D The bus will arrive in 7 minutes, promises the electronic display board at the stop in Dublin city center. No problem, the theater performance doesn’t start for three quarters of an hour and it takes a maximum of 20 minutes by bus. 7 minutes later the bus disappears from the scoreboard. It was one of the Irish capital’s infamous ghost buses.
The two operators, the state-owned Dublin Bus and the private company Go Ahead, have interesting excuses for the phenomenon. It is due to the lack of mechanics and the real-time passenger information system is already 15 years old. Back then, the technology was obviously not that advanced, and buses could disappear.
That is still unacceptable, says Transport Minister Darragh O’Brien. The unreliability of public transport is a “big frustration” for him. “From time to time it happens that drivers become ill. This can happen, but the increasing prevalence of ghost buses is a major concern.” It undermines the government’s efforts to get the daily chaos on Dublin’s streets under control.
According to a report, Dublin is the 11th busiest city in the world. The M50 ring motorway often becomes the largest parking lot in Europe in the afternoon. Drivers in the capital spent an average of 95 hours in traffic jams in 2025, an increase of 32 percent compared to 2023. In Europe, Dublin ranks third in traffic jam statistics behind Paris and London.
A spokeswoman for the Department for Transport said encouraging the switch from private cars to public transport was therefore a “key priority”. The government will invest in a “significant number of transformative projects” over the next five years. It should start at the beginning of February, said Mr. Shakespeare, the head of Dublin City Council.
His famous namesake once wrote in the play “The Merry Wives of Windsor”: “Where money leads, all paths are open.” The city councilor Shakespeare, on the other hand, uses the many billions to close all routes – at least for cars in the city center. This is actually commendable because, among other things, it will make it easier to cross streets on foot, Shakespeare hopes: “Currently, many people have to cross a large, wide street to get to public transport.” But what’s the point if they get safely to the other side of the street and then get screwed by the scoreboard?
The next bus, which is promised to us on this display board, also disappears into the black hole. Now the theater visit won’t work, we’ll miss Macbeth. What a tragedy!