How CIE/IE Can make savings: Your ideas.

markpb

MOH wrote: »

There's a guy on the DART every morning collecting Metros off seats.

AFAIK those guys are paid by the publishers of the papers - it's part of the contract with Irish Rail (and RPA) that allows them to give out papers on their property.

Nostradamus

Oliver1985 wrote: »

1. Scrap the free travel for anyone under 65.

and means test the over 65s Travel Passes. I once saw a oulfella in a Louis Copeland suit getting out of a Rolls Royce Silver Shadow and on to the Sligo train for a free trip to Dublin.

Oliver1985

Nostradamus wrote: »

and means test the over 65s Travel Passes. I once saw a oulfella in a Louis Copeland suit getting out of a Rolls Royce Silver Shadow and on to the Sligo train for a free trip to Dublin.

Also you can get rid of the amount of junkies hanging around on the train

westtip

Ask Michael O'Leary to be CEO for a year, (think this may have already been suggested) Take on the unions and get rid of them. Enforce Rostering so that a late night train can leave the mainline stations every night to all mainline terminus.

EG: 11.00 pm train to leave Connolly express to Mullingar/Longford and maybe one interim stop betwen Longford and Sligo. Make half the trains on the Sligo line as express trains stopping at four stations only.

Do a similar late night express service stopping at no more than four stations to Galway, Limerick and Cork. Then work with entertainment providers in the city - theatres etc to operate a buy a ticket to the theatre in Dublin and Rail ticket combination....be creative in their thinking.

Introduce railcards for regular users which give discounts - ie not just students and the usual bunch of social dossers who claim for everything. EG an Annual railcard at a cost of say 30 euro to give you automatic discounts if you are working for a living paying taxes raising a family and generally struggling on in life. The discounts could be for off-peak only.

Cut out this nonsense of bumping up prices on a Friday for intercity fares.

Integrated fares - so for example you can buy a ticket from say Sligo or any mainline station to anypoint on the Dart, or indeed a ticket from Sligo to Rosslare. - At the moment you have to buy two separate tickets - complete boll*cks; same theory applies to any other ticket routing through a terminus.

Integrated ticketing for rail and bus and Dart and Luas (I know I am having a serious laugh here!)

If you buy a day return from da country to the city let the day return include a Dublin city bus, Dart, Luas rambler type day ticket (Go on lets all have a real laugh!! can you imagine them coming up with anything as simple as that!)

Get a decent contractor to run the food services.

Put toilets on the Dart platform at the far end of Connolly station (platform 5)

Put a decent coffee dock on the same platform.

Be honest about Western Rail corridor (couldn't resist that one!!!)

Good barriers at all stations to cut out fare dodging.

Terrontress

Nostradamus wrote: »

and means test the over 65s Travel Passes. I once saw a oulfella in a Louis Copeland suit getting out of a Rolls Royce Silver Shadow and on to the Sligo train for a free trip to Dublin.

The oulfella might have paid fortunes in tax and prsi throughout his career. He may be on his last penny and need to sell the Roller. Who are you to judge?

afatbollix

^^^wouldent all that cost more money??? and not save them anything!!

Run_to_da_hills

Introduce a "free ride area" for inner city Dublin between certain times for the bus, luas and Dart. This has worked well in Seattle and other cities. It would encourage those that never use public transport to try it out and also for commuters to take suberban routes into the city to avail of it.

http://transit.metrokc.gov/tops/bus/ridefree.html

zagmund

I agree with the free ride idea. Get people used to the bus.

I remember in the old days the Dublin City Centre retailers laid on a shuttle between O'Connell Street & Grafton Street or thereabouts over Christmas. I think it was called the nipper or something.

Yes, it would cost money, but in the long run I think it would increase ridership and this will increase revenue. You could even charge a token €0.20 fare or something if you're determined to raise revenue immediately. Forget the €1 (or whatever it is) shopper hopper (or whatever it is) fare. It's too much to encourage people to just jump on. And any time I've tried to get the fare the driver has said "you're not a student" . . .

z

zagmund

Fuel savings - hard to argue with - stop running loads of empty Expressos from town out to UCD in the morning. Run a few full ones instead and keep the empty ones in the city centre. Consolidate the pax.

