A campaign to encourage passengers to use headphones is set to be strengthened by Dublin Bus and the National Transport Authority over the coming months.
It comes as Transport for London (TfL) is targeting the "disruptive behaviour" of passengers who play music and make calls using mobile phone loudspeakers.
TfL said most bus and London Underground travellers in London considered such behaviour "a nuisance" and that some even found the additional noise very stressful.
Speaking on RTÉ's Drivetime, Dublin Bus spokesperson Blake Boland said: "I feel the frustration.
"Many times I have been there, people are catching up on social media or calling friends on FaceTime out loud on speakerphone.
"People deserve a more comfortable bus journey … that 30-minute window on the bus on the way home is a little bit of me time."
Mr Boland said an "education campaign" calling on passengers to use headphones or to delay a phone call is set to be strengthened over the coming months.
"There is the ability there to interrupt, so a driver can be notified of this and might request that a passenger wears earphones or turns off their music, whatever the case may be," he said.
But added: "You don’t want to get to that stage."
Mr Boland said there is a want "to trust in common courtesy and common decency", adding the campaign aims to "educate people and turn down the volume".
Mr Boland described the growth in bus journeys and the investment as "phenomenal", adding that beyond that, people want to enjoy their journey.
With regards to a driver getting involved in requesting a passenger to lower the volume on their device, Mr Boland said the number one priority for Dublin Bus as a company is to "do all of this in safety".
"A bus driver may have 80 passengers on board in a 10-metre-long vehicle, they have a job to do there, they need to concentrate," he said, adding "that is why we ask people not to distract them".
The Dublin Bus spokesperson said each vehicle has a loudspeaker and so when drivers are notified they can request a passenger to turn down their volume, adding "if it has to be escalated, then so be it".
He described silent carriages as an "interesting prospect" but said that unlike trains, buses are all one cabin, comprising of an upstairs and downstairs.
He said such a measure would not be feasible.
"Having that chat with somebody on the bus you have met for the first time and even to connect with people, that can be a lot of value and you don’t want to stop that either," Mr Boland said.
"You want people to be able to have that conversation with their friends," he added.
'Stamp it out'
On passengers taking matters into their own hands with regards to asking someone to keep the volume down, Mr Boland said it is a "personal choice for people to make".
"It is not our business to tell people what to do in that situation," he said.
"We will try to keep up our policies as much as possible, we will keep up these campaigns and we will work that angle," Mr Boland added.
However, he conceded that more needed to be done to "completely stamp it out".
"Not everybody is going to listen to this," he said.
"This is not particularly common either. It is very frustrating, it is very distracting and quite memorable when it does happen as well," he added.
