Shock, horror as passengers desert the railways!

Judgement Day

From today's Indo comes the 'shock' findings from yet another firm of highly paid consultants - AECOM/Goodbody Economic Consultants - that passengers are leaving the railways in favour of their cars. Did we really need this report to tell us what the dogs in the street already knew?

Barry Kenny, as usual, trots out all the old rhetoric about how the railways were 'saved' by the previous investment and now they need more dosh to bring down journeys times to compete with the motorways. If I had a Euro for every time this argument and promise of reduced journey times was trotted out! The plain fact is that CIE/IE are past their sell by date - comment please.

Passengers ditching train for cars on long journeys


By Paul Melia
Wednesday February 22 2012

PASSENGERS are avoiding using the train to travel between cities because of poor levels of service and longer journey times than by road.

A major report on Iarnrod Eireann's intercity service says that some services are performing "extremely poorly" and that slower journey times have to be addressed to get people out of the car and on trains.

The study by AECOM/Goodbody Economic Consultants warns that without service improvements, passenger numbers will not recover before 2015.

It found that in some cases the number of people travelling for free on concessions, like OAP travel passes, meant that the revenue generated was very low.

The study seen by the Irish Independent found that future investment should be on the major routes from Dublin to Cork, Belfast, Limerick, Galway and Waterford.

For a spend of €250m over five years, journey times could be reduced on most routes by 30 minutes, which would make the train competitive with the car.

"It is anticipated that without further service improvements, passenger numbers will not recover from their 2007 peak until after 2015," it warns.

Passenger numbers peaked in 2007 when 10.7 million journeys were made on the inter-city network. This fell to eight million last year.

The major reason for the decline is because the roll-out of the motorway network means it is generally quicker to drive between cities than take the train.

Iarnrod Eireann has spent more than 10 years bringing the network up to a basic standard. Since 1998, more than €1.6bn has been spent upgrading the railway network which includes replacing 500 miles of track, upgrading or closing 900 level crossings and replacing or upgrading 240 bridges.

The fleet is now among the youngest in Europe, and there is spare capacity for more services in Kildare and in Dublin.

By comparison, more than €12bn has been spent upgrading national roads and building motorways between 2006 and 2011.

"The initial investment programme was about saving the network," Iarnrod Eireann spokesman Barry Kenny said.

"Funding then went into things that the customer could see such as new trains and replacement of track.

"Where historically there was an advantage over road, the motorway programme has changed all that. New carriages can do speeds that the network currently doesn't allow. You don't need new trains, you need to invest €50m a year over five years in track and that will knock 30 minutes off journey times."

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/passengers-ditching-train-for-cars-on-long-journeys-3026976.html

munchkin_utd

the report itsself is featured on the irish rail website:
http://www.irishrail.ie/cat_news.jsp?i=4482&p=116&n=237

The documents themselves are here:

Executive Summary

Rail Strategy Review Part 1

Rail Strategy Review Part 2

I'll not comment till I've read them!

Park Royal

Must be difficult to make money in the middle of the worst recession in

years.... even if you wanted to travel you would not have the money .


But I suspect this is just a ploy to electrify some portion of the rail net work.

as it is mentioned.......

Somebody may want to rethink , the dismantling of the Sales team in 2006..

dont hear of too many rail workers going out looking for business.....

The bright sparks on the CIE board may have got things wrong.....in this

regard......( " the service will sell itself") .......?

JeffK88

Maybe if they didn't keep increasing prices they might gain back some of the lost passengers. 19.90e return from newbridge while bus eireann at around 14e and dublin coach + luas to city centre in around 14.20e. Thats just one example.

LXFlyer

Yess - but after 0930 Newbridge-Dublin is EUR 13 return.

Cat Melodeon

I used to travel Thurles-Limerick three times a week and would have loved to travel by train, but the bus connections were so poor on the Limerick side that I couldn't get to work on time. And I was travelling out to UL, it's not like I was going to some obscure part of the city. Taking a taxi rather than a bus pushed the cost way outside my budget. It was cheaper and quicker to drive. If there are no joined up services, you might as well be taking a train to nowhere.

