RPA defends capacity of proposed metro trams

Slice

Specifications for Dublin's Metro North to be released later this month are to concentrate on 90-metre trams as opposed to the higher capacity heavy rail carriages, the Railway Procurement Agency has confirmed. Tim O'Brien reports.

The confirmation comes amid mounting concern over capacity problems on the existing Luas lines as well as fears that Metro North could suffer similar peak-hour capacity problems within a decade of opening.

The Irish Times has learned the RPA was advised by some of the bidders for the Metro North contract that even if it opts for the narrower 2.4 metre tram system, it should build the tunnel wide enough to later convert to 2.8 metre carriages.

The RPA has also been told that comparable capital cities to Dublin, including Prague, Hamburg, Vienna, Berlin, Lisbon, Munich and Madrid all utilise the higher capacity, wider-bodied carriages in their undergrounds.

Munich, which was the subject of a Department of Transport visit in 2005, uses a "low capacity metro" at 2.8 metres wide, and is capable of carrying in excess of 30,000 people per hour in each direction , some 50 per cent more than the 20,000 capacity of the proposed Dublin underground. Dublin's Dart which can be up to 170 metres long has capacity for 36,000 people per hour per direction. The capacity issue comes as RPA planners face criticism over passengers being left on the platform during the morning rush because trams are full. A Dublin City Business Association spokesman, Tom Coffey, said "to be credible the underground has to have a capacity of about 35,000 people per hour in each direction.

"We can't have a metro which is going to reach capacity six years after it opens. There is no going back to widen a tunnel after it is built and this infrastructure should be designed to last 100 years, as it did in London and elsewhere," he maintained.

The issue also comes as a two-day conference on infrastructure heard details of a Dublin Institute of Technology Futures Academy report which predicted population on the island would rise to seven million people by 2020, with about 1.5 million extra people moving into the Dublin Belfast corridor.

A number of commentators including the head of the National Roads Authority Fred Barry said the population increase - similar in size to the existing population of Dublin - would require another large-scale increase in public transport. Mr Barry said the increase would result in demand for much more rail transport as part of "a successor to Transport 21, a Transport 22, if you like".

However, speaking at the conference the chief executive of the RPA, Frank Allen, said he was "absolutely confident" that the capacity of 20,000 people per hour in each direction was sufficient for Metro North.

He remarked that just "isolated parts" of the London and Paris metros were operating above that capacity and it would be very hard to find other examples in cities in Europe. He said he was "very, very confident" of the capacity of the 90-metre carriages operating at a two minute frequency during peak times.

Mr Allen said the population forecast in the Fingal County Development plan was more pertinent than the all-island forecast. Metro North was, he said, "fully integrated with population projections" and "Fingal is absolutely confident that the capacity is more than is required".

from today's Irish Times

Chris_533976

Looks like, as usual, the Irish are screwing up a major project by being totally stupid.

Build it for large capacity.

Irish and Proud

Slice wrote: »

from today's Irish Times

Well the article you posted casts even further doubt on the case for a metro line, something that will be of limited use to the Northside anyway (less stations which are harder to access as opposed to the LUAS). I need to be blunt with the RPA - metro lines to airports are not the in-thing now - express rail links are (ie. Heathrow Express, Stanstead Express etc) - get with the program RPA folks. I guess the last thing that people arriving from an airport want is 20 stops!

Now, what should we be doing? - I've said it before, a North City Rail Link tunnel (no stations underground) from Clontarf to Coolock where a large interchange station would be built to branch this line into 2 surface routes. One of these routes would link the Airport, while the other would rejoin the Northern Line at Malahide.

What would this do? - Simple, provide the infrastructure for a direct rail service (DART) from the Airport to Docklands and Heuston (via interconnector), plus effectively four tracking the Northern Dart Line from Clontarf to Malahide with very little disruption. The Northen Suburban and Enterprise trains would use this facility. This rail scheme should be cheaper than the Metro as the NCRL tunnel would use a straight forward TBM construction method similar to that of the DPT (€700m).

What about the Northside? - The Northside is no less entitled to the cinderella type treatment that the Southside (and indeed the Westside) has got with it's LUAS projects. The Metro North as I said before will not best serve the Northside, there should be LUAS links from town to at least Finglas, Ballymun / Santry, and Coolock. This would give reasonable balance across the City.

Regards!

Slice

I think there would be demand for both Metro North and a direct, non-stop rail link with the airport

AlekSmart

Thankfully as I head at great speed towards my "Three score and ten" the shameful negligence of these people becomes just a little easire to bear.

