[Article] Galway Rail Commuters Being Ripped-Off

KevR · 12-02-2010 2:00am #1

http://www.advertiser.ie/galway/article/22080

Galway Advertiser wrote:

Rail commuters are being ‘ripped off’ by ‘expensive tickets’ says Athenry Greens

Galway Advertiser, February 11, 2010.
By Kernan Andrews

Rail commuters in the west of Ireland are being “ripped off” by having to pay for “the most expensive commuter rail tickets” in the country.
This is the view of Green Party representative for Athenry Patrick Creed. According to Mr Creed, the cost of an annual rail ticket from Athenry to Galway is €1,230 while “tickets for the same distance” in the rest of the country are “much cheaper”.
[snip -- too much of article quoted]

I can't see Irish Rail offering Commuter rates from Craughwell or Gort unless they start to offer it from Athenry because trains coming from Craughwell and Gort will have to go through Athenry.

It's no wonder people don't use the train. A couple of people who work with my father live in Athenry and it would be quicker for them to get the train into Galway for work but it's too expensive when compared to driving. I travel to/from Athenry once or twice every week - I could walk to the train station and get the train but it's cheaper (and a bit quicker in my case as I usually travel off-peak) to drive.

Funny how parking in Galway City is also more expensive than Dublin City. People are getting ripped-off no matter what way they choose to travel.

T Corolla · 12-02-2010 7:39am

I hate to side with Irish Rail but the train journey is non stop from Athenry to Galway so they would only have a market for one station but are offering a non stop journey from Athenry to Galway and the train is Intercity the Cork-Cobh service is a commuter carrage with stops on the way as is Dublin-Maynooth. In future they may reduce the price when the Limerick-Galway line comes online and the passenger number increase to meet demand.

munchkin_utd · 12-02-2010 10:51am

its not actualy that dear.
1230 over 48 weeks works out at 25.60 a week
Thats about a fiver a day return
Or 2.50 each way!

And that's before you count in the tax benefits that you get with an annual ticket which makes it cheaper again.

Heck. If you are complaining about paying 2.50 all in to get to the city centre, think about those north of Kells commuting by car to Dublin. Their toll (when the motorway opens) will be about 2.50 each way, BUT thats on top of running a car incl. petrol/ insurance/ tax/ depreciation/ services/ tyres.

JHMEG · 12-02-2010 11:04am

€1.73 each way between Cobh and Cork. That's very competitive.

munchkin_utd · 12-02-2010 1:30pm

alternatively, heres a handy calculator that shows the cost of yearly tickets after the tax benefit.
http://www.taxsaver.ie/en/Ticket-Calculator/Calculators/

Athenry to Galway after tax is only €602.70 so works out at 12.50 a week or a mere
1.25 each way

**If you are only on say minimum wage you dont get the tax benefits. But on the other hand you dont pay tax anyways, so heck, youre doing well. I wouldnt mind a zero% tax rate either buddy!!

Cookie_Monster · 12-02-2010 1:40pm

munchkin_utd wrote: »

alternatively, heres a handy calculator that shows the cost of yearly tickets after the tax benefit.
http://www.taxsaver.ie/en/Ticket-Calculator/Calculators/

Athenry to Galway after tax is only €602.70 so works out at 12.50 a week or a mere
1.25 each way

**If you are only on say minimum wage you dont get the tax benefits. But on the other hand you dont pay tax anyways, so heck, youre doing well. I wouldnt mind a zero% tax rate either buddy!!

Someone might want to show that to Patrick Creed.

KevR · 12-02-2010 2:17pm

T Corolla wrote: »

I hate to side with Irish Rail but the train journey is non stop from Athenry to Galway so they would only have a market for one station but are offering a non stop journey from Athenry to Galway and the train is Intercity the Cork-Cobh service is a commuter carrage with stops on the way as is Dublin-Maynooth. In future they may reduce the price when the Limerick-Galway line comes online and the passenger number increase to meet demand.

That is true about Cobh and Maynooth having stops into Cork and Dublin while Athenry is non-stop into Galway. But Maynooth and Cobh have much a higher frequency of trains (obviously as there are larger populations/greater demand). Is a non-stop service with a low frequency and very long waits between trains (sometimes a couple of hours) really better than a frequent service with some intermediate stops? I think you can argue that it's a worse service from Athenry and yet it costs more.

