Five ways to improve public transport in Ireland

Ruben Remus · 05-02-2014 1:18pm #1

I came across this piece in the local paper in Athlone. Thought it might be of interest to some people here:

http://www.westmeathindependent.ie/news/roundup/articles/2014/02/04/4019443-opinion-five-ways-to-improve-public-transport-in-ireland/

Wichita Lineman · 05-02-2014 1:49pm

2) Prevent overcrowding.

Train travel can be very pleasant - but not if you get on board at the weekend to discover every seat is taken, and the space between carriages resembles a scrum in a Six Nations fixture.

Irish Rail spokesperson Barry Kenny has repeatedly said that overcrowding on trains is “a comfort issue rather a safety issue,” but people who fork out their money for a train ticket deserve to know they will have seat. Making sure there are extra carriages on the busiest services is the obvious solution.

funny how at the minute they are doing the EXACT opposite.

corktina · 05-02-2014 2:57pm

my five ways:

Cut costs by cutting management numbers
Increase Revenue Protection staff numbers, thus increasing revenue
Improve efficiency so that the right vehicle(s) is/are available at the right time
Examine all underused services, and either improve them or remove them.
Privatise

Copyerselveson · 05-02-2014 3:40pm

How can closures would improve public transport?

L1011 · 05-02-2014 3:42pm

Copyerselveson wrote: »

How can closures would improve public transport?

There are services where there is duplication, either public/private or public/public whereby closing one service can free up funding to improve or maintain the other.

The state needs to decide what it's actually subsidising - are they trying to reduce car dependency/ownership, are they providing public transport as a social support or what. Inconsistent and incoherent setup at the moment.

Public transport information needs to be centralised and accurate - existing "real time" data is too often guesswork off timetables, there's no central services map etc.

Existing assets need to be sweated as much as possible - its unacceptable for Irish Rail to have the volume of out of use equipment they have / had before it got cut up, in the case of the dodgy Alsthom gear someone needs to be held ultimately accountable for not having rejected it to the manufacturer early enough.

In-depth journey and traffic flow surveying needs to be done to find out what journeys are being completed that cannot currently be done in a quick or reliable manner by public transport.

Interchange points on the network - bus to bus, rail to rail or inter-modal - need to be properly identified and properly serviced. People are not going to be willing to take two buses if the changeover is a one wall and a roof "shelter" on the side of a road

pclive · 05-02-2014 3:48pm

Bus lane enforcement by camera on bus/road side ( for example this would reduce the delays to Dublin Bus at Whitehall Church inbound every morning)
Yellow box junction enforcement by camera
Coins no longer acceptable on Dublin Bus
Centre doors used at every bus stop by every driver
Reduce the number of bus stops on some routes ie. number 4 route along Merrion Road

Emme · 05-02-2014 3:50pm

This is an excellent link. I agree with scrapping the "have a pleasant and comfortable journey” bit of the announcements. On overcrowded trains you can see people grimacing and wincing at that. It should be scrapped altogether or until such time that proper provision of seats is made on all trains.

Sam Russell · 05-02-2014 4:03pm

I think freezing prices for five years would be a start. At least for Leap cards.

Also, timetable the length of trains - from what I see, Dart trains are random lengths, with 8 coach trains following two coach ones. Their is no logic whatever that I can see. I presume it is the same on other services.

Revenue protection should be very high on the agenda. All people pay the fare or pay a fine (huge).

Dead running should be a minimum. I see O'Connell St at 5pm having more out-of-service buses than those in service.

Flat fare on Dublin buses for Leap cards. (€1.40) to get people to use it.

Copyerselveson · 05-02-2014 4:06pm

In my opinion the State should be using public transport policy to actively reduce road dependency for personal journeys and freight.

At the same time money needs to be invested into the rail network to provide extra capacity and speed on all lines. Inter City trains are overcrowded simply because IE can't afford to run longer trains and don't run more frequent trains on many lines due to capacity on single track lines and rosters of available staff.

More staff and extra capacity by doubling track would offer a more comfortable journey but money is needed to pay for this as well as the increasingly more expensive diesel needed to power these trains.