Just read between the lines of this piece of pontificat.......

"However, speaking at the conference the chief executive of the RPA, Frank Allen, said he was "absolutely confident" that the capacity of 20,000 people per hour in each direction was sufficient for Metro North.

He remarked that just "isolated parts" of the London and Paris metros were operating above that capacity and it would be very hard to find other examples in cities in Europe. He said he was "very, very confident" of the capacity of the 90-metre carriages operating at a two minute frequency during peak times.

Mr Allen said the population forecast in the Fingal County Development plan was more pertinent than the all-island forecast. Metro North was, he said, "fully integrated with population projections" and "Fingal is absolutely confident that the capacity is more than is required".

Sound man Frank,you`re not going to put that expensively trained Financial head anywhere above the parapet......

The key is in the last sentence......."FINGAL is absolutely confident etc etc..."....There that`s sorted then.....Once FINGAL is satisfied IRELAND is satisfied.

The population expansion figures being quoted here are Biblical in proportion and effectively constitute a population emergency for the COUNTRY.....so therefore it`s doubly heartening to see establishment figures such as Frank Allen standing up for the same Parochial traditions which gave Eire the "Emergency" while the rest of the world engaged in War

The Implications for the country involved here are Vast and cover far more than simply Public Transport,there is little sign that Frank`s "people" recognize this as they whistle gaily past the graveyard......

God save us all,there is even mention of a Transport 22...at a time when elements of the original 1999 National Development Plan remain unfinished.... :rolleyes:

Mind you there`s always Leitrim or next door to Donie Cassidy to consider....

murphaph

Irish and Proud wrote: »

Well the article you posted casts even further doubt on the case for a metro line, something that will be of limited use to the Northside anyway (less stations which are harder to access as opposed to the LUAS).

That's the essence of metro-fewer stations, further apart and harder to access-but the benefit of segregated running generally outweigh these factors as it allows much higher speeds and more reliable journey times as well as greater frequency.

Irish and Proud wrote: »

I need to be blunt with the RPA - metro lines to airports are not the in-thing now - express rail links are (ie. Heathrow Express, Stanstead Express etc) - get with the program RPA folks. I guess the last thing that people arriving from an airport want is 20 stops!

It's nowhere near 20 stops from the airport to the city centre. It's 4 to the north inner city (Drumcondra), 7 to the city centre (O'Connell Bridge) and 8 to the south inner city (Stephen's Green) so you're making up an extra 13 non-existant stops there!

You realise that both Heathrow and Stansted are significantly further away from Central London than Dublin Airport is from Central Dublin! Heathrow is 15 odd miles while Stansted is 31 miles as the crow flies. Dublin is 5 or 6 miles. Totally different scenario.

Irish and Proud wrote: »

Now, what should we be doing? - I've said it before, a North City Rail Link tunnel (no stations underground) from Clontarf to Coolock where a large interchange station would be built to branch this line into 2 surface routes. One of these routes would link the Airport, while the other would rejoin the Northern Line at Malahide.

So you'd build a railway tunnel under the city at massive expense and not utilise it for underground stations? Pretty much the complete opposite of what every other major city in the world has done? It would be FAR CHEAPER to create an express heavy rail link by simply quad tracking the Northern Line to Balbriggan with a spur line off to the airport-the land is free and always will be as it's in the Airport Public Safety Zone. Not too far from IE's plan, but all grade separated junctions and sharing the Enterprise tracks into Connolly-still far cheaper than your strange tunnel idea and would provide added benefits to Northern Line DART.

Irish and Proud wrote: »

What about the Northside? - The Northside is no less entitled to the cinderella type treatment that the Southside (and indeed the Westside) has got with it's LUAS projects. The Metro North as I said before will not best serve the Northside, there should be LUAS links from town to at least Finglas, Ballymun / Santry, and Coolock. This would give reasonable balance across the City.

You do realise that an underground, segregated metro is usually considered better than a tram?

Trams have their place but a central high capacity spine from the city north towards Swords will allow much more than a similar tram line.

murphaph

AlekSmart wrote: »

God save us all,there is even mention of a Transport 22...at a time when elements of the original 1999 National Development Plan remain unfinished.... :rolleyes:

Indeed. Not just 'tidying up' either-large elements of infrastructure including all the major interurban roads were supposed to be finished in 2006. We should be looking forward to the completion of the ARC and national secondary roads projects at this stage. This would have actuallyleft some money in the pot for the key PT projects (which were ALWAYS going to be done after the roads). :mad:Still people bleat on about FF and how good they are with the economy.

