A Guide to Bus Connects for Sandyford: the S8

From Sunday 26th November, a new bus was introduced for Sandyford Business District under the Bus Connects programme. This is the S8 route running from Citywest to Dún Laoghaire in a direct route, passing through Sandyford Business District.

I’ve tried to give a guide to the changes below and I hope you find the information helpful. Please reach out to me directly if you have any questions or feedback. (Update: I have shared some early feedback with the NTA already and received a response, which you can read here).

Background to Bus Connects

The bus network in Dublin evolved bit by bit since last century with not much joined-up thinking behind it. The NTA ran a number of consultations between 2017 and 2019 which resulted in the new Dublin bus network being released in September 2020. Many politicians have tried to influence the routes but the decisions on the routes have been made by the professional Transport Planners in the NTA.

Since 2021, they’ve been rolling this new network out in phases. The next is Phase 5b, which launched on the 26th November. Public representatives and the public were officially made aware of this phase on Friday afternoon the 10th November with this announcement.

One thing that’s relatively new is the 90 minute Leap card fare. This means that you just pay once if you’ve to transfer to a different bus/Luas/DART within 90 minutes of the start of your journey. This was brought in by Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan along with half price fares for young adults and full-time students. You can buy a Leap card here.

Changes for Sandyford

These are the changes for Sandyford:

The S8 bus route will run every 15-20 minutes. It will start in Citywest, go through Tallaght, Firhouse, Knocklyon, Ballyboden, Rathfarnham and Ballinteer. It will then use the M50 Green route to get to Sandyford Business District, doing a loop around Sandyford BD including Sandyford Luas station. Then it will go down Leopardstown Road, down Newtownpark Avenue and into Monkstown and Dún Laoghaire.

There are other routes changing around South Dublin too, but these are the buses that go through Sandyford. The official ways to check how your specific journeys will best be done by public transport are:

• Install TFI Live for Android or TFI Live for iPhone on your phone.
• Use the TFI Plan A Journey tool on the web.

I also use Next Bus Dublin and Transit myself. It’s probably best to try out a few different apps to see what works best for you.

Are there trips you take from/to Sandyford that you’d like help with? Or have some questions about the above? Please contact me, I’m more than happy to help. I have already been calling for the NTA to fix the 114 bus and to provide a Dublin Mountains bus route.

I have been in contact with the NTA to seek better and clearer communications for a smoother transition to these new routes. They are delivering a leaflet to homes and businesses along all the new routes. I requested the leaflet so that I could put it here for you to download.