Vahevala

lxflyer wrote: »

Yess - but after 0930 Newbridge-Dublin is EUR 13 return.

Hardly helps you if you need to get to work...

mydiscworld

Judgement Day wrote: »

"The initial investment programme was about saving the network," Iarnrod Eireann spokesman Barry Kenny said.

"Funding then went into things that the customer could see such as new trains and replacement of track.

"Where historically there was an advantage over road, the motorway programme has changed all that. New carriages can do speeds that the network currently doesn't allow. You don't need new trains, you need to invest €50m a year over five years in track and that will knock 30 minutes off journey times."

So invest the 50m today. What's the problem? You just put up fares. Surely it's to upgrade your service?

LXFlyer

Vahevala wrote: »

Hardly helps you if you need to get to work...

Well there are commuter and taxsaver ticket options available for that. No one doing a daily commute ought to be buying return tickets.

The weekly ticket is EUR 54 (works out at EUR 10.80 per day assuming 5 return trips).

The monthly and annual tickets are EUR 195 and EUR 1,950 respectively.

Assuming no tax saver discount, the monthly one works out at EUR 9.75 per day (assuming 20 days), and the annual one works out at EUR 8.29 per day (assuming 47 working weeks).

Applying taxsaver discount, that works out at EUR 6.65 per day on the lower tax rate or EUR 4.70 on the higher rate for the monthly option or EUR 5.74 and EUR 4 respectively for the annual version.

They are hardly unreasonable fares.

Losty Dublin

Having breezed through part 2, which is the meat and veg in terms on railway operation, it's just copperfastened my opinion of these reports as just telling you the bleeding obvious in 200 glossy pages.

We all know that trains are not fast enough overall, we know that investment in decent trackwork is needed to bring speeds up and we all know the two critical factors as to why passenger numbers have gone down is due to improved roads on the primary corridors that rail also served and that less people are making journeys. The mere fact that the civil servants Kildare Street needs to spend 6 figures to kop onto this conclusing just shows us that they actually are the ones who well and truly have no idea what's going on or what should be done, not the mid management in CIE companies.

foggy_lad

lxflyer wrote: »

Yess - but after 0930 Newbridge-Dublin is EUR 13 return.

I have been on the Newbridge\Kildare commuter after 9.30 and it is a ghost train! Nobody/very few paying passengers use it after the commuters have passed through before 9am.

It found that in some cases the number of people travelling for free on concessions, like OAP travel passes, meant that the revenue generated was very low.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/passengers-ditching-train-for-cars-on-long-journeys-3026976.html

The revenue generated will always be low! If OAPs and the disabled have to pay full/half price they will get the bus or will consolidate their journeys so they travel far less frequently meaning less OAP journeys so less subvention! The disabled and elderly do not have any real income to be spending on expensive rail journeys.

dmcronin

Wonder will this be mentioned in the weekly George Hook/Barry Kenny love-in on Newstalk?

I think not, lads would ye ever get a room.

munchkin_utd

one measure in the short term that is mentioned is :

Short-term improvements to services to Dublin Airport,
through development of a Dublin Parkway station for InterCity customers from the south and west with connecting Airport bus services to the national network. (This is in addition to the separate development of a direct DART spur to the Airport from Clongriffin, which will initially serve passengers from the east coast, the City centre and Northern Ireland.

Whats all that about?
I never saw any suggestion like this before.

If thats a proposal of bus services from say Cherry Orchard on the Cork/limerick/galway/mayo Mainline (with bus only slip road onto M50 only metres away??) to the airport then
A) its a stroke of genius
it sounds too good to be true and surely a competitior will complain that it is "Irish rail using their dominant position" leading to the plans being scuppered for one reason or the other

To be able to get from the airport to Cork or Mayo by train without having to encounter the city centre is be a great idea and if it was in place I'd have used this numerous times already on these 2 particular routes.

schemingbohemia

Losty Dublin wrote: »

Having breezed through part 2, which is the meat and veg in terms on railway operation, it's just copperfastened my opinion of these reports as just telling you the bleeding obvious in 200 glossy pages.