If the government want a modal shift on public transport then an integrated model using the best that a combined train and bus service offers is the right way forward. Shutting lines to satisfy the wants of those who advocate an even smaller state than we already have is not the way forward and simply leads to even more road congestion and the marginalization of public transport into a low level social service.

bambergbike · 05-02-2014 4:10pm

More capacity on busy train services and more flexible "multi-use" space on all train services in one or two carriages that can be used for buggies, wheelchairs, awkward luggage, bicycles - whatever it's needed for.

Banjoxed · 05-02-2014 4:12pm

photo (13).JPG

This is an example of what happens where a big chunk of the country has no effective public transport. Bizarrely there is a choice of operators on the same routes locally but there are still only four/five buses a day- in the meantime, this town of about a thousand people has cars double parked at all sorts of times.

Having a crap public transport service in chunks of Ireland may suit road builders and car dealers, but it is damn all use for quality of life. So every time I read a contributor getting a hard-on for closing public transport services of any kind, this image is what I see.

corktina · 05-02-2014 4:49pm

Copyerselveson wrote: »

How can closures would improve public transport?

How can spending €103 million on a rail line whilst at the same time building a parallel motorway for coaches to operate on more quickly and cheaper?

Copyerselveson · 05-02-2014 5:20pm

corktina wrote: »

How can spending €103 million on a rail line whilst at the same time building a parallel motorway for coaches to operate on more quickly and cheaper?

Cheap by railway standards. The Borders Railway from Edinburgh to Tweedbank will clock in at circa £350m. Blackfriars station rebuild cost circa £600m.

€800m for the M3 motorway, but no one here complains about the cost of motorways.

corktina · 05-02-2014 6:34pm

cheap if anyone used it I agree. Unfortunately it's a flop. I'd hazard a wild guess that more than 8 times the number of people use the M3 than use the railway in question.

XPS_Zero · 05-02-2014 8:20pm

Completely dismantle CIE and start from scratch...and I'm not talking about a FAS style re branding with all the same people, work practices and inefficient contracts and structures, let's face it the RPA was created because the state lost faith in it's public transport company....to run public transport projects...now if that's not a dire sign of CIE's competence I don't know what is

One of the two guys at my station, whenever he is on duty, pulls the blinds down, opens the slider barriers and just watches TV, ignoring anyone who knocks on the glass looking for tickets not available in the ticket vending machine.
Nobody outside our PS bubble would tolerate that.

I'm not the privatize it all type, I'm really not, but I think the DART and Bus system would benefit from a LUAS type model where the state owns the infrastructure trains etc and private contractors compete to run various aspects of day to day operations. Much as when I was living on campus I despised the company that UCD choose to run aspects of it's res because IMO they were given management powers UCD themselves should have retained and went mental with them, the lift in my DART stations often been broken for months at a time, in UCD if a lift broke at 1pm it was fixed at 6pm.

Come on SIPTU heads come down to reality you are not HELPING workers and unions by defending that kind of inefficiency from common sense reforms, you are just making the public, the state and the political leadership more and more frustrated with you until eventually someone does an AiR Traffic Controllers Reagan style union busting and it's all over.
Last time it was broken the guy at the station told a woman in a wheel chair to ring for a lift at the next station down...cos there was no other way to get up the steps....that's utter insanity.

The day the govt decided CIE could not handle metro or luas was the day we should have admitted CIE's day was past and a new model was badly needed. We don't have to do Thatcher British Rail style slash and burn where the tracks are owned by one company and the Trains another but we DEFIANTLY need some alternative model cos this is just not working.

end of the road · 05-02-2014 9:41pm

Copyerselveson wrote: »

How can closures would improve public transport?

from what i can see they don't, they just cause people to either buy a car or use a car more

corktina · 05-02-2014 9:43pm

not by much though, I'd guess a train with 9.5 people on it could be replaced by three cars (or one bus). If the bus is quicker and cheaper, that would be improving public transport

end of the road · 05-02-2014 9:48pm

corktina wrote: »

How can spending €103 million on a rail line whilst at the same time building a parallel motorway for coaches to operate on more quickly and cheaper?

why not, why should it be either or? the reason motor ways are faster and busses can run faster is because nobody is willing to take the bull by the horns and give the rail network the money to improve speeds to the highest possible on all lines, their is room for both methods in ireland but with extremist lobbies trying to get rid of either nothing is getting done, i don't have a problem with roads, however the roads lobby want rid of rail, for me that is a big problem, have both, ireland will be all the better for it, britain once thought its railways were dead, now look at them, their thriving, with good leadership and interest, ours can thrive again also

end of the road · 05-02-2014 9:55pm

XPS_Zero wrote: »

someone does an AiR Traffic Controllers Reagan style union busting and it's all over.

