Dublin Bus passengers to get free Wi-Fi

Finally, a way to make the morning commute more bearable. Dublin Bus has just announced its plans to install Wi-Fi on all its buses before the end of the year.

This means that commuters in Dublin will be the first in Europe to get free internet access on bus services. Awesome.

The Irish Independent reports that Dublin Bus will install the Wi-Fi technology on its fleet of 900 buses, which will allow bored commuters to surf the net, tweet and read their emails as they travel to work.

Dublin Bus has plans to begin a two-month trial of the technology from next week on 10 and 16 buses, to see how the public will react. If the trials are successful, everyone will be able to check Facebook whenever they hop on the bus. Sounds great.

It seems like Dublin Bus are finally getting with the times and jumping on the Wi-Fi bandwagon. Already Iarnrod Eireann and Bus Eireann are experimenting with the technology, and lots of private bus companies offer the services. It was also revealed that the National Transport Authority is hoping to make the Luas Wi-Fi friendly later this year too.

Iarnrod Eireann already has free Wi-Fi on most of their trains and their entire fleet will be covered by the end of 2012 (including the DART service).

“All 88 of the new fleet that will start to go into service in the coming weeks also have Wi-Fi, and vehicles will be used on city, commuter and inter-city services across the country,” said a spokesman for Iarnrod Eireann.

Although there could be a bump in the road yet. Documents published yesterday seeking companies to provide Wi-Fi for Dublin Bus said that the project was “funding dependent” and that there was “no guarantee that it will proceed.” Disappointed.

The National Transport Authority said that funding would depend on the prices put forward by companies.

Could you imagine how much easier your commute would be if you had Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to keep you company?