Cattle transported more humanely than Luas customers

eth0_

It seems unfathomable to me that the Luas operator are allowed to get away with the dangerous overcrowding on their service!

Everyday I usually watch about 2 Luas go by without getting on, because they're just too packed. I mean, people squashed up against the doors!

The EU has laws preventing animals being transported like this....what about humans?

mikemac

What often makes it worse is people barge into the Luas at stops without letting people out first.

It can be hard to get out at times


How can they solve the overcrowding though besides increasing the frequency?
The driver can hardly refuse to take more people. I've seen people stand in the doorway as all their friends are buying tickets so the driver can't pull away on time.

paulm17781

This is what happens when the government decide we need trams to do a trains job.

eth0_

They need more trams, and IMO they need, at rush hour, some trams which run in a ring from Heuston to Connolly. I don't know WHY this is has never occured to them.

A lot of people start their journey at Heuston, when the tram is already full of people who've gotten on since Tallaght.

MarkoP11

The RPA will deny there is a problem and refuse to acknowledge it, they even claim there is capacity for future growth

You are dealing with the organisation that said 40m trams on the red line was madness, the organisation that claims there won't be overcrowding problems when the Cherrywood extension opens, plently of people on record pointing out there is already a problem but no one listens even at public inquiries

There is no EU standard which sets safe crowding levels, the Irish safety peoples advice if its too crowded don't get on

Two basic things are clear
Harcourt Street line should have been a DART style metro from day one
Heuston City Centre is preventing commuters from beyond the city getting home

eth0_

But surely it's not big deal to put into effect a circle system at rush hour between Heuston and Connolly? That seems to be where the bulk of commuters get on/off....it seems like the only solution, along with a few more trams!

corktina

paulm17781 wrote:

This is what happens when the government decide we need trams to do a trains job.

dont you mean a Buses job?:)

BrianD

The problem with the shuttle is that I understand that the power service needs to be upgraded to handle more (and probably larger trams) on that section.

While the Luas is great and has certainly been well accepted by commuters as means of transport, they are a monument to an inability to plan infrastructure. Tallaght deserved a proper DART rail link (above or below ground) and the Green Line should have been the same. The problem is that the powers that be did not have the balls to go ahead with what would have been a big dig under Dublin 2 so we got the cheapo alternative as per usual.

At the same time there is a funny belief amongst Irish commuters that somehow there should be a seat available to them. The overcrowding on the Luas or DART is typical the world over during rush hour.

eth0_

BrianD wrote:

At the same time there is a funny belief amongst Irish commuters that somehow there should be a seat available to them. The overcrowding on the Luas or DART is typical the world over during rush hour.

Have you ever had the pleasure of using the LUAS at rush hour?
I don't mind standing, what I *do* mind is being squashed up against the doors in crippling heat.

It's very noticable that the Luas ticket inspectors are NEVER present on an overcrowded tram - they know better!

It's debatable whether you are "entitled" to a seat, but conditions on the Luas are just inhumane. I suffer from claustrophobia and i'm bloody glad I only travel between Museum and Connolly, my stomach is in knots by the time I get off after that relatively short journey.

Andrew Duffy

eth0_ wrote:

I suffer from claustrophobia and i'm bloody glad I only travel between Museum and Connolly

My apologies if you have a disability or are in poor health and thus can't, but I'd recommend you walk that distance - it will take about 30 minutes and will be a lot more enjoyable. If you miss a tram and then can't get on the next one, your trip will probably take the same amount of time.

eth0_

Andrew if I wanted to walk, I would.
I walk home in the evenings but in the morning i'd rather not. That's my prerogative.

steve-o

MarkoP11 wrote:

You are dealing with the organisation that said 40m trams on the red line was madness, the organisation that claims there won't be overcrowding problems when the Cherrywood extension opens, plently of people on record pointing out there is already a problem but no one listens even at public inquiries

Is the Cherrywood route even suitable for upgrade to Metro? The route up around Ballyogan seems to be a bit twisty and has a good few crossings to negotiate. Or will Metro follow the old railway line, leaving a local Ballyogan Luas loop to feed it?

paulm17781

eth0_ wrote:

Andrew if I wanted to walk, I would.
I walk home in the evenings but in the morning i'd rather not. That's my prerogative.

That leaves you with a choice. Walk / cycle or be horribly crushed.

monument

eth0_ wrote:

Have you ever had the pleasure of using the LUAS at rush hour?
I don't mind standing, what I *do* mind is being squashed up against the doors in crippling heat.

Try the Tube!

eth0_ wrote:

It's debatable whether you are "entitled" to a seat,

No, it's not. You're not.