i doubt it, i have a feeling it would be political suicide in this day and age, but you never know

end of the road · 05-02-2014 9:57pm

corktina wrote: »

not by much though, I'd guess a train with 9.5 people on it could be replaced by three cars (or one bus). If the bus is quicker and cheaper, that would be improving public transport

the bus is only faster in some cases because the road is to a better standard then the railway, just because something is cheeper doesn't mean its better, the bus is cheeper then rail but for me thats about all it has going for it so i don't use it, others will and thats fine, but if i was to lose my rail service then i'd simply just get a lift from a friend, but thats just me

Ben D Bus · 05-02-2014 10:02pm

XPS_Zero wrote: »

We don't have to do Thatcher British Rail style slash and burn where the tracks are owned by one company and the Trains another

Actually we did have to do that.

n97 mini · 05-02-2014 10:17pm

No mention of connections!

Dublin Bus and Irish Rail are spectacularly disconnected.

Irish Rail even on the same line are ridiculously disconnected. E.g. a large number of Galway trains fail to connect with Dublin area short hop trains on the same line!

corktina · 05-02-2014 10:32pm

end of the road wrote: »

the bus is only faster in some cases because the road is to a better standard then the railway, just because something is cheeper doesn't mean its better, the bus is cheeper then rail but for me thats about all it has going for it so i don't use it, others will and thats fine, but if i was to lose my rail service then i'd simply just get a lift from a friend, but thats just me

get a lift on those roads that threaten Lord God Railway? Surely not!
Of course the road is a better standard, it has to be, it is used by tens of thousands of real people every day not a few dozen like the rail line. If the rail line had been built to the standard you seem to think it should have been it would have cost 10 times what we wasted on it and still more people would be using the road. In a rural situation rail is not as flexible as the road is, it doesn't go where most people want to go so they have to have a car anyway.

end of the road · 06-02-2014 12:43am

corktina wrote: »

get a lift on those roads that threaten Lord God Railway? Surely not!
Of course the road is a better standard, it has to be, it is used by tens of thousands of real people every day not a few dozen like the rail line. If the rail line had been built to the standard you seem to think it should have been it would have cost 10 times what we wasted on it and still more people would be using the road. In a rural situation rail is not as flexible as the road is, it doesn't go where most people want to go so they have to have a car anyway.

our railways are used by a lot of people, their are 2 which have little usership and that is because 1 has been deliberately ran down and the other because it is to slow, build it to a good standard and as high speed as possible more people will use it, people will pay for a service if it is good

Five Lamps · 06-02-2014 1:02am

... but not if you get on board at the weekend to discover every seat is taken...

What is the obsession of Irish people and their obsession with getting a seat on public transport - especially during rush hour?

Tune in to any vox pop on TV or radio and invariable there will be a number of people saying that the won't or don't like public transport because there's no seat for them and they have to stand.

sawdoubters · 06-02-2014 1:04am

have signs at bus and trains and online ,when the next bus or train will arrive at your stop

get taxis out of bus lanes

Five Lamps · 06-02-2014 1:06am

sawdoubters wrote: »

have signs at bus and trains and online ,when the next bus or train will arrive at your stop

get taxis out of bus lanes

That already exists.

corktina · 06-02-2014 2:30am

end of the road wrote: »

our railways are used by a lot of people, their are 2 which have little usership and that is because 1 has been deliberately ran down and the other because it is to slow, build it to a good standard and as high speed as possible more people will use it, people will pay for a service if it is good

we don't have any money. There are higher priorities for rail investment than lame duck rural railways.

end of the road · 06-02-2014 3:25am

corktina wrote: »

we don't have any money. There are higher priorities for rail investment than lame duck rural railways.

all open railways should be invested in, and eventually in the long term future reopen more or build new ones

Copyerselveson · 06-02-2014 8:39am

corktina wrote: »

we don't have any money. There are higher priorities for rail investment than lame duck rural railways.