This, however, involves flexible ticketing, flexible rostering, the ability to get pax off one bus and onto another without charging them a new fare, etc . . . and we all know that this can only happen when a) a bus breaks down or b) it's time for a change of drivers/bus at Donnybrook.

z

p.s. apologies - I see this thread is supposed to be about the trains, but it's still a good idea.

kingshankly

As said people collecting papers are not employed by Irish rail (doubt They would do it)

L1011

Free Travel Pass changes would safe the DSFA money more than CIE; they get paid for the travel - they're not doing it out of the goodness of their heart clearly!

fh041205

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

Introduce a "free ride area" for inner city Dublin between certain times for the bus, luas and Dart. This has worked well in Seattle and other cities. It would encourage those that never use public transport to try it out and also for commuters to take suberban routes into the city to avail of it.

http://transit.metrokc.gov/tops/bus/ridefree.html

I understand Dublin Bus are introducing a city centre fare of 0.50c. between Parnell sq. and St. Stephen's Green. Maybe IR could do the same, a flat fare between certain city centre stations?

Btw thanks for your reply Judgement Day. Do you really that fastrack could work? If your not dealing with big companies it means your customers will be few and far between. The odd casual person sending a present or something. I doubt it could compete timewise with road delivery anyway. thats my worry.

fh041205

Jaysus Victor is on the ball tonight!!! Here's the 50cent thing.

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055628074

Judgement Day

fh041205 wrote: »

I understand Dublin Bus are introducing a city centre fare of 0.50c. between Parnell sq. and St. Stephen's Green. Maybe IR could do the same, a flat fare between certain city centre stations?

Btw thanks for your reply Judgement Day. Do you really that fastrack could work? If your not dealing with big companies it means your customers will be few and far between. The odd casual person sending a present or something. I doubt it could compete timewise with road delivery anyway. thats my worry.

Of course it would/did work - as I said elsewhere 800,000 consignments per year at the last count and that was with an overpriced, badly run service. Think about it, if YOU personally want to sent a parcel to somebody in Ireland - same day delivery/collection - where do you even start to look? That service, where it does exist, is massively expensive and not a runner for most people. Whereas a parcel left in at my local station (Enniscorthy) for the 08.27 or even the 13.48 service to Dublin should have been able to reach any mainline station on the island by the same evening. (I Have just checked this in the current timetable.) Tell me how any road operator could compete with that.

markpb

fh041205 wrote: »

I understand Dublin Bus are introducing a city centre fare of 0.50c. between Parnell sq. and St. Stephen's Green. Maybe IR could do the same, a flat fare between certain city centre stations?

Considering a) the amount of time it takes to get from the street to the platform in Connolly (for example) and b) the worse than useless gaps between trains during the day, how could a service like that be attractive? At least with the buses, there are enough of them that you wouldn't be waiting long.

KC61

westtip wrote: »

Ask Michael O'Leary to be CEO for a year, (think this may have already been suggested) Take on the unions and get rid of them. Enforce Rostering so that a late night train can leave the mainline stations every night to all mainline terminus.

EG: 11.00 pm train to leave Connolly express to Mullingar/Longford and maybe one interim stop betwen Longford and Sligo. Make half the trains on the Sligo line as express trains stopping at four stations only.

Iarnrod Eireann planned a 21:00 (or so) service to Mullingar for the December 2007 timetable change, using the set and crew off the 1734 Bray-Longford which was to be curtailed at Enfield. However, a certain well known TD from Westmeath intervened with the Chairman of CIE to stop the curtailment of the 1734 and as a result there was no train/crew available to operate the service.

When you say "enforce rostering" what do you mean? Drivers and trains are fully rostered already!! Where are you going to magic the drivers from?

Late night express services tend not to be successful as to fill them you need to stop at as many stations as possible.

You are not going to save any time by not stopping at stations on the Sligo line as every train already has to pass three services in the opposite direction at the passing loops at Boyle, Edgeworthstown and Maynooth. That fact dictates the timetable! And I'd hate to be the person telling towns they're losing half their train service. Usage on the Sligo route is very good - why diminish it further?

westtip wrote: »

Do a similar late night express service stopping at no more than four stations to Galway, Limerick and Cork. Then work with entertainment providers in the city - theatres etc to operate a buy a ticket to the theatre in Dublin and Rail ticket combination....be creative in their thinking.