Maskhadov

This project is completely stupid. Build the metro line all underground and a capacity of around 60,000.

I think there is only one small area of this metro line which has the correct capacity.

Transport 21 is a diaster. Very poor plan. A full city wide metro is needed.

murphaph

Maskhadov wrote: »

This project is completely stupid. Build the metro line all underground and a capacity of around 60,000.

Why would a low density city like Dublin need double the capacity of a high density city like Munich? Munich's system is a joy to use. No matter what capacity is built into the sytem you will have packed trains at rush hour. Happens the world over.

60,000 PPHPD would mean over ten percent of the entire population of the Greater Dublin Region could travel on this one single line in an hour! This line does not, nor ever will pass through the catchment area with 10% of the GDR's population and even if 10% of the region decides to make the catchment area home, they'd all need to hop on in the same hour before the system failed!

Be realistic with your figures for Heaven's sake.

marmajam

Maskhadov wrote: »

This project is completely stupid. Build the metro line all underground and a capacity of around 60,000.

I think there is only one small area of this metro line which has the correct capacity.

Transport 21 is a diaster. Very poor plan. A full city wide metro is needed.

Nonsense. Only a week ago the Sundae Business Post did an article that experts believed that metro north was being built to overcapacity.
That was in a newspaper so it must be correct.

marmajam

Irish and Proud wrote: »

Well the article you posted casts even further doubt on the case for a metro line, something that will be of limited use to the Northside anyway (less stations which are harder to access as opposed to the LUAS). I need to be blunt with the RPA - metro lines to airports are not the in-thing now - express rail links are (ie. Heathrow Express, Stanstead Express etc) - get with the program RPA folks. I guess the last thing that people arriving from an airport want is 20 stops!

Now, what should we be doing? - I've said it before, a North City Rail Link tunnel (no stations underground) from Clontarf to Coolock where a large interchange station would be built to branch this line into 2 surface routes. One of these routes would link the Airport, while the other would rejoin the Northern Line at Malahide.

What would this do? - Simple, provide the infrastructure for a direct rail service (DART) from the Airport to Docklands and Heuston (via interconnector), plus effectively four tracking the Northern Dart Line from Clontarf to Malahide with very little disruption. The Northen Suburban and Enterprise trains would use this facility. This rail scheme should be cheaper than the Metro as the NCRL tunnel would use a straight forward TBM construction method similar to that of the DPT (€700m).

What about the Northside? - The Northside is no less entitled to the cinderella type treatment that the Southside (and indeed the Westside) has got with it's LUAS projects. The Metro North as I said before will not best serve the Northside, there should be LUAS links from town to at least Finglas, Ballymun / Santry, and Coolock. This would give reasonable balance across the City.

Regards!

I said this. I said that. The only thing you did'nt say was build a maglevhover sub which would be easier and cheaper.

Maskhadov

Its being built to an under capacity with NO future proofing. No body wants to go back and have to rebuild it.

The airport is going to expand in future years and the semi detached houses in Dublin are going to be replaced.

It needs the 60,000 capacity for future proofing. LUAS is already packed.

murphaph

Maskhadov wrote: »

Its being built to an under capacity with NO future proofing. No body wants to go back and have to rebuild it.

The airport is going to expand in future years and the semi detached houses in Dublin are going to be replaced.

It needs the 60,000 capacity for future proofing. LUAS is already packed.

a) Where are you plucking this 60k figure from, some international transport journal of note I presume?

b) What age are you?

marmajam

murphaph wrote: »

a) Where are you plucking this 60k figure from, some international transport journal of note I presume?

b) What age are you?

8 and a half

Irish and Proud

murphaph wrote: »

That's the essence of metro-fewer stations, further apart and harder to access-but the benefit of segregated running generally outweigh these factors as it allows much higher speeds and more reliable journey times as well as greater frequency.

True, but how many metro lines can you build as opposed to LUAS lines. With the resources we have as a small country (and especially in leaner times), we'd be luckey to have one proper metro to the airport and therefore have to make do with bus services in most other parts of Dublin which would be far less reliable than the LUAS.

murphaph wrote: »

It's nowhere near 20 stops from the airport to the city centre. It's 4 to the north inner city (Drumcondra), 7 to the city centre (O'Connell Bridge) and 8 to the south inner city (Stephen's Green) so you're making up an extra 13 non-existant stops there!