MarkoP11

steve-o wrote:

Is the Cherrywood route even suitable for upgrade to Metro? The route up around Ballyogan seems to be a bit twisty and has a good few crossings to negotiate. Or will Metro follow the old railway line, leaving a local Ballyogan Luas loop to feed it?

Thats debatable its not suitable for the kind of segregated high performance metro you expect

RPA say it is designed to allow a later upgrade but serious questions remain with respect to the numerous level crossings en route

The best line I've heard at a recent inquiry, "the applicant has indicated that they will not be seeking the highest level of priority at this junction" kind of sums up the whole Luas experience its nice and shinny but it lacks to priority it deserves

The best advice is get the bus, plently of seats on the 90 bus and if you board outbound at the civic offices its lightening quick, its also cheaper and leaves you closer to the door of Heuston. Its only 25-30 minutes on foot from O'Connell bridge and there have been evenings when I beat the bus down

penexpers

It's debateable that if they increased the number of trams the problem of overcrowding wouldn't go away automatically.

In any case, overcrowding on the Luas is no worse than the Paris Metro or the London Underground at rush hour.

to be honest, the Metro in Paris, The london underground, and pretty much any major city's transport services are stretched similarly at Rush Hour, otherwise it wouldn't be rush hour...

Get used to it..

or Cycle

MiniD

Deleted User wrote:

to be honest, the Metro in Paris, The london underground, and pretty much any major city's transport services are stretched similarly at Rush Hour, otherwise it wouldn't be rush hour...

Get used to it..

or Cycle

Yes, you're right. However, the difference here is that London and Paris have a combiation of different lines all working together, with a much higher frequency and passenger capicity than Luas. With Luas, it's not only stretched, but it cannot cope with passenger numbers. And it's not only at rush hour. Yesterday, a Sunday, there were a handful of people on the platform who could not physically fit onto the tram. All of whom had purchased a ticket and were forced to wait a further 12 minutes for the next tram which might have space for them. The frequency is far too low at weekends, with gaps of 15 minutes not uncommon.
One thing which I've heard passengers complain about is the lack of air conditioning on trams, which would be of some help to passengers forced to squeeze together.

I'm tired of reading about how successful the Luas is, be it the success of its first birthday or how it has made more profit that expected. When will somebody in RPA or Government put their hand up and admit they got it all wrong, and that the Luas has failed in coping with passenger demand. Any transport model which is overcrowded in it's first year just shows bad planning and design. There is no excuse for a 12/15 minute gap on a Saturday and Sunday afternoon, there is no excuse for allowing 30m trams onto the red line which is expected to be a feeder between Connolly and Heuston and also a fast transport link to Tallaght. I also find it insulting to every Luas passenger to read in the paper how the RPA are in talks about extending the current Luas lines to Cherrywood and Citywest. It's almost like they use a different Luas to everyone else. Sort out the current problems first before you extend it any further.

MarkoP11

MiniD wrote:

I'm tired of reading about how successful the Luas is, be it the success of its first birthday or how it has made more profit that expected. When will somebody in RPA or Government put their hand up and admit they got it all wrong, and that the Luas has failed in coping with passenger demand. Any transport model which is overcrowded in it's first year just shows bad planning and design. There is no excuse for a 12/15 minute gap on a Saturday and Sunday afternoon, there is no excuse for allowing 30m trams onto the red line which is expected to be a feeder between Connolly and Heuston and also a fast transport link to Tallaght.

You have hit the spot here, transport in Dublin is about numbers and money not about social impact where it really matters its focused on a narrow financial case, of course the money end is important but the problem with Luas is its all focused on the commercial end the accounting is creative since its not burdened with capital costs, DART will always be called the greatest success in Irish public transport history since it worked it made a difference out on the roads ok it lost money but it was the turning point and it was delivered under budget without screwing the city up

First we need to accept that Luas itself is not the fault its central government (note not local Dublin representatives) who shafted the far better plan on the table, which had DART to Tallaght, Blanchardstown and Airport, sure DART is not the best system but even under quite poor management it can move a lot more people a lot faster. City Tallaght in under 20 minutes it was on the table

I firmly believe that if a public transport should be run on a non profit basis such that if a service reaches a point of profitability that the surplus is invested into extra services deemed not profitable by the bean counters, eg late night or not increasing fares

And the Luas trams have AC but its crap, take a spin on the air conditioned DART units and there is no comparison

paulm17781

There is airconditioning on the Luas. Problem is people open the windows and negate its effects. If people close windows, the Luas would be colder.

Red Alert

the Luas does not have "air conditioning" as you and I know the term to be (i.e. refrigerated cooling). it has powered ventilation (which is the air you feel blowing at you from the grille in the ceiling), basically a fan up in a box on the roof. there is an electric heater in it too for the winter but it never seems to get very warm at all.

full air conditioning (known as vapour compression / refrigeration / what your car or shop has) is a factory installed customer add-on available from Alstom which the RPA didn't buy for the saloon. the driver's cabs are fitted with it.

moral: until they get full a/c you're better off opening the windows.