We all know that trains are not fast enough overall, we know that investment in decent trackwork is needed to bring speeds up and we all know the two critical factors as to why passenger numbers have gone down is due to improved roads on the primary corridors that rail also served and that less people are making journeys. The mere fact that the civil servants Kildare Street needs to spend 6 figures to kop onto this conclusing just shows us that they actually are the ones who well and truly have no idea what's going on or what should be done, not the mid management in CIE companies.

"The report, commissioned by Iarnród Éireann"

Where did you get it was paid for by the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport?

LXFlyer

foggy_lad wrote: »

I have been on the Newbridge\Kildare commuter after 9.30 and it is a ghost train! Nobody/very few paying passengers use it after the commuters have passed through before 9am.

That's why there are cheaper promotional fares to incentivise travel.

Commuters have a range of cheaper alternatives as listed above.

foggy_lad

schemingbohemia wrote: »

"The report, commissioned by Iarnród Éireann"

Where did you get it was paid for by the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport?

Commissioned by Irish Rail, So where did Irish Rail get the money for the report only from the departments of transport and finance and the taxpayer.

But why would middle management in Irish Rail commission such a report when the dogs on the street would have told them the same for nothing?

foggy_lad

lxflyer wrote: »

That's why there are cheaper promotional fares to incentivise travel.

Commuters have a range of cheaper alternatives as listed above.

They are not working!

Dublin Coach Monasterevin to Naas €4 return on the hour 24/7

Irish Rail same journey 5 services monday-friday from Monasterevin(2 require change of train) but none between 7.45am and 8.12pm (discounts only apply to journeys to/from Dublin) Open return €14.70

fenris

Maybe if a the service provided was actually useful to people trying to get to work on time there would be a higher usage by people who want to get to work on time, there are still a few out there!

The current service seems to be for the benefit of the staff rather than the customers and orientated around the staff start finish times rather than the customers desired travel times. At this stage I only use the rail network if there is no other option and if there is a time available for the inevitable delays.

The cost in both financial terms and time associated with the poor scheduling makes it difficult to justify any use of the service at all. Most people measure their journey time in terms of door to destination and cannot conveniently ignore the portion of time spent waiting around for the scheduled service to finish its cup of tea/catch the end of the match.

We don't use the train for the fun of using the train we use it to get somewhere.

Judgement Day

There's even a Blog where you can leave comments - enjoy!

http://www.irishrail.ie/blog_post.jsp?blogID=1&a=275

Private Piles

Until very recently I used to commute by train between Ballinasloe and Galway.
Nearly every day there would be a 10 min delay at Woodlawn waiting for another train to pass and again at Atherny for about 5-10mins for exactly the same reason.

(It always reminded me of driving down a tiny country lane and pulling in so the other car can pass)

There was nearly 10-15mins of non-movement everyday, and that's not even taking into account any other delays along the way from Dublin.

On the motorway it takes approx. 20-30mins to get from Ballinasloe to Galway, it's not a difficult decision between the two!

Losty Dublin

schemingbohemia wrote: »

"The report, commissioned by Iarnród Éireann"

Where did you get it was paid for by the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport?

Semi State companies have two choices here. They can have a report like this compiled internally where it remains unannounced or they can do out and have the same report written externally where it becomes public and seen to be "independent".

As it is, the resultant of this report has already been presented to cabinet weeks ago so you have to wonder why Irish Rail was off commissioning reports for the crack and who's actually picking up the tab on this

katierose1

There is a core issue here - if our bus/rail services are 'public' transport options, should they be available both financially and on a comprehensively timetabled basis to all who need them?

Low cost tickets would encourage the use of a comprehensive service. The problem is that neither of our systems are 'comprehensive' or low cost. Routes and frequencies have been cut, especially with the move towards the car. Apart from the Luas (which has been successful, apart from the lack of link between the two lines) and some inter-city services, the majority of public and PPP investment over the last 10-12 years has been in the roads. One of the benefits of the celtic tiger years has been the motorway system but somehow the balance between road & rail was skewed. It needs to be remedied.

The conundrum is do we consider a cost/benefit basis - as a public service - or do we solely consider the need for a fast return on investment?