Well, I only meant 20 in cliché terms, but 7 stops into town is still a lot for a new airport rail link. It wouldn't be half as bad as the Piccadilly Line from Heathrow though.

murphaph wrote: »

You realise that both Heathrow and Stansted are significantly further away from Central London than Dublin Airport is from Central Dublin! Heathrow is 15 odd miles while Stansted is 31 miles as the crow flies. Dublin is 5 or 6 miles. Totally different scenario.

OK, good point mate! However, even 5 or 6 miles is a lot in urban rapid transit terms. An express link over that distance would make Dublin very competitive. That said, a proper airport bus service via the DPT straight into the Docklands Financial District would probably just be as competitive I guess, so I'll forfeit this particular item.

murphaph wrote: »

So you'd build a railway tunnel under the city at massive expense and not utilise it for underground stations? Pretty much the complete opposite of what every other major city in the world has done? It would be FAR CHEAPER to create an express heavy rail link by simply quad tracking the Northern Line to Balbriggan with a spur line off to the airport-the land is free and always will be as it's in the Airport Public Safety Zone. Not too far from IE's plan, but all grade separated junctions and sharing the Enterprise tracks into Connolly-still far cheaper than your strange tunnel idea and would provide added benefits to Northern Line DART.

...and what about the cost of acquiring properties, including the apartment blocks at Portmarnock Station. On the Northside, you might get space for 4 tracking by boxing out the v-shaped cuttings from Clontarf Golf Course, through to Raheny. However, residents in the vicinity would still want compensation due to tracks being laid closer to houses giving rise to nuisance, plus increased noise and vibration levels generally - that's not to mention the problems associated with piling during the construction process. For other sections of track (and at all stations), land would have to be acquired which, being in an established urban area, would lead to massive acquisition costs. This could be offset by major development initiatives around the stations, but can't you imagine how that would go down with locals.

murphaph wrote: »

Trams have their place but a central high capacity spine from the city north towards Swords will allow much more than a similar tram line.

Of course I know that a metro is of higher spec than a tram, but is it better to have one brilliant showpiece in the midst of a third rate transport system, than it is to have a good coverage of lesser, but reasonable and more extensive transport links covering Dublin.

As a nation let's get familiar with our new found ability to walk before we start trying to run - let's take things one step at a time and get on with building up our LUAS system - just like we're doing with the motorways nationwide.

Regards!

Irish and Proud

Maskhadov wrote: »

The airport is going to expand in future years and the semi detached houses in Dublin are going to be replaced.

Although your statement regarding semi-d's is not (at least to some extent) beyond the bounds of possibility in the future, where did you source this information. It's the first time I've ever heard such a prediction.

However, I don't think that semi-ds are a sustainable form of development. We need a major rethink in this area.

Regards!

Maskhadov

murphaph wrote: »

a) Where are you plucking this 60k figure from, some international transport journal of note I presume?

b) What age are you?

from other major cities around the world.

b) older than 8.

Question,

Why a souped up LUAS line when you can have a high capacity metro. It's one of the main arteries in Dublin and should have a future capacity for that.

marmajam

Maskhadov wrote: »

from other major cities around the world.

b) older than 8.

Question,

Why a souped up LUAS line when you can have a high capacity metro. It's one of the main arteries in Dublin and should have a future capacity for that.

Older than 8?
Please post copy of birth cert.
Otherwise bed with no supper.

Slice

so therefore it`s doubly heartening to see establishment figures such as Frank Allen standing up for the same Parochial traditions which gave Eire the "Emergency" while the rest of the world engaged in War

The Implications for the country involved here are Vast and cover far more than simply Public Transport,there is little sign that Frank`s "people" recognize this as they whistle gaily past the graveyard......

...what are you on about?

John R

There is a lot of OTT nonsense in this thread but I do believe the RPA are going about it in the wrong way. Coping with peak capacity demands by running 90m trains at 2min headways is not a good solution. It leaves no room for expansion in the future.

IMO the underground stations should be built to cater for (or at least allow easy expansion for) 180m trains.

Dublin is not going to have numerous lines running under the city centre, future lines could easily be catered for by sharing the Metro North city centre section but that will only be possible if there is enough capacity to effectively double or treble the CC frequency.

For construction it is obviously cheaper to cater for 24x 90m tph peak but over the lifetime of the project the savings of running double-length trains at half the frequency would more than likely even it out.