When the annual ticket is broken down into the cost of a single journey on a single day (€2.50/€1.25 after tax saver) it seems really cheap. But €1,230 is a lot of money up front, especially compared to €830. I think anyone paying for an annual ticket from Athenry would be well within their rights to be annoyed at the price difference. Also, not everyone uses the train everyday; some people use it occasionally. Single web fare from Athenry to Galway is €7! Don't know what it is if you buy in the station.

I think the opening of the Galway-Limerick line would be a good opportunity for Irish Rail to launch a commuter fare from Athenry (and maybe Craughwell and Gort). The extra trains running through Athenry will make it more attractive for commuters....if the price is right.

patrick creed · 12-02-2010 2:21pm

The issue is not complaining about paying ...it's to do with the inequality of commuter cost accross the rail network

Using the taxsaver calculator on Irish rail website

at tax rate of 41% the commuter ticket cost is

Athenry to Galway 22 km - 7 services per day
E602.70 /year

E12.55 / week ( based on 48 weeks)

E1.25 per journey ( based on 10 journeys per week)

Maynooth to Dublin 25 KM - 32 services per day
E504.70 /year

E10.50/ week ( based on 48 weeks)

E1.05 per journey ( based on 10 journeys per week)

Cork to Cobh 24 KM - 24 services per day
E406.70 /year

E8.47/ week ( based on 48 weeks)

E0. 84 per journey ( based on 10 journeys per week)

Athenry to Galway - Less Distance - Less services - higher costs

We want to encourage people to use the train ...to do that they must pay the same as commuters in other parts of the country taking similar distance services

antoinolachtnai · 12-02-2010 2:28pm

I think you have to take into account how expensive it is to actually run a rail service.

It is really really really expensive. You need a lot of volume to make it worthwhile. Even having a station attended and maintaining it costs a lot of money, maybe over 100,000 a year.

500 commuters from Athenry at that rate will only yield 600,000 euros in in revenue. There are only 3246 people in Athenry and it is unrealistic to expect anything like that level of patronage. You really cannot operate much of a train service for that price.

JHMEG · 12-02-2010 2:35pm

Galway has a population of 72,000 and Athenry has a population of 3,200. Aside from a few Govt offices there are shag all jobs in Galway city centre. I am curious as to how used a commuter service will be.

penexpers · 12-02-2010 2:49pm

The designation is important. As far as I am aware, Irish Rail get a higher subsidy per passenger for the commuter designated areas. I think the Green Party should be taking this up with Noel Dempsey.

Ardent · 12-02-2010 3:14pm

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

I think you have to take into account how expensive it is to actually run a rail service.

It is really really really expensive. You need a lot of volume to make it worthwhile. Even having a station attended and maintaining it costs a lot of money, maybe over 100,000 a year.

500 commuters from Athenry at that rate will only yield 600,000 euros in in revenue. There are only 3246 people in Athenry and it is unrealistic to expect anything like that level of patronage. You really cannot operate much of a train service for that price.

I guess that's the problem with public transport as a whole in this country - the cost to run services is unjustifiably high.

It's cheaper and quicker for me to drive to Galway and back from Dublin than take the train. And you don't have to put up with delays and broken-down trains/signal lights/whatever. Why would you bother?

KevR · 12-02-2010 3:23pm

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

I think you have to take into account how expensive it is to actually run a rail service.

It is really really really expensive. You need a lot of volume to make it worthwhile. Even having a station attended and maintaining it costs a lot of money, maybe over 100,000 a year.

500 commuters from Athenry at that rate will only yield 600,000 euros in in revenue. There are only 3246 people in Athenry and it is unrealistic to expect anything like that level of patronage. You really cannot operate much of a train service for that price.

500 commuters with an annual ticket would yield €600,000. As I said in my other post, not everyone has annually tickets. It's almost 3 times more expensive for a one-off single ticket purchased on the website.

Irish Rail have spent money on improving Athenry station quite recently. Improved parking facilities, 2 new lifts, a new/additional pedestrian bridge, information screens on platforms and more ticket machines. Clearly they think they can entice more people to use the train by improving facilities at the station. If they didn't think they could attract more passengers or if they didn't want to, they wouldn't have bothered carrying out these costly improvements.