Victor

monument wrote:

Try the Tube!

Apparently it hit 52 degrees on the tube two weeks ago.

eth0_ wrote:

They need more trams, and IMO they need, at rush hour, some trams which run in a ring from Heuston to Connolly. I don't know WHY this is has never occured to them.

Its called "short running".

MarkoP11 wrote:

The RPA will deny there is a problem and refuse to acknowledge it, they even claim there is capacity for future growth

There is, off peak.

BrianD wrote:

The problem with the shuttle is that I understand that the power service needs to be upgraded to handle more (and probably larger trams) on that section.

Well, Frank says the power supply is there to go to three minute frequency. I imagine the problem is the actually frequency at peaks times as trams are delayed at junctions.

micmclo wrote:

What often makes it worse is people barge into the Luas at stops without letting people out first.

Stand on them.

paulm17781

Red Alert wrote:

the Luas does not have "air conditioning" as you and I know the term to be (i.e. refrigerated cooling). it has powered ventilation (which is the air you feel blowing at you from the grille in the ceiling), basically a fan up in a box on the roof. there is an electric heater in it too for the winter but it never seems to get very warm at all.

full air conditioning (known as vapour compression / refrigeration / what your car or shop has) is a factory installed customer add-on available from Alstom which the RPA didn't buy for the saloon. the driver's cabs are fitted with it.

moral: until they get full a/c you're better off opening the windows.

I had my hand up to it the other day. My hand got cold. It is colder then windows open.

Sarsfield

Victor wrote:

Apparently it hit 52 degrees on the tube two weeks ago

I did a fair bit of Tubing around London last week. It was not pleasant! They were doing constant PA's advising people to bring water with them and in the event of people collapsing, not to pull the emergecy cord until they were at a station. Thankfully I was mostly travelling off-peak.

Victor

eth0_ wrote:

Cattle transported more humanely than Luas customers

eth0_, we could put you down at the end of the trip. :eek:

paulm17781

Sarsfield wrote:

I did a fair bit of Tubing around London last week. It was not pleasant! They were doing constant PA's advising people to bring water with them and in the event of people collapsing, not to pull the emergecy cord until they were at a station. Thankfully I was mostly travelling off-peak.

They do that every summer. They need to or people would probably die. It gets very hot down there in summer.

DerekP11

There's an old series running on Sky 3 at the mo, about the behind the scenes of the tube. The reason for no air conditioning has been quoted as, it being an old system and the cost of retrofitting it with AC, to be astronomical. But apparently they still plan on doing it. Either way, customer service intiatives, on the tube are far more advanced than anything IE have ever tried.

In my opinion, its because London Transport know they serve the public, while IE have yet to learn that the public deserve better.

Note to IE: Passengers are your bread and butter. They deserve every intiative possible to make them feel like your much vaunted concept of being a "customer".

Something as simple a free bottles of water in the Summer. A really beneficial thing on a crowded commuter train.

eth0_

Sarsfield wrote:

I did a fair bit of Tubing around London last week. It was not pleasant! They were doing constant PA's advising people to bring water with them and in the event of people collapsing, not to pull the emergecy cord until they were at a station. Thankfully I was mostly travelling off-peak.

There was a letter in the Sunday Times tabloid review from a guy who was mugged getting off the Tube last week. They only took his water :-o

eth0_

paulm17781 wrote:

I had my hand up to it the other day. My hand got cold. It is colder then windows open.

I don't know if it's A/C or whatever, it's cooler with the windows CLOSED.
A/C works best with windows shut, whatever LUAS has must work along the same lines.

markpb

One of the really novel ideas I heard was that they're putting fountains on some of the platforms to cool the air there.

They can't refit AC into most of the tracks but the trains are just too small to find anywhere to fit it. They're only fitting it into trains on the newer lines that have space to accomodate it.

They're also fitting AC onto some of the buses in London too, starting off with the city centre buses and moving out. It might be expensive but it would go down a treat on a lot of DB's buses too.

MarkoP11

Should bear in mind Summer temperatures in London head into the low to mid 30's on a regular basis. If it goes over 25 in Dublin its extreme.

The Luas seems to have some class of cooled forced air ventilation system, given frequent stops and the large numbers of doors any pure air conditioning system is unlikely to offer any serious comfort improvement

Simplest solution is more trams and higher priority at road junctions, more trams should reduce over crowding and higher priority should stabilise if not reduce journey times

parsi

DerekP11 wrote:

There's an old series running on Sky 3 at the mo, about the behind the scenes of the tube. The reason for no air conditioning has been quoted as, it being an old system and the cost of retrofitting it with AC, to be astronomical. But apparently they still plan on doing it. Either way, customer service intiatives, on the tube are far more advanced than anything IE have ever tried.