It seems to me that a balance between the two would be ideal but management/unionisation would appear to have been problematic in the past.

We don't appear to have the money at the moment to provide these public services when they are actually most needed - fewer and fewer people can afford a car yet they choose to keep them as there are no realistic options on public transport for the majority of both commuters and other occasional/tourist/off peak users. In the meantime, there is a strong lobby group trying to get even more motorways built .... probably at the expense of public transport/rail options.

Can we have some joined up thinking please?

AngryLips

"It is anticipated that without further service improvements, passenger numbers will not recover from their 2007 peak until after 2015," it warns.

What's happening in 2015 that we don't know about?

In fairness, the investment in the motorways didn't happen overnight. There was plenty of warning that journey times would become uncompetitive.

And don't IE get a subvention from the Dept of Social Protection for all those traveling for free?

Private Piles

Exactly they've had plenty of notice and time to plan.

Iarnrod Eireann only really seems to cater to OAPs and tourists who haven't a care in the world and find it all very quinte to be stopped in the middle of nowhere admiring rural Ireland while waiting for another train to pass.

Even the train stations themselves protray this, it's all pretty hanging baskets, old fashioned signs and one park bench.

Outside of Dublin, it's like they don't even consider commuters as a target market.

ebbsy

JeffK88 wrote: »

Maybe if they didn't keep increasing prices they might gain back some of the lost passengers. 19.90e return from newbridge while bus eireann at around 14e and dublin coach + luas to city centre in around 14.20e. Thats just one example.

True, I live in Monasterevin and the Dublincoach service is very reliable and affordable. The train is not really an option, in fact I cannot remember the last time I was on it ?

ebbsy

foggy_lad wrote: »

They are not working!

Dublin Coach Monasterevin to Naas €4 return on the hour 24/7

Irish Rail same journey 5 services monday-friday from Monasterevin(2 require change of train) but none between 7.45am and 8.12pm (discounts only apply to journeys to/from Dublin) Open return €14.70

+1

I live there so I can only agree.

LXFlyer

Private Piles wrote: »

Until very recently I used to commute by train between Ballinasloe and Galway.
Nearly every day there would be a 10 min delay at Woodlawn waiting for another train to pass and again at Atherny for about 5-10mins for exactly the same reason.

(It always reminded me of driving down a tiny country lane and pulling in so the other car can pass)

There was nearly 10-15mins of non-movement everyday, and that's not even taking into account any other delays along the way from Dublin.

On the motorway it takes approx. 20-30mins to get from Ballinasloe to Galway, it's not a difficult decision between the two!

Unfortunately on single track lines, waiting at passing loops for trains to cross is unavoidable. The "delay" as you call it is actually built into the timetable. One train will always have about 6 minutes added to the schedule to ensure reliability.

There is no way to guarantee arrival times without it.

There is no way around it without doubling the entire line.

bk

katierose1 wrote: »

We don't appear to have the money at the moment to provide these public services when they are actually most needed - fewer and fewer people can afford a car yet they choose to keep them as there are no realistic options on public transport for the majority of both commuters and other occasional/tourist/off peak users. In the meantime, there is a strong lobby group trying to get even more motorways built .... probably at the expense of public transport/rail options.

The thing is, in a small country like Ireland, you don't need rail to deliver intercity public transport. It can be done for a lot cheaper and more flexibly using high quality bus coach services.

There are many private bus operators just gagging to offer services that are in many cases faster then the trains, at a fraction of the cost to the customer and at no cost to the taxpayer. Just look at the likes of the new Dublin Coach service to Limerick or GoBus/CityLink to Galway.

I have yet to see any justification why we should continue to heavily subsidise intercity rail services. Not when we have such good alternatives.

bk

For a spend of €250m over five years, journey times could be reduced on most routes by 30 minutes, which would make the train competitive with the car.

It is this bit I'm not sure about. Even if we spend €250 million to reduce journey times by 30 minutes, I'm not sure it will win back significant numbers to Irish Rail, it is too little of an improvement.

Lets take a look at the Cork to Dublin line.