There is a bigger picture out there that some either don't see or don't choose to see. Far more money was wasted on "lame duck" motorways like the Waterford motorway and the Navan motorway than anything spent on the Athenry-Ennis line.

Thanks to some spectacularly bad politics the Department of Transport stuck in a southbound toll before the M3 Parkway station thus hobbling the Pace-Clonsilla line. No doubt someone somewhere thought they were pulling a great stroke but the net effect is that the Pace line underperforms and the M3 is very empty.

Trucks still avoid the M1 and will thunder through Slane with all the danger that involves. If we had any balls we would ban trucks completely from the N2 between Ashbourne and Ardee and force them to use the M1. But we have no balls in the face of the road lobby and so the trucks roll on through a small village with a dangerously steep hill. I have no doubt there will be more fatalities before anything gets done about this.

Far far more money was wasted on empty motorways and the way the tolls were set up is I believe a major scandal waiting to be investigated. Instead we seem to be intent on killing railways.

People should be getting angry about taxpayers money being wasted to keep a golden circle of private companies and some lucky landowners happy rather than the state owned railways.

The J Stands for Jay · 06-02-2014 8:58am

Banjoxed wrote: »

photo (13).JPG

This is an example of what happens where a big chunk of the country has no effective public transport. Bizarrely there is a choice of operators on the same routes locally but there are still only four/five buses a day- in the meantime, this town of about a thousand people has cars double parked at all sorts of times.

Just knew this would be a picture of Moville from the description. How bad is it when growing up in Ireland, the sight of a Bus Eireann bus stop or bus was a sign that I was at least an hour away from home?

L1011 · 06-02-2014 9:28am

Five Lamps wrote: »

What is the obsession of Irish people and their obsession with getting a seat on public transport - especially during rush hour?

Because we use under-sized sub-standard commuter stock on middle distance routes. If you want people to shift from cars you aren't going to if they have to stand with someone's armpit in their face for 40 minutes twice a day five times a week. Or significantly longer on some routes.

Nobody is expecting a seat for three stops on the DART.

Emme · 06-02-2014 11:20am

end of the road wrote: »

our railways are used by a lot of people, their are 2 which have little usership and that is because 1 has been deliberately ran down and the other because it is to slow, build it to a good standard and as high speed as possible more people will use it, people will pay for a service if it is good

What railway is being deliberately run down? Would that be the Waterford line? If so there is no reason to run that line down. Peak time trains are almost full when they get to Athy in the mornings and sometimes people have to stand all the way to Athy on the peak time evening trains. This is not a line that should be run down, it should be improved instead. Some of the stations after Kildare wouldn't look out of place in the third world.

corktina wrote: »

we don't have any money. There are higher priorities for rail investment than lame duck rural railways.

What is a lame duck rural railway? Is this a railway that extends beyond Kildare station or a disused rural railway line?

corktina · 06-02-2014 11:32am

AN almost-disused rural railway. Certainly not the Waterford line

end of the road · 06-02-2014 4:28pm

Emme wrote: »

What railway is being deliberately run down? Would that be the Waterford line? If so there is no reason to run that line down. Peak time trains are almost full when they get to Athy in the mornings and sometimes people have to stand all the way to Athy on the peak time evening trains. This is not a line that should be run down, it should be improved instead. Some of the stations after Kildare wouldn't look out of place in the third world.

sorry that should be 2 lines, was talking about the limerick ballybroaphy via nenagh and the limerick waterford line, i believe ennis athenry could have been built to a higher speed.

06-02-2014 9:03pm

Copyerselveson wrote: »

Trucks still avoid the M1 and will thunder through Slane with all the danger that involves. If we had any balls we would ban trucks completely from the N2 between Ashbourne and Ardee and force them to use the M1. But we have no balls in the face of the road lobby and so the trucks roll on through a small village with a dangerously steep hill. I have no doubt there will be more fatalities before anything gets done about this.

Any numbers for Slane? There's plenty of HGVs that do use the M1.

Banjoxed · 06-02-2014 9:31pm

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Any numbers for Slane? There's plenty of HGVs that do use the M1.

Any numbers for the M1?

MGWR · 06-02-2014 10:03pm

Andy Dunne11 wrote: »

Irish Rail spokesperson Barry Kenny has repeatedly said that overcrowding on trains is “a comfort issue rather a safety issue”

That's someone who needs to be out of a job there.