In my opinion, its because London Transport know they serve the public, while IE have yet to learn that the public deserve better.

Note to IE: Passengers are your bread and butter. They deserve every intiative possible to make them feel like your much vaunted concept of being a "customer".

Something as simple a free bottles of water in the Summer. A really beneficial thing on a crowded commuter train.

Why does a thread about Luas whic is operated by a private company (and union free) suddenly have IE dragged into it ?

If someone is going on the bloody train/tram/tube/dart/metro let them bring their own water - I don't have aircon in my car and I don't see people clamouring that the NRA should be giving out water.

If this thread was on a UK board there'd be fierce moaning about the LU which is overcrowded at the best of times. Peak-time crowding is an uncomfortable fact of life.

cast_iron

paulm17781 wrote:

There is airconditioning on the Luas. Problem is people open the windows and negate its effects. If people close windows, the Luas would be colder.

Opening the windows certainly won't help the air con's operation, but if it affects it so much that it is rendered useless then it isn't being implemented properly.

It's a typically Irish trait...turn it on and never look back. If it isn't cooling the Trams enough, its output should be boosted so that it does its job!

MiniD

parsi wrote:

If someone is going on the bloody train/tram/tube/dart/metro let them bring their own water - I don't have aircon in my car and I don't see people clamouring that the NRA should be giving out water.

I think the point being made was how it would be a nice gesture for companies to value their customer by making a little effort and hand out water on a hot tram. It would make the customer leave the tram/train feeling a bit appreciated. Rather than than thousands of people leaving the tram feeling crushed and hot, because of bad capacity issues and lack of air conditioning.

The Luas has come under some fierce criticism lately regarding overcrowded trams. From a marketing point, handing out water to hot passengers would be a great way to show some compassion. Instead it would seem the RPA are more interested in extending the line to throw thousands more people onto the tram, which to a passenger, is like shoving two fingers in their overheated face.

Peak-time crowding is an uncomfortable fact of life.

Noboddy is denying that. Although I don't class 2pm on a Sunday afternoon as peak hours. Being uncomfortable is one thing, but having a platform load of passengers unable to physically fit onto the tram is a serious problem.

Out of interest, has there been any cases of rail operators being fined/prosecuted for overcrowding trains?

cast_iron

MiniD wrote:

It would make the customer leave the tram/train feeling a bit appreciated. Rather than than thousands of people leaving the tram feeling crushed and hot, because of bad capacity issues and lack of air conditioning.

And maybe they should have someone to brings everyone's bags to their front door when they get off too! It's public transport - what do you expect?
That's why we seem to like our cars so much.

MiniD wrote:

Out of interest, has there been any cases of rail operators being fined/prosecuted for overcrowding trains?

I would assume the trains/trams are legally safe to carry passengers at full capacity - even if they are packed in like sardines.

MarkoP11

As rules stand there are no guidelines on safe loading levels on rail based public transport, the specification assumes an impossible load, the manufacturer loadings are impossible, you don't want to know how many people they think they can fit in. What I do know is the DART/Luas/Arrow is not even close to design limit when loaded, end of the day its your call to get on

AC just doesn't work unless you can keep the coach sealed most of the time, who many windows and how many doors are there on a Luas tram doesn't make it easy, you would need a huge amount of electricity to provide the cooling level upwards of 40kW. The latest batch of DART coaches have excellent air conditioning, if anything its too cold comes at a significant price it uses about 290kW per 8 coach train in electricity at full power

Two choices waste a heap of money trying to make the impossible work ie get AC to work in a non sealed environment or use that money to buy more trams to solve the root problem of lack of capacity which in turn means less overcrowding which gives the existing cool air ventilation style system a chance to work, which it does

dowlingm

Toronto have just refitted one of their streetcars with a rooftop AC unit (they normally have forced air ventilation and openable windows) but given the higher frequency of stops, the design of the vents and the opening of windows the benefit doesn't seem to be coming through. Apparently when built (1977-80) they had AC but it was removed due to insoluble problems.

Incidentally, today's high here is 36C (which "feels like" 47 factoring in humidity) - last night's low was 27C. Today will be a subway (which has AC) rather than streetcar day I think!

Victor

I wonder, in the case of London (but not necessarily Dublin's Metro) if it would be easier to crill the tunnels than the carriages.

The trick with big air conditioning systems is to have an ice bank that is chilled overnight and used up during the day. Cheaper electricity and less demand on the power system.