It's not beyond the realms of possibility that they could increase passenger numbers further, and revenue also, by lowering ticket prices. I think it would be worth giving it a go when the Limerick-Galway line opens (providing more trains per day through Athenry). If passenger numbers don't increase with the new lower fare, then they can revert to the higher fare to cover their costs with my blessing.

Ideally, the station in Oranmore would actually get built (with a Park and Ride). Passenger numbers would definitely increase significantly then. The Bus Park and Ride in Ballybrit over the last few Christmas periods was apparently a big success. There is talk of having a Bus Park and Ride off the M6 at Oranmore. I think it would be better to build the planned train station with a P&R. A Bus P&R won't be as attractive as the bus will get stuck in traffic at peak times. I think building an Oranmore train station and a seperate Bus P&R would be a mistake and a waste of money.

dowlingm · 12-02-2010 3:33pm

The reason there's a problem with catchment is that IE can't deploy feeder buses with integrated fares and which complement the train route counter-flow/off-peak. If you brought a GO Transit executive over and showed him a Galway/Cork/Limerick/Dublin rail commuter map he'd ask you "where's the rest of it" i.e. the buses which bring people to the railhead.

The area shown is approx 100km radius.

(sorry about the size of the linked image - don't know how to reduce it)

JHMEG · 12-02-2010 5:17pm

500 commuters

Is 500 commuters from a town of population 3,200 likely?

I would have thought 100 would be doing well.

KevR · 12-02-2010 5:50pm

JHMEG wrote: »

Is 500 commuters from a town of population 3,200 likely?

I would have thought 100 would be doing well.

Rail commuters or commuters in general?

I would say the majority of Athenry's working population commutes into the Galway City area. Not to mention students who are in NUIG (walking distance from Ceannt Station) and GMIT.

27,000 commute into Galway daily. Between Athenry, Craughwell, Gort and Oranmore (in the future) and possibly even Ballinasloe, rail could be a viable option for many of these. It will take effort from Irish Rail though (price re-structuring and proper advertisement of the price cuts + extra trains once the Limerick line opens).

dowlingm · 12-02-2010 6:57pm

To be fair, it said 27k commute in Galway, and of those 19k commute into Galway, by car.

If Galway City and County Councils wanted to do something about it, they in cooperation with their TDs and Senators would request the Dept of Transport to devolve management of bus services terminating in a 40km radius to a joint body, devise a fare structure and then tender for operators to run the city and county services. They should also request to have Galway station lands transferred to them from CIE, with IE leasing back what they need, rather than CIE continuing as an inept property developer (see also Kent Station, Cork; Tara Street, Dublin)

Let's face it, for a big chunk of those driving in (from Clifden, Headford and yes even Tuam) commuter rail is going to do bugger all for them - buses have to be part of the story because the Clifden line isn't coming back and the Tuam line, like the Athenry line, is not competitive due to the extra running length and the likely operating speed - plus not everybody works in Eyre Square or even UCG.

The chicken and the pig story tells about the current state of transportation planning in Ireland. At the moment, county councils are the chickens* - they'll provide an egg or two maybe in the form of Section 48 money to transport but those eggs aren't so plentiful now. I'm open to correction but I'm not aware of any S.48 money from Galway or Clare going to WRC.

Local councils need to become pigs - because then when ideas like light rail and WRC are thrown around and say a third of the money has to be raised locally, a bit more realism will apply before the request ever reaches Dept of Finance.

edit * - actually, in the case of a few county council individuals - the "rooster" analogy is better.

unJustMary · 12-02-2010 11:08pm

KevR wrote: »

A Bus P&R won't be as attractive as the bus will get stuck in traffic at peak times. I think building an Oranmore train station and a seperate Bus P&R would be a mistake and a waste of money.

Only if there aren't bus-lanes (QBCs if you wanna call 'em that!)

A train P&R assumes that everyone's going to the city centre, but lots are heading to GMIT, NUIG (you've seen the whining over a 10 minute walk in a recent Galway City thread

) UCHG & Merlin Park, Parkmore, Ballybrit Liosbaun and Mervue industrial.

While I'd build the Park bit at/near the railway station, just 'cos it makes sense to combine facilities (two bus-stations, anyone?), the Ride bit needs to provide a few options. IMHO there should be a way to service all the above sites (perhaps two different Ride services with stops at key points ... ideally joint ticketing).