Five Lamps · 06-02-2014 11:37pm

MGWR wrote: »

That's someone who needs to be out of a job there.

It's true though - over crowding on trains is not a safety issue. It's common the world over.

B.J · 07-02-2014 1:08am

Staff at irish rail are being balloted on more pay cuts. They say that they've already foregone their 3% pay rise for the last 5 years which equals 15% pay cut plus in 2012 they also agreed to further cuts to holiday and had their sickness entitlement halved.
Staff feel the savings could be easily made without further cuts to their pay. Unions should push for the abolishment of expenses, which management use to "TOP UP" their wages and also the overtime rate which for management and clerical grade staff is paid at double time while front line staff only receive a flat rate for overtime. Expenses are tax free and paid out of taxpayers money and staff believe that if an independent body was to do an audit, serious misuse of public money would be reported.
Irish rail have never had less staff and such high ticket prices as they do today, so where is all the extra revenue going now? Expenses perhaps?

end of the road · 07-02-2014 1:20am

Five Lamps wrote: »

It's true though - over crowding on trains is not a safety issue. It's common the world over.

its not a safety issue in other countries because the trains on the routes where such over crowding happens are designed for it and they have large capacity, in our case it is a safety issue as we don't match the capacity to demand on many services and trains which aren't designed for large numbers standing end up on some services while those that are designed for large numbers standing end up on some routes which their not suited for, ICRS should never be used on commuter routes and commuter trains should never be used on ICR routes, no excuse for it

Grandeeod · 07-02-2014 1:45am

B.J wrote: »

Staff at irish rail are being balloted on more pay cuts. They say that they've already foregone their 3% pay rise for the last 5 years which equals 15% pay cut plus in 2012 they also agreed to further cuts to holiday and had their sickness entitlement halved.
Staff feel the savings could be easily made without further cuts to their pay. Unions should push for the abolishment of expenses, which management use to "TOP UP" their wages and also the overtime rate which for management and clerical grade staff is paid at double time while front line staff only receive a flat rate for overtime. Expenses are tax free and paid out of taxpayers money and staff believe that if an independent body was to do an audit, serious misuse of public money would be reported.
Irish rail have never had less staff and such high ticket prices as they do today, so where is all the extra revenue going now? Expenses perhaps?

I'd love to answer this, but I can't, If my lord and master allowed it, I would! Never the less, you are on the money!

periodictable · 07-02-2014 1:50am

Do a Maggie Thatcher job on the unions and privatize everything.

Sheldons Brain · 07-02-2014 2:01am

Five Lamps wrote: »

What is the obsession of Irish people and their obsession with getting a seat on public transport - especially during rush hour?

Tune in to any vox pop on TV or radio and invariable there will be a number of people saying that the won't or don't like public transport because there's no seat for them and they have to stand.

Some minimum aspiration to service for your paying customers would be nice. Irish public transport has no aspiration to a service level, you can't expect a seat, a particular frequency of service, or even the existence of a service.

It's true though - over crowding on trains is not a safety issue. It's common the world over.

Of course it is a safety issue. People ignore it to facilitate bad service by public transport operators not putting on sufficient capacity.

corktina · 07-02-2014 9:02am

it probably isn't a safety issue given there are no seat belts. In the event of an accident, everyone is going to get thrown about. I'd judge it would be safer than a coach with seatbelts that overturns or hits something at window height

foggy_lad · 07-02-2014 12:46pm

end of the road wrote: »

its not a safety issue in other countries because the trains on the routes where such over crowding happens are designed for it and they have large capacity, in our case it is a safety issue as we don't match the capacity to demand on many services and trains which aren't designed for large numbers standing end up on some services while those that are designed for large numbers standing end up on some routes which their not suited for, ICRS should never be used on commuter routes and commuter trains should never be used on ICR routes, no excuse for it

The intercity trains don't just "end up" on commuter journeys, someone in management makes a decision to use stock not suited to the journey. Just like the 29000 commuter stock still being used on the 3hour trip to sligo there are intercity trains being used as shuttle services between Docklands and M3, Link Jctn and Limerick and even between Manulla Jctn and Ballina.

foggy_lad · 07-02-2014 12:50pm

corktina wrote: »

it probably isn't a safety issue given there are no seat belts. In the event of an accident, everyone is going to get thrown about. I'd judge it would be safer than a coach with seatbelts that overturns or hits something at window height

It is being thrown about and colliding with parts of the vehicle as well as with other passengers that usually does the damage when there is a crash. Unrestrained passengers are like missiles in a crash.

markpb · 07-02-2014 1:49pm

B.J wrote: »

Staff at irish rail are being balloted on more pay cuts. They say that they've already foregone their 3% pay rise for the last 5 years

Losing a pay rise you haven't yet received is hardly a pay cut, is it?