In the past it took about 3 hours by train and somewhere between 4 to 5 hours on a dangerous road by car. Back then taking the train was a no brainer.

Now it takes about 2h15m to 2h30m between most places in Cork and Dublin by car and it takes on average 2h47m by train.

So even if you take 30 minutes off the train journey, you are looking at 2h17m, which only about equals the car.

But then the problem is no one lives in a train station!! The car journey times are typical door to door times, but for the train you have to add extra time to get too and from the stations. As a Corkonian living in Dublin, for me it ends up adding about another 1h15m to the train journey time.

So for me, even if you knock 30 minutes off the train, the car is still much faster and also cheaper. I'm sure it is true also for most other people.

So I don't think we really get much benefit for "just" €250 million spent.

And I have to question the worth of spending €250 million to the economy. How does the economy benefit from this?

I just don't see any net benefit to the economy.

foggy_lad

Rail users Ireland spokesperson on the news at one now kissing IE ass. There might be a job out of the €50million a year?

dowlingm

mydiscworld wrote: »

So invest the 50m today. What's the problem? You just put up fares. Surely it's to upgrade your service?

Nothing to do with the fact that their subsidy got cut so? :rolleyes:

As for intercity bus services, some people don't like travelling by coach for various reasons - being stuck in a seat for hours doesn't appeal to some, no toilets on Bus Eireann buses, difficult to read or do work in a cramped seat etc. There is also the issue that even post motorway build some places are still relatively poorly served by road - this is why IE is competitive to places like Tullamore, also places like Charleville and the Mallow-Tralee line as a whole.

What IE needs is for politicians to stop acting as if they were transport planners and allow them to determine service priorities and ensure that they can increase revenues and therefore service without Finance immediately clawing back every penny preventing such improvements, but conversely that the cone of silence be lifted ("commercial confidentiality") with IE board meetings being held in public and more IE service planning documents made public because you can't act like a private company if you want a subsidy of a couple of hundred million euro a year.

The county councils must also keep their mouths firmly SHUT unless and until they are willing to financially contribute to the upkeep of the railways. If you look at where Amtrak is expanding in the states for example, it's in places like Illinois where the state co-funds the improvements. I don't just mean places like Wexford or Galway either, but Dublin too.

Private Piles

lxflyer wrote: »

Unfortunately on single track lines, waiting at passing loops for trains to cross is unavoidable. The "delay" as you call it is actually built into the timetable. One train will always have about 6 minutes added to the schedule to ensure reliability.

There is no way to guarantee arrival times without it.

There is no way around it without doubling the entire line.

I know, the train still arrives in Galway pretty much on time each day, but yet can be 10 mins late arriving in Ballinasloe.

I find it very frustrating sitting there not moving, each minute goes by painfully slow and all I can think is 'why the heck didn't I drive I'd be there by now?'

The selection of trains is very poor, there is only really one in the morning and one back in the evening for commuters.
The train in the morning gets me to work about 1.5hrs early and the train in the evening leaves at 6.05pm, and that's all folks!

Next train leaving Galway City is at 10.15pm!!

I finish work at 6pm and it takes 10-15mins to walk to the station.

bk

dowlingm wrote: »

As for intercity bus services, some people don't like travelling by coach for various reasons - being stuck in a seat for hours doesn't appeal to some, no toilets on Bus Eireann buses, difficult to read or do work in a cramped seat etc.

Are you really trying to suggest, that people wanting a bit more leg room (buses can have toilets, see Gobus/citylink) justifies a €200 million a year subsidy and hundreds of millions more in capital grants!!!

That is nuts, I'm sorry, but that is certainly not a justification.

dowlingm wrote: »

What IE needs is for politicians to stop acting as if they were transport planners and allow them to determine service priorities and ensure that they can increase revenues and therefore service without Finance immediately clawing back every penny preventing such improvements, but conversely that the cone of silence be lifted ("commercial confidentiality") with IE board meetings being held in public and more IE service planning documents made public because you can't act like a private company if you want a subsidy of a couple of hundred million euro a year.