JHMEG · 13-02-2010 1:58pm

KevR wrote: »

Rail commuters or commuters in general?

Rail commuters heading for Galway city, boarding at Athenry.

Considering all the industrial estates in Galway are no-where near the train station I'd imagine the train won't be convenient for many people. I don't think the city bus service will make up for this shortcoming either... (the issues with Galway's bus service is for another thread)

serfboard · 13-02-2010 2:29pm

The solution for Galway is Bus Park & Ride coupled with QBCs, with buses going to where people work i.e. Ballybrit/Parkmore, UCHG/NUIG, Mervue Industrial estate, City Centre, GMIT in that order.

Put them in Barna, Dangan, Ballindooley, Loughgeorge, Doughiska/Oranmore and eventually Rathmorrissey when the M17/M18 gets built, and have low-cost services every 15 minutes at peak times.

munchkin_utd · 15-02-2010 10:31am

serfboard wrote: »

The solution for Galway is Bus Park & Ride coupled with QBCs, with buses going to where people work i.e. Ballybrit/Parkmore, UCHG/NUIG, Mervue Industrial estate, City Centre, GMIT in that order.

Indeed, for many commuters, a train to town is no addition if thats NOT where they work!
Boston Scientific in mervue has 2500 working there, HP has their european IT HQ there and there are many many thousands of jobs in other companies in the Industrial estate there. Not to mention GMIT (which is 700m away from the railway) with 9000 students. For the morning and evening commute you have to link in these areas, and anything via the City Centre is never going to work.

maybe a solution would be something along the line of the RegioSprinter, which is a light regional diesel train, that also functions as a diesel Tram to get people from the mainline to EXACTLY where they really want to go?
Its a simple solution to simple problem.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RegioSprinter

More specifically, you could run RegioSprinters from Gort/ Athenry direct to Mervue/ GMIT if you had a tramway branch at Renmore, and the service could then run back via Renmore again linking Mervue and GMIT to the City Centre.

Edit: for anyone that doesnt know galway, Mervue is located about 1 to 2km north of the Dublin - Galway Rail Line, about 3 or 4 km, and often desperate traffic, away from the City Centre. And thats where a large portion of the jobs in Galway are located in the IDA industrial estate.

mbiking123 · 04-03-2012 4:07pm

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

I think you have to take into account how expensive it is to actually run a rail service.

It is really really really expensive. You need a lot of volume to make it worthwhile. Even having a station attended and maintaining it costs a lot of money, maybe over 100,000 a year.

500 commuters from Athenry at that rate will only yield 600,000 euros in in revenue. There are only 3246 people in Athenry and it is unrealistic to expect anything like that level of patronage. You really cannot operate much of a train service for that price.

Take Cobh as an example. About 15 years ago they used old carriages, (you might remember the ones with the split window along the top of the main window that slided outwards to open it?) In any case they removed it about 12 years ago and replaced it with new Arrow carriages and vastly improved the timetable service so that the train left roughly on the hour with extra services in the morning and evening for people working in Cork. The result was a huge increase in people using the train as now people could commute to work and leave their car at home. Then they decided that the old rail line to Youghal should be reopened, as the Cobh Cork line proved that a rail service can work to get people out of their cars.

Rail is not to make a profit but to provide a service, like the DART still making a loss how many years later ?

antoinolachtnai · 04-03-2012 5:42pm

Your comparison is out of proportion. It is not at all clear that DART 'loses money'.

For 100k subsidy and with a bit of bus priority you could provide 40 services a day by coach direct between Galway and Athenry. It would cost many times more to provide an even remotely comparable service by train. What is needed is coordination and management of resources, not projects that will impose a long term burden on the community.

dowlingm · 04-03-2012 5:53pm

Cobh services connect to onward Dublin and Tralee service on one ticket. What does an Athenry train connect to at Galway with integrated fare? The Midleton service shares over half its length with the Cobh service so now you have higher utilisation of the infrastructure. Cobh also gets some decent trade from Fota and from cruise ships, probably Little Island too.

If Galway County Council were serious about developing Galway commuter rail they would have told IE to stuff their Oranmore planning application and come back with one that had double track double platform and Galway Co. Co. would co-fund it, and one at Renmore too. They aren't, so they didn't.

tomirs · 01-08-2013 11:32am

Email i resived today as i couldent find fare for single trips anywhere ...

