About 75 per cent extra bus capacity has been hired by Bus Eireann to cope with the anticipated rise in customer demand this bank holiday weekend.
A spokesman for the company said more than 100 private coaches had been hired just to take passengers from Dublin. Busaras usually ran 150 coaches over the August weekend, he said. "The main thing is that everyone will be carried and extra buses have been laid on every route around the country."
Though it was not possible last night to give an accurate indication of how many more passengers than usual were travelling by bus as a result of the train dispute, the spokesman said the company would be carrying about 100,000 passengers on Expressway and provincial services this weekend.
"It was exceptionally busy in Busaras," he said as the bank holiday weekend rush began yesterday. "It started to peak at about 4 o'clock and until about 6.30 it was quite hectic.
"There were problems especially because of the traffic congestion around the bus station. It meant buses were late coming in, so people queueing for the 5.30 bus were late getting off and getting in the way of the queue for the 6 o'clock bus."
He said stations around the State were similarly busy, and he expected all routes to be "very busy" again today and through the weekend. He advised people to arrive early for their chosen departure.
Services will run on normal weekday timetables today, with additional buses on every route. Tomorrow and on Monday they will operate a Sunday timetable with some alterations.
On Monday a normal weekday timetable will operate on some main routes. Normal services will resume on all routes on Tuesday.
