Tere!
Here is a summary of public transport in Ireland. Besides the transporate I am going to mention here, there is a coach called Bus Eireann or long-distance trains in Ireland. However, the transport that I am going to mention here are only those I used in real life or I considered using, which are mainly transports in Dublin.
Table of Contents
1. Dublin Leap card
2. Apps you can use in Dublin
a. Dublin bus app
b. Journey Plan app
3. Public transport in Dublin
a. How to take a Dublin bus
b. How to take Luas
c. How to take DART
4. Taxis
a. Bolt
b. FREE NOW
5. GoCar
★Summary
1. Dublin Leap card
If you seem to use public transport in Dublin , you should probably count how many times you may use public transport, and how much you may need to pay during your stay in Dublin, beforehand.
Leap cards are used by the locals, and it’s available among the travellers too.
When I travelled to Dublin in 2019, I was visiting places where an Irish movie “Sing Street” was shot, and I had some other visits, so I bought a Leap card valid for 72 hours. It cost 16 EUR.
This time on the trip to Ireland in JUne, 2022, I bought a 24-hour Leap for 8 EUR. Only I bought, who knew that the frequency of using public transport is high enough. My boyfriend didn’t buy a Leap card.
2. App you can use in Dublin
When you move around by using public transport in Dublin, the following apps may be useful.
a. Dublin bus app
The UI is antique, and it looks the same as in 2016, and yet it does still work.
However, you shouldn’t trust any timetables basically. It’s always delayed. (Or maybe I should say it doesn’t follow the timetables. It looks like no one cares about the time as the Dublin buses’s speed is too fast.)
On the other hand, it’s still useful when the Journey Plan app below doesn’t suggest any good routes, or when you look for bus numbers.
b. Journey Plan app
The Journey Plan app is more recent. The UI is up-to-date, and yet the suggestion isn’t that good. However, basically it’s an OK level, so not problematic.
If you are a bit worried, compare the suggestions from the app and from Google maps.
3.Public transport in Dublin
Since Dublin’s public transport has some characteristics, I summarise in this section.
a. How to take a Dublin bus
On a Dublin bus, they accept only Leap or cash. If you don’t know this, you may need to use a five-euro note or even more than that for one drive.
This is because they don’t give changes.
If you want to take a Dublin bus, you need to show that you want to get on when the bus is approaching you. Otherwise they don’t stop in front of you. Also if there is no one to take on, the Dublin buses just keep going without stopping. (Plus the speed is very fast. 😂)
When riding on the Dublin bus, and tell the driver where you want to go, they tell you how much it costs. It cost 2.60 EUR from Dublin airport to the city centre of Dublin (as of June in 2022).
My boyfriend, who doesn’t like buses, doesn’t use buses even in Tallinn. Besides, since it was a different country, he had no idea how to get on the Dublin bus. (Of course.) Plus, since I brought a bunch of coins, I paid for him, and he got on the Dublin bus by using my Leap. Therefore, everything went smoothly.
Since buses require passengers a faster speed than any other public transport, it might be profound for beginners. However, since you can calculate fares in advance, if the environment is well enough, you can prepare cash, particularly coins. (I did before going to Ireland as an exchange student. Thanks to it, everything went smoothly.)
On the Dublin bus, you need to get on from the front door, and get off from the back door. Don’t mix this.
b. How to take Luas
Luas means “fast” in Irish. However the real speed is as “fast” as bicycles. 😂 It’s basically a tram, and yet it’s easy to take one.
There is a Leap card-reading machine at Luas stops, so Leap card holders just need to read the Leap cards there. If it makes a sound, it’s OK.
Given that you need to buy a ticket, you can buy one at a Luas stop. You can pay by card, so no cash is needed.
You can get on and off at any door.
In Dublin, you should buy a Luas ticket. It’s really random to get inspected. Unless you have any tickets, you will be kicked out from Luas. (I’m not sure if they really charge fines. This point is the same as Tallinn.)
c. How to take DART
DART is a Dublin train. You can use it when you go to Dún Laoghaire. Aviva Stadium’s nearest stop/station was DART. Given that you travel around only in the centre of Dublin, you may not need to use it.
With a Leap card, you can get on DART easily too.
Since my boyfriend didn’t need to go anywhere by DART, I don’t know how to buy tickets at a DART station…
By the way, some Dublin buses have USB charging ports, and yet DART doesn’t have any. (At that time, my phone charge was very low, and I wished there had been.)
4. Taxis
We used taxis in Dublin too. I usually don’t use taxis wherever I am. However, we had no choice but to use a taxi at some point in Dublin.
a. Bolt
Bolt is from Estonia, and yet we could use it in Ireland too. Therefore I didn’t need to download any other taxi app additionally ,which was a good point. (Eventually I did though.)
In Estonia, when taking Bolt, the fare is shown in the app, and when getting off, the price never goes high or lower than that. If it shows 5 EUR, the final price is 5 UER.
However, in Ireland, even if you used Bolt, they used a metre system, so the app showed the price range.
In fact, when we used the Bolt taxi, it was more expensive than the shown price range.
Because of that, I thought “I probably won’t want to use Bolt again even if I need to use a taxi again.”
b. FREE NOW
FREE NOW seems to be used in other countries including Ireland. However, it’s not available in Estonia, so even though you can download the app, you can’t use it in Estonia.
FREE NOW was like Bolt Ireland, and it showed the price range. FREE NOW’s price range was more trustable. I eventually paid the cost between the actual price range.
Therefore, from my experience, if you want to use a taxi in Ireland, perhaps FREE NOW is better than Bolt.
By the way, when I lived in Dublin in 2015 and 2016, Uber was the only option. Has Uber gone anymore? Anyways, in the first place, I deleted the Uber app from my phone… (a long time ago.)
5. GoCar
GoCar is an Irish car sharing service. There are different cars. Although it’s not that common in general in Ireland, AT is available there too.
Due to this fact, we planned to use GoCar to travel to Ireland, and yet I found that the driver’s verification might take 48 hours one week before the trip. Because of my occupation, Compliance verifies sometimes manually, so if there are lots of registrations, it would take a longer time than it’s written there, I thought. Therefore, I immediately shared that information with my boyfriend, but
he registered on the first day in Ireland…
I thought:
You didn’t check my message properly.
😂
Of course it took more than 48 hours to get verified.
(I thought like that because I was able to guess thanks to my occupation. However, from a pure customer’s perspective, taking more than 48 hours may be unexpectable. In the web page, they mention “We try to verify within 48 hours”. My friend A’s husband also said “They verify within 48 hours”, so they cannot guess. Of course people tend to take it as written because in any page it was written “it may take more than 48 hours”.)
Eventually the car rental was cheaper, and the trip style was that we decided where to go right before going, and this is why the car rental cost more cheaply. If you have a determined destination, and the route is determined too, then car sharing may be cheaper in my opinion.
★Summary
When going to Irelna, I wanted to take aDublin bus at least once, so I was happy to take one. As for Luas, it is easy for travellers, but boring for Dublin bus fans. 😂 This is just because the Dublin buses have two floors! (In the Continent, long buses are more common, but the two-floor buses are more fun to ride, and I think it needs less space.)
I would encourage you to try Dublin buses!
Aitäh! 🙂
zooks.ee 