Well as soon as IE stops taking €200 million in taxpayers money each year via subsidy and stops begging for hundreds of millions in capital grants, the politicans can leave it alone to do it's on thing. Fair enough?

foggy_lad

bk wrote: »

Are you really trying to suggest, that people wanting a bit more leg room (buses can have toilets, see Gobus/citylink) justifies a €200 million a year subsidy and hundreds of millions more in capital grants!!!

That is nuts, I'm sorry, but that is certainly not a justification.



Well as soon as IE stops taking €200 million in taxpayers money each year via subsidy and stops begging for hundreds of millions in capital grants, the politicans can leave it alone to do it's on thing. Fair enough?

Many people also want a door to door service which can never be provided by rail. Adding on the cost and time of taxi, Luas or Bus from Heuston and many other stations to the respective town centers adds too much to the journey for the majority of people.

munchkin_utd

bk wrote: »

Well as soon as IE stops taking €200 million in taxpayers money each year via subsidy and stops begging for hundreds of millions in capital grants, the politicans can leave it alone to do it's on thing. Fair enough?

Is there anywhere that the figures of Irish Rail's costs and subsidies published and broken down in any way per route/cost type etc?

How much is spent on the infrastructure and how much on the actual trains and fuel and staff.

I've previously wasted time trying to go through the end of year report but its a lot of words and tables and not that much useful information.

mydiscworld

In the real world, IE won't get 50m a year for 5 years to upgrade some lines.

Why not use 5m/10m annually of your own IE passenger income/current subvention to improve one or two major lines, bit by bit.

I'd suggest your biggest earner first, which is probably the Cork to Dublin line and, and one which could win back drivers if 30 mins was knocked off.

corktina

i would think that €250m towards finishing the "motorway box" would bring better economic retrusn that spending it on Inter City.

I'm thinking we could have a motorway or at least high quality dual carrigeway from the 2nd to the 3rd city for that.

dowlingm

mydiscworld wrote: »

Why not use 5m/10m annually of your own IE passenger income/current subvention to improve one or two major lines, bit by bit.

What is to be cut to find this 5m euro?

bk

foggy_lad wrote: »

Many people also want a door to door service which can never be provided by rail. Adding on the cost and time of taxi, Luas or Bus from Heuston and many other stations to the respective town centers adds too much to the journey for the majority of people.

Exactly, and ironically Bus services can sometimes offer a better door to door service or at least closer to it.

Take Dublin to Galway, by train you can only go from Galway City Center to Heuston station, with a change required to get to Dublin city center or the airport.

GoBus on the other hand go from Galway city center to Heuston, followed by O'Connell Bridge and Dublin airport. Thus reducing the door to door journey time and cost for at least some, if not many people. In my experience of this service, over 2/3 of the passengers got off at O'Connell Bridge or continued onto Dublin Airport.

Also take my mother for example, she lives in Cork and is currently planning a holiday from Dublin Airport. She is seriously considering Aircoach as it will take her all the way to the airport, with no change required. That is despite here being an OAP and therefore cost not an issue.

Which all points to the one real good and sensible idea raised in this report. A new train station near the M50 on the Cork line, where every Cork/Limerick/Galway train would stop, with a direct bus to the airport every 30 minutes, all included in the cost of the one ticket.

This IMO is one really good, cost effective idea that I can't believe they didn't do years ago!! It might make them more competitive versus the direct non stop bus services to the airport that go via the city center and therefore have to deal with congestion.

corktina wrote:

i would think that €250m towards finishing the "motorway box" would bring better economic retrusn that spending it on Inter City.

Exactly, I don't see how knocking a few minutes off intercity rail travel is going to make much economic benefit, specially when you already have a faster means to travel between the destinations.

However if you could do the M20 for the same money, then it would have a far greater economic benefit. It would allow for much faster travel between our other cities, would help balance regional development versus Dublin * and most importantly reduce the number of deaths on a very dangerous roads (deaths on roads has a very big economic impact).

* This one is important, Irish Rails plan actually increases the importance of Dublin, with almost the entire investment going to speeding up links to get people too Dublin. The ARC on the other hand helps Cork/Limerick/Galway develop as a regional alternative to Dublin. I think this sort of investment should take priority now as Dublin is already well catered for with the new road networks.