While there might be demand for a later train to Galway than 1915, I'd be surprised if there was any real demand for a Cork/Limerick train later than the existing 2100.

Personally I think that a 2200 (or so) departure to Athlone, Carlow, Mullingar and Arklow would be a good idea, but they need to serve stations en route to carry sufficient numbers to be justifiable.

westtip wrote: »

Cut out this nonsense of bumping up prices on a Friday for intercity fares.

Actually the prices are bumped down for the rest of the week, being heavily discounted. Differential pricing is a fact of life in the transport industry to try to encourage passengers to use more lightly loaded services.

westtip wrote: »

Integrated fares - so for example you can buy a ticket from say Sligo or any mainline station to anypoint on the Dart, or indeed a ticket from Sligo to Rosslare. - At the moment you have to buy two separate tickets - complete boll*cks; same theory applies to any other ticket routing through a terminus.

Totally incorrect. You can already buy a ticket from any station in the country to any other station. Booking clerks have the full station list in their offices. However, two individual tickets *may* sometimes be cheaper if purchased online.

westtip wrote: »

Integrated ticketing for rail and bus and Dart and Luas (I know I am having a serious laugh here!)

Again incorrect. You can already buy monthly and annual combined bus/rail/LUAS tickets for the Short Hop ticketing area. There are a range also of bus/LUAS and rail/LUAS prepaid tickets (1 day/7 day/Monthly/Annual).

KC61

markpb wrote: »

Considering a) the amount of time it takes to get from the street to the platform in Connolly (for example) and b) the worse than useless gaps between trains during the day, how could a service like that be attractive? At least with the buses, there are enough of them that you wouldn't be waiting long.

Hopefully that problem will be redundant in the new DART timetable with a 15 minute clockface service throughout the day.

As it is however, there are usually commuter services filling those "useless gaps" on the line between Pearse and Connolly which is the journey segment that the previous poster was referring to, so it might not be such a bad idea!

fh041205

markpb wrote: »

Considering a) the amount of time it takes to get from the street to the platform in Connolly (for example) and b) the worse than useless gaps between trains during the day, how could a service like that be attractive? At least with the buses, there are enough of them that you wouldn't be waiting long.

Well personally, I don't like DB and don't like giving them money. Thats just me though.

Heisenberg1

MOH wrote: »

There's a guy on the DART every morning collecting Metros off seats. He generally arrives into my carriage as the DART reaches Blackrock. As I get off, a second guy gets on to do the same job.
Occasionally if i get a different DART, I'll see one of them jumping off at Blackrock and running off somewhere with the bags.

So you've got at least two guys and probably more, and may the same heading the other direction, running around various stations with plastic bags full of papers.

A more logical solution would be to pick two stations, put two guys on the train at the first working from either end, both get off at the second and head back the other way. That way you've got just two stations dealing with dumping the papers, and you only need two people. Or maybe one.

Yes, it's a minor thing in the overall mess that is IE, but they add up.

I have a better solution why don't rail users put there newspapers
in the bin like other people and stop stuffing crap down the sides
of seats I'd say that would save a fortune

Heisenberg1

luzon wrote: »

I have a better solution why don't rail users put there newspapers in the bin like other people

and stop stuffing crap down the sides of the seats i'd
say that would save a fortune

Judgement Day

Ah lads, can you not come with some useful suggestions? A lot of the posts remind me of Association of Public Transport Users meetings that I used to attend in the early '80s where the meetings would invariably wander off into why the 46a was two minutes later the day before!!

Run_to_da_hills

luzon wrote: »

luzon wrote: »

I have a better solution why don't rail users put there newspapers in the bin like other people

and stop stuffing crap down the sides of the seats i'd
say that would save a fortune

Better solution that that, introduce a e50 on the spot fine for people that leave their disgarded free rags scattered about transit property.

