters for late-night passengers by departing from Connolly station (Mon-Sat) at the times of 00:05, 01:05 and 03:35.
Route 133N operated from Dublin to Wicklow town, incorporating the towns of Kilmacanogue, Newtownmountkennedy, Newcastle, Ashford and Rathnew. The service left Dublin at 00.30 and 03:00 each Friday and Saturday night. In October 2008, Bus Éireann cancelled the service, mentioning that the route was no longer commercially viable. Others blamed the poor passenger numbers on the lack of adequate promotion or advertisement on the part of Bus Éireann with many people not even knowing the service existed.
The Nightrider service was also extended to Cork city and its environs during Christmas and other high-capacity events such as the Cork Jazz Festival. The service was also extended to Galway city for a time in 2008, departing Eyre Square at 01:30 for Moycullen, 02.30 for Spiddal and 03.30 for the towns of Oranmore and Claregalway. In December 2010 during a period of cold weather, Nightrider services from Dublin to Drogheda, Meath and Kildare were cancelled due to icy conditions.
Real-time passenger information
RTPI is run by the National Transport Authority under the brand Transport for Ireland, a single portal providing information on public transport in Ireland.
Real-time information is available across most Bus Éireann services providing up-to-the-minute details about the arrival of a bus at a specific stop. It is calculated using the GPS location of a bus and is estimated and changed with current traffic conditions. Real-time information is available on the Bus Éireann website and via the Real Time Ireland App. Many stops across Ireland have real-time information that allows the customer to see exactly when the bus will arrive.
RTPI began to roll out across bus services in Ireland from 2011.
Bus Scoile
Bus Éireann operates "Bus Scoile" (Irish for 'school bus'), the school transport scheme, on behalf of the Department of Education. County Meath VEC assists Bus Éireann in administering the service in County Meath to all second-level schools. Bus Éireann is responsible for planning routes, employing bus drivers, collecting fares and ensuring compliance with safety regulations and insurance. For the 2023/2024 school year 161,000 students used the service.
The 'schools' services were formerly operated mostly by cascaded second-hand ex-frontline vehicles. Due to regulations regarding seatbelts, all dated and unsuited vehicles were withdrawn and replaced with second-hand vehicles (mainly from the UK). From 2006 to 2016, Bus Éireann purchased new buses from BMC, Euro Coach Builders Donegal, Alexander Dennis and TAM Motors Slovenia in 2016.
A number of the routes are outsourced to local bus companies such as Dunshaughlin Coach Hire, Jerry Ryan, O'Rourkes, Bernard Kavanaghs, Bartons, and James Mullally Coach Hire.
Fleet
As of January 2018, the fleet consists of 1,200 buses and coaches.
The company mainly uses buses built by firms such as Scania, VDL Berkhof and Volvo. Bus Éireann's fleet has been substantially invested in as part of the National Development Plan. The vast majority of the operating fleet for expressway, commuter, and local services are now five years old or less.