Irish rail have never had less staff and such high ticket prices as they do today, so where is all the extra revenue going now? Expenses perhaps?

Passenger numbers fell from 45.5 million in 2007 to 36.9 million in 2012.
PSO from the government also fell from 203m to 181m .

There's where the money is gone. It's not (necessarily) on expenses or management salaries or anything else that unions like to blame, it's gone because the paying passengers are gone and the government has cut the subvention.

Emme · 07-02-2014 3:00pm

markpb wrote: »

Losing a pay rise you haven't yet received is hardly a pay cut, is it?

Passenger numbers fell from 45.5 million in 2007 to 36.9 million in 2012.
PSO from the government also fell from 203m to 181m .

There's where the money is gone. It's not (necessarily) on expenses or management salaries or anything else that unions like to blame, it's gone because the paying passengers are gone and the government has cut the subvention.

Some people have taken pay cuts of 20% or more yet have to stump up every year for the increase in public transport fares.

RonnieRocket · 08-02-2014 12:06am

Abolish the free travel pass. This was introduced by the corrupt Fianna Fáil government under Bertie Ahern in an attempt to buy the grey vote. The country was awash with money back in 2007. It's broke now in 2014 and we can't afford it. We could probably build Metro North with the tax money used to subsidise this pass. Think of the world class infrastructure Ireland could have.

It's unbelievable that a pensioner, who may not have worked a day in their life, can travel from Cork to Donegal at their leisure without spending a penny. There have been reports of groups of grannies having picnics on the trains. They aren't even travelling anywhere. A ride on the train is simply a day-out for them. Remember this next time you are left standing on your hour-long commute home from an exhausting day at work.

It's almost impossible to have a mature discussion on the subject without people interjecting with emotive guff about their own "poor" granny (despite the fact that they receive a generous pension, free medical card, fuel allowance ad infinitum). The facts are: Even if you never worked a day in your life, you're entitled to a pass.
Even if you're a millionaire, you're entitled to a pass. Time for a government with balls to tell aul Biddy to cough up for a ticket like the rest of us.

end of the road · 08-02-2014 1:55am

RonnieRocket wrote: »

Abolish the free travel pass.

not going to happen

RonnieRocket wrote: »

We could probably build Metro North with the tax money used to subsidise this pass.

yeah right

RonnieRocket wrote: »

Think of the world class infrastructure Ireland could have.

not on the back of the money used to pay for the free travel scheme we couldn't.

RonnieRocket wrote: »

There have been reports of groups of grannies having picnics on the trains.

the amount of people simply traveling just because they have a free pass is very low, you can't take every report in the papers as the truth.

RonnieRocket wrote: »

They aren't even travelling anywhere.

of course they are, their not staying in the same place while the train moves from under them

RonnieRocket wrote: »

A ride on the train is simply a day-out for them.

the railway is for leasure travel as well as commuters, commuters don't have exclusive rights to trains, everybody does, and rightly so

RonnieRocket wrote: »

Remember this next time you are left standing on your hour-long commute home from an exhausting day at work.

can't be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, you could have no free travel holders on the train and still be standing if theirs enough people aboard.

RonnieRocket wrote: »

Time for a government with balls to tell aul Biddy to cough up for a ticket like the rest of us.

time for a government with balls to tell the elderly pay for your own medical care like the rest of us, tough if you can't afford it you'l just have to die, see where i'm going with this? incase you don't my point is this, its all well and good saying time for a government with balls to have people do this and that like the rest of us but sometimes it just can't be done as it creates an even worse situation then before, nobody is saying their isn't a problem with the free travel system, but simply abolishing it could mean less journeys which could undermine services and cause them to go, thats not a good idea either, reforming the free travel scheme is the best way with means testing.

Five ways to improve public transport in Ireland

Comments