Unfortunetly there is no booking office in Craughwell, however there is a ticket vending machine where you can buy your tickets.

An Adult Single €34.50 - Adult Day Return - €35.50 Adult Open Return €48.50
And a child fare is half the adult fare.

EUR € 32 - Galway Taxi fare from galway eyre square to craughwell ..............

Think id take the taxi shopping , makes more since .... For people who aren't travelling daily to and from work the train just isn't worth the money ...Share a taxi and works out a cheaper ...4 people , taxi to and from ....16€ return per person or less depending on whom you book

LXFlyer · 01-08-2013 12:21pm

Not sure why you are dragging up a 3 year old thread?

The fares you quote are the fares from Craughwell to DUBLIN, not Galway.

Fare from Craughwell to Galway is €7.70 single and €11.70 return.

Weekly ticket is €40, monthly ticket is €150 and annual is €1,500. Both are available under www.taxsaver.ie.

tomirs · 01-08-2013 12:53pm

I posted here as its the topic i was interested in getting a response to as it seems odd the fares would be so high ??? why not post the information i was given here ? Its called updating is it .....

The fares are what i have been told ( today ) via email upon requesting information on fares from Craughwell to GALWAY CITY , Galway to Dublin fares are available on-line .... Taxsaver dose not give single trip fare cost and as i don't use the train that often i was trying to find out the cost off a single ticket which ( until your reply ) i haven't been able to on-line which i will say is most frustrating . But thanks for your reply and the information

LXFlyer · 01-08-2013 1:20pm

tomirs wrote: »

I posted here as its the topic i was interested in getting a response to as it seems odd the fares would be so high ??? why not post the information i was given here ? Its called updating is it .....

The fares are what i have been told ( today ) via email upon requesting information on fares from Craughwell to GALWAY CITY , Galway to Dublin fares are available on-line .... Taxsaver dose not give single trip fare cost and as i don't use the train that often i was trying to find out the cost off a single ticket which ( until your reply ) i haven't been able to on-line which i will say is most frustrating . But thanks for your reply and the information

Good practice is to open a new thread!

Anyway - the fares are clearly listed on the Irish Rail website, using the "Fares and tickets" tab, followed by Intercity Fares on the menu on the left.

Then choose the appropriate link and scroll down to the WRC Fares Grid.
http://www.irishrail.ie/index.jsp?p=118&n=197&a=267

tomirs · 01-08-2013 1:24pm

Thanks ... easy to find when you know where to look isn't it

bambergbike · 01-08-2013 10:07pm

Irish Rail could offer a version of the annual ticket that would cost an extra €200 or so. This would cover the annual lease of a high-quality folding bicycle that could be carried for free on the trains. That would expand the viable catchment area for the train service to people living within 5 km of Athenry and working within - give or take - 5 km of the station.

The catchment area could be expanded further by charging a bit more for the use of a folder with an electric motor. Like this one: http://www.r-m.de/bike/birdy-hybrid.

We need solutions that allow people to "let the train take the strain" while they flick through the paper or catch up on e-mails and yet also to benefit from personal mobility and hyper-efficient door-to-door journeys. I'm not saying QBCs aren't needed - I'm sure they are - but not everybody wants to be stuck on a bus when a form of personal mobility* would be more efficient and more fun.

Obviously there's nothing to stop people buying their own folders, but good ones are expensive and Irish Rail could get a much better deal with a group buy. And Irish Rail should have an interest in showing some leadership when it comes to sustainable transport and expanding their catchment area. That would allow them to run more services, and then that in turn would please existing customers and make them more likely to use the service more often.

In Munich, MVV (the main local transport company) has negotiated a deal and their customers can buy a bike that can be folded or unfolded in 10 seconds and costs nothing to bring on trains for €799. Video here: http://www.mvv-muenchen.de/de/unterwegs-im-mvv/radfahrer/adfc-mvv-faltrad/index.html.

Victor · 02-08-2013 8:45am

You can avail of both the TaxSaver and Cycle-to-Work schemes in the same year.

http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/travel_and_recreation/public_transport/public_transport_commuter_tickets_and_tax.html
http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/money_and_tax/tax/income_tax_credits_and_reliefs/cycle_to_work_scheme.html

[Article] Galway Rail Commuters Being Ripped-Off

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