DWCommuter

Judgement Day wrote: »

Ah lads, can you not come with some useful suggestions? A lot of the posts remind me of Association of Public Transport Users meetings that I used to attend in the early '80s where the meetings would invariably wander off into why the 46a was two minutes later the day before!!

In fairness, your post just encouraged the usual rants and then defense strategy from trainspotters.

Surely you are as bored as I am at this point?;)

westtip

KC61 wrote: »

Late night express services tend not to be successful as to fill them you need to stop at as many stations as possible.

While there might be demand for a later train to Galway than 1915, I'd be surprised if there was any real demand for a Cork/Limerick train later than the existing 2100.

Personally I think that a 2200 (or so) departure to Athlone, Carlow, Mullingar and Arklow would be a good idea, but they need to serve stations en route to carry sufficient numbers to be justifiable.

.

Thanks for your other comments all noted - on this issue - I don't agree about the 2200 late night train to towns in the pale, I think it needs to be a little later - City centres need to encourage people to come into the city using public transport - It should be a realistic option for people living in the towns you have mentioned to go up to Dublin on the train on say a Saturday evening and be able to get a train back home without missing the last ten minutes of a play for example. A 23.00 departure to the towns you mention may help on this issue. My suggestion of a late night train to Sligo and other end of the line destinations may well be excessive. But I for one living out in the west would do park and ride from somewhere like Edgeworthstown (say a train to Longford not Mullingar as you mentioned) to go to the theatre in Dublin on a Saturday night - provided I knew there was a reliable late night train out of town at about 23.00. It would save on the stress of driving into the city centre and parking etc

KC61

westtip wrote: »

Thanks for your other comments all noted - on this issue - I don't agree about the 2200 late night train to towns in the pale, I think it needs to be a little later - City centres need to encourage people to come into the city using public transport - It should be a realistic option for people living in the towns you have mentioned to go up to Dublin on the train on say a Saturday evening and be able to get a train back home without missing the last ten minutes of a play for example. A 23.00 departure to the towns you mention may help on this issue. My suggestion of a late night train to Sligo and other end of the line destinations may well be excessive. But I for one living out in the west would do park and ride from somewhere like Edgeworthstown (say a train to Longford not Mullingar as you mentioned) to go to the theatre in Dublin on a Saturday night - provided I knew there was a reliable late night train out of town at about 23.00. It would save on the stress of driving into the city centre and parking etc

The real question is how many other people would use it every day of the week. Anecdotal reports that I've heard suggest about 30 people use the 2215 to Portlaoise.

There has to be sufficient demand to justify a service, and while I suspect that there is demand for trains at about 2300/2330 to Maynooth, Dundalk, Greystones and Kildare, the further you go out the more demand drops the later the service.

I suspect 2200/2230 is more realistic for medium distance destinations (Mullingar, Portlaoise, Athlone, Carlow and Gorey), and 2030/2130 for long distance major destinations (Belfast, Cork/Limerick, Galway, Waterford), with 1900/2000 for the remainder.

kingshankly

the 23.20 service to dundalk on average has about 3 passengers for dundalk a lot of the time none

fh041205

kingshankly wrote: »

the 23.20 service to dundalk on average has about 3 passengers for dundalk a lot of the time none

Good few passengers on that for Skerries, Balbriggan and Drogheda in my experience. Never a lack of seats though. I plan to take that train a lot this year so im thankful for it.

Dyr

These arent cost cutting measures but they will generate revenue...

Make the buses secure, there's some route's where a garda presence jumping on and off buses is needed like they use on the london tube. Make damn sure the driver doesn't ignore anti-social behaviour on his bus as most the drivers now do.

Actually pick up customers at bus stops instead of sailing past because the driver thinks its too much hassle to pull in (parnell square is a prime example), thats your revenue stream you're ignoring lads.

thomasj

fh041205 wrote: »

Good few passengers on that for Skerries, Balbriggan and Drogheda in my experience. Never a lack of seats though. I plan to take that train a lot this year so im thankful for it.

I use the last train to Maynooth each night. Good passenger numbers on it always packed when theres concerts or sports events on it. Handy train to get after being out in town.

dereko1969

but how many on it when there isn't a big gig or match on? do you keep a service running all year for the maybe 10 times it's packed?