Jehuty42

That station kind of already exists in the form of Park West & Cherry Orchard, it just needs a better connection to the M50(dedicated on/off ramps).

http://g.co/maps/fsfm4

dowlingm

If buses (i.e. IE integrated services which can be booked as one ticket, not transfers of services like the South Wexford line) are allowed be part of the solution there is a LOT of things that could be done.

Reading through the report I've come across the passenger figures - the Northern Line, suburban and intercity, seems to have been the biggest hole in the last few years. Broadmeadow won't be the full cause of this but clearly it wasn't just a blip - a lot of people have been permanently lost above and beyond the general trends. Some routes have been holding their own quite reasonably. Others (Limerick-Ballybrophy)... joke.

Meanwhile they met with West on Track and there's a mention of both Athenry-Tuam and ultimately Athenry-Claremorris :rolleyes:

bk

Well I've read the entire report and some interesting facts.

- Intercity is down about 16% (4 million) from it's 2007 peak.
- They aim to get Dublin to Cork down to 2h30m's for the €50 * million cost, not 2h15m like I thought and said above, so it is even less worth it.

The Cork to Dublin line cost seems to be €50 million, the other €200 m for other lines.

To the question on how to pay for the €250 million, IE are claiming that they should see a return on this investment of €500 million for just the €50 million investment in the Cork line!!! I don't believe these figures, but if true, then there is no reason why they can't just borrow the money themselves and do it themselves, just like they did with the DART.

It seems private direct non stop bus services have a massive competitive impact on intercity rail.

Dublin to Galway Rail makes up 25% of journeys, bus 25%, car 50%
Dublin to Cork Rail makes up 40% of journeys, bus 10%, car 50%

So this proves, when offered an excellent, fast, affordable bus service, people flock to it. This also kills the idea that there isn't a massive money making opportunity available for a private operator to operate a similar service to Cork. It looks like there is massive demand for such a service.

It will be interesting to see what the Limerick numbers look like over the next two years since the introduction of the Dublin Coach service to Limerick.

The report acknowledges this, but they base their predictions of future stability and growth of rail on no more private direct non stop bus services being introduced!! Due to the fact that it might harm the rail service :mad::

Increased competition from the bus mode is likely to arise only if a policy shift to liberalisation of the bus market takes place.

....

The degree of future competition from the bus mode depends on two factors:
• The degree of liberalisation of access to the bus market; and
• The extent to which Expressway chooses to provide more non-stop or limited stop services.

....

While the NTA has discretion to operate within these guidelines, it is clear that full liberalisation
of entry to the market is not envisaged and that existing operators can influence the process by demonstrating that they are supplying existing market segments satisfactorily. In particular, the NTA may be reluctant to license additional services where the effect is to increase rail operating deficits and thus the PSO subvention required

Policy decisions on the part of the NTA will be a determining factor.

So basically what they are saying is that rail can't compete with much cheaper private bus services that cost the taxpayer ZERO and that we should instead continue to subsidise loss making, much more expensive and slower rail services to the tune of hundreds of millions per year :mad::mad:

This is crazy and I've yet to see a single justification why this should be left to continue.

dowlingm

bk - if private bus services are allowed to plunder the Dublin-Cork route, how do places like Mallow and the Tralee line get served? In some ways it might be better for IE to reconfigure the mainline as Dublin-Tralee and downgrade Cork-Mallow to a Limerick-Limerick Junction like service in order to retain self-justification.

LXFlyer

bk wrote: »

Well I've read the entire report and some interesting facts.

- Intercity is down about 16% (4 million) from it's 2007 peak.
- They aim to get Dublin to Cork down to 2h30m's for the €50 * million cost, not 2h15m like I thought and said above, so it is even less worth it.

I don't think you are correct in that analysis.

The report says the investment would reduce journey times to at most 2:30 on all services. That means reducing typical journey times by about 15 minutes.

Given the key business trains (06:15 Cork/Dublin and 17:00 Dublin/Cork) are already scheduled to do the trip in 2:30 I would expect that they would indeed reduce to 2:15 as a result of the changes.