The other big problem I have is that building it with a city centre terminus effectively halves the potential catchment of a very expensive project. The benefits of a city centre tunnel should be maximised by running a line to it from both directions.

BrianD

The obvious solution is to build a heavy rail line to swords that will integrate with other DART lines in the city. The RPA can build to any standard that they are told to do. While it will be more expensive to build the heavy rail option it provides far more flexibility and future proofing then the tramway proposed by the RPA.

The primary goal should be to serve Swords and all intervening points as a commuter route. Serving the airport should be incidental and considered only as an additional benefit of the route. Who cares about an expensive showcase metro? The project that the RPA is a proposing is anything but a showcase as the connections are so poor that most of our European neighbours would laugh (or probably cry) is they had to use it. The current Metro North route does not offer a realistic proposition for most Dubliners or those travelling from outside Dublin to use it.

Irish and Proud

BrianD wrote: »

Who cares about an expensive showcase metro?

Just one correction: put 'an' in capital letters and underline it!

Otherwise, you've got it in one mate!

Regards!

murphaph

This is not a showcase metro.

It will have utilitarian station design with minimalist architecture. The O'Connell Bridge stop will likely be self financing through the retail aspects it seems set to include.

The rest of the stops will be quite dull and uninteresting. It will be a functional metro, but will it be well served by other modes?!

DTA??

Maskhadov

Along with the in correct capacity for Metro North, the line has also the wrong route. It should just head straight south in a straight line from Santry Via IFSC via merrion square. The current route is nonsense

aliveandkicking

Maskhadov wrote: »

It should just head straight south in a straight line from Santry Via IFSC via merrion square.

Why??

BendiBus

aliveandkicking wrote: »

Why??

Because so far he's only learned to do straight lines in crayon class.

Zoney

It really looks like they just want to build "Luas underground". All the musings over widths of carriages, heavy vs. light, reasonable capacity, etc. ignores the point that even if a super-duper ideal Metro isn't needed, having the equivalent of the current Luas underground is inadequate. Whatever they do for Metro, it has to be more flexible for capacity expansion than the Luas is. We're no time at all into the lifetime of the Red and Green lines and there already problems catering for demand. Sure there are things can be done to help this, but surely we're pretty doomed on both those lines in 5 or 10 years time, or just when the Green line extension opens.

trellheim

overcrowding is prevalent already on the green line in the mornings inbound

should trade the short shuttle tram over to the red line and run it as a second shuttle , in return for a full length one in return.

Balally->Charlemont in the mornings is like the calcutta express

Ernest

Murphaph says:

"It would be FAR CHEAPER to create an express heavy rail link by simply quad tracking the Northern Line to Balbriggan with a spur line off to the airport."

Explain the "SIMPLY" bit again..........

murphaph

Ernest wrote: »

Murphaph says:

"It would be FAR CHEAPER to create an express heavy rail link by simply quad tracking the Northern Line to Balbriggan with a spur line off to the airport."

Explain the "SIMPLY" bit again..........

It's all relative Ernest. Much of the Northern Line is on an embankment. This secton could (relative to tunnel building!) easily be quad tracked by the replacement of the earthen embankments with vertical retaining walls.

There is no doubt that there are pinch points that would require CPO and demolition however I maintain that the added benefits and reduced cost compared to the tunnel option the other poster suggested are obvious. It could even be an option that on the really tight bits you could run the 2 express tracks over the local ones on a deck-still cheaper than tunneling.

Having four tracks side by side is better than 2 on the surface and 2 in a tunnel because in the event of a train failure you can make use of the other track(s) to bypass the failed train. It provides more flexibility.

Ernest

Of course, if the Clontarf to Balbriggan line could be increased to four tracks instead of two that would be great - it would remove the incompatibility between the long-distance diesels and the frequent-stop electric DART trains which makes the latter service so poor and the scope for improvement of this so narrow. However, as Murphaph's answer reveals, to bring this about is not at all a simple matter. Apart from shoring up embankments ( if the embankments are really all that wide ) there are the multiple bottlenecks that the many stone-arch bridges would represent. Plus in many parts of the line there is no spare embankment anyway. As for the suggestion that it is feasible to "run the 2 express tracks over the local ones on a deck", does that mean on stilts - a sort of elevated railway in between the bridges? The more you look at it, something like Irish and Proud's idea of a separate underground loop via Coolock with a split there to the Airport and to Malahide may be worth considering. Or at least another (underground ?) route somewhere for the long distance trains to get from Connolly to beyond the Dublin suburban northside bottleneck.