LXFlyer

munchkin_utd wrote: »

one measure in the short term that is mentioned is :


Whats all that about?
I never saw any suggestion like this before.

If thats a proposal of bus services from say Cherry Orchard on the Cork/limerick/galway/mayo Mainline (with bus only slip road onto M50 only metres away??) to the airport then
A) its a stroke of genius
it sounds too good to be true and surely a competitior will complain that it is "Irish rail using their dominant position" leading to the plans being scuppered for one reason or the other

To be able to get from the airport to Cork or Mayo by train without having to encounter the city centre is be a great idea and if it was in place I'd have used this numerous times already on these 2 particular routes.

The map and text clearly state it is at the site of the present Clondalkin/Fonthill station.

dowlingm

Ah but who pray tell will operate the buses? And if it is a dedicated shuttle shouldn't DAA co-fund? And if this is such a great idea, shouldn't a similar shuttle run from Castleknock or Navan Road Parkway? Wait a minute, this gets stupider the more I look at it - they are going to stop 100mph services within the four track zone so that people can transfer to a bus?? Commuter yes, but Intercity should probably still use Airlink (to be deleted in this proposal) so that IC passengers get to Heuston faster.

Judgement Day

Rail Catering: At last - after repeatedly asking the question on RUI, IRN and here - Barry Kenny let the cat out of the bag tonight on the special 'Hook & Kenny Love-in.' Incredibly, IE put the catering contract out to tender and then pay the winner to operate the service! Barry says that they (IE) see catering as a way of wooing the travelling public to rail travel - what planet is he living on? As long as I've been travelling by rail 40+ years rail catering has been an overpriced shambles. If Rail Gourmet are being paid to operate the service and IE want to use catering to attract the public - why aren't the refreshment products sold at cost? IE would gain from the good publicity and it shouldn't make any difference to Rail Gourmet's bottom line as they are being paid to operate the service.

dowlingm

If that wasn't a misspeak by the Information Minister and RG are in fact subvented to provide catering from general revenue, heads should roll and the head of Ryanair customer pillage recruited to improve onboard costs and revenues forthwith. Yes, it would be annoying to have someone coming up with a trolley offering scratchcards and airport bus tickets but you know what, at least there would never again be a train without a trolley in Ireland.

bk

lxflyer wrote: »

The report says the investment would reduce journey times to at most 2:30 on all services. That means reducing typical journey times by about 15 minutes.

Given the key business trains (06:15 Cork/Dublin and 17:00 Dublin/Cork) are already scheduled to do the trip in 2:30 I would expect that they would indeed reduce to 2:15 as a result of the changes.

There is only one train a day in each direction that does it in 2h30m. Most do it between 2h45m and 2h55m, the average time of all trains including the faster ones is 2h47m (I did that maths).

So even if they get one train a day down to 2h15m, spending 250 million to cut the majority of trains down by just 15 minutes is pretty pathetic and sounds like an awful waste of money to me.

dowlingm

I think the intention was that increases on Dublin-Galway/Waterford/Limerick would mean fewer stopping Cork services though, so in theory some services would accelerate more than 15 mins. Some of those cost/benefit numbers are iffy though. Apparently it would cost 0 (or more precisely less then 0.05m if we assume rounding) to upgrade Galway-Limerick to "Intercity" status. What is the operating cost of a 3x22 compared to a 2x28 I wonder... and that's before all the marketing crap and installing ticket pickup in line stations.

AngryLips

dowlingm wrote: »

If that wasn't a misspeak by the Information Minister and RG are in fact subvented to provide catering from general revenue, heads should roll and the head of Ryanair customer pillage recruited to improve onboard costs and revenues forthwith. Yes, it would be annoying to have someone coming up with a trolley offering scratchcards and airport bus tickets but you know what, at least there would never again be a train without a trolley in Ireland.

It really defies belief IE have managed to turn a concept that's a massive revenue stream in the airline industry into a cost and a burden on the rail network. When you look at the vast product offering on the Aer Lingus Sky Cafe, the comparable prices and the fact that they make money out of it it really makes you wonder what their vision is here.