Cork - Light Rail [route options idenfication and initial design underway]

Consonata

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123381939#Comment_123381939

It's Half the capacity standard of the red line with limited chance of expansion given the alignment being chosen. Even the most optimistic estimate of 4600 pphpd would be approx 1000 short of the Red line and that is not the design spec of this new line.

KrisW1001

From the plans and the various numbers for traffic reduction and passengers that have been communicated, it's clear that the service will open using 40 m trams, but also that the quoted peak frequency of 6 minutes will not apply for a full hour during the morning/evening rush. It looks like 7-8 trams per hour, at (say) 08:00,:10,:16,:22,:28,:34,:40,:50 or however you want to slice it. At 320 passengers per tram, 7/8 per hour in the peak hours you get to more or less the quoted 2,300 pphpd (passengers per hour per direction).

@Consonata : 4600 is not “the most optimistic” estimate for this service. Peak frequency for this service is 30 trams per hour, same as Red Line. 320 per tram, 30 trams per hour = 9600 per hour per direction. If you really think Cork needs this kind of capacity now, or even in the next two decades, I have no idea what to say to you, because we’re clearly not living in the same world.

The following really belongs on a separate, speculation, thread: Any North-South route depends on how well this one does. The case for N-S light rail is marginal at best in Cork due to the high cost of any route (look at a relief map!), but if the E-W line exceeds its projected ridership, that would make a second, N-S, line easier to justify. For such a line, I’d say that the Northeast inner city, Apple and maybe even Blarney should be included, but the Airport can be left out: the Airport business park is a bigger trip generator than the airport, but even that doesn’t justify the cost, and there’s zero scope for development by the Airport due to its exclusion zone, so unless there’s a plan for a major increase in development planned for, say, Belgooly, there’s no justification to go further south than Grange.

Pauliedragon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123379209#Comment_123379209

I live in Carrigaline and absolutely it needs better public transport I just can't see where it could fit. The village is tiny and narrow.

snotboogie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123382633#Comment_123382633

North-South would be carried by Douglas and Carrigaline. Carrigaline is on course to be the biggest town in Ireland without a rail connection. Douglas is by far the largest and fastest growing suburb of Cork with 1,900+ homes currently under construction, just across the four biggest developments (Mount Woods, Castletreasure, Bayly and Cooney's Lane), and thousands of more homes with planning permission. Ultimately a rail solution in Cork won't be complete until the South East is included.

Consonata

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123382633#Comment_123382633

4600 is the max possible frequency given the constraints of the alignment and traffic going across it.

Sure if you get any segment of railway 15km long, with no barriers, no turns, and no cross traffic or shared traffic, you can without issue achieve 2min headways.

This... will not be the case here. Even on the Green Line, which is largely segregated for most of its journey south of the river, can't manage 2 minute headways at peak.

I'm under no illusion that Cork needs 9,600 pphpd, though this line will manage not even half that given the way it has been designed

bk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123382722#Comment_123382722

3 minute frequencies are done in cities all over Europe with similar alignments and traffic crossings! It is completely normal for street running LRT.

If anything, this is over-specced. In France, 30m trams would be quiet normal for Cork sized cities and even larger cities.

KrisW1001

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123382722#Comment_123382722

Because the service is a pipeline, the frequency of vehicles stopping is not related to the traversal time, but rather to traversal time and number of vehicles per segment: three trams that each take 9 minutes to get between Stop A and Stop B, or two trams that each take 6 minutes to cover the same distance? Both work out at one tram every 3 minutes at Stop B. This is how Red Line has such high throughput even at such low travel speeds.

The Cork alignment is less contended than Red Line and has fewer stops per kilometre. It will use the same length of trams as Red Line. It’s very hard to believe claims that it’s incapable of carrying the passenger numbers that Red Line already does - and that number is “a lot”.

A bit of perspective is needed on the numbers here: Red Line is currently the busiest transport corridor in the country. It will move up to 20 inbound departures from Red Cow at peak times from June this year - one every 3 minutes. Each 40-metre tram nominally carries 358 passengers, including two in wheelchairs. Crush-loads, as seen during peak hours, are higher, but we'll go with that nominal figure. That means that Red Line, during the peak hour of 08:00 to 09:00, will carry at least 7160 passengers inbound.

You know what else carries approximately 7160 passengers per hour at peak? The N40 Cork South Ring. How likely is it, really, that that number of commuters is going to take the tram?

(Actually, N40 is a little more than that: peak vehcile throughput in 2023 - last year for which there are figures - was 7947 vehicles. At 1.1 occupancy rate, that's 8,750 or so people, but I didn’t use the crush loading figure for Red Line, and if you’ve ever been on Red Line in the morning, you’ll know I should have, so the two numbers are very close in reality)

In case anyone’s wondering, if you add up the population of the electoral districts along the proposed line, you get a total of around 50~55,000 people according to the figures from the last census. That’s not very high for an 18 km route, and it shows just how much of a density problem Cork has. However, there’s a lot of high-density development planned for Docklands and east of Ballincollig that will make a big difference to that figure.

Consonata

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123382884#Comment_123382884

Red line Luas's have a capacity of 262 not 358 passengers, putting it at 5,240 at max pphpd.

Secondly the folk who have put this proposal forward have themselves revised up the estimated traveltime along the length of the route due to the poor alignment.

There are very very few sections of Red Line luas that have shared running with cars/public transport, outside of a handful of pockets (e.g the north wall area and parts of the line in Tallaght).

Meanwhile in this proposal, significant portions of the alignment is shared running with cars, and public transport, and bikes by the looks of it. How can you possibly get up to even 12tph, never mind 20, on the basis of these proposals. This is ignoring the significant amount of narrow turns, and crossing 2+2 junctions in one place at grade.

I understand being optimistic, but this is becoming foolish, and we could end up pouring money into this project with built in ceilings, at great cost.

Van.Bosch

the thing with these projects is that everyone gets a look and then wants to amend them to suit themselves - which isn’t unreasonable.

The consultation is obvious important to iron out issues which have been overlooked etc but the core line should be supported. A north south line would be great but it will only be built after the initial line, everyone should get behind this no matter where they are. I’m from Dublin and would love to see my local TD come out and support Cork Luas, the more of these projects that are built, the more there will be. They are no brainers, costs only go up, so do them now.

KrisW1001

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123383727#Comment_123383727

Sources for that tram capacity please, as it doesn't match with the actual passenger numbers and service frequency on Red line today. The original red line trams, at 30 m long, may have carried 268, but all of them have long since been updated to the 40 m Citadis 402 model with an official capacity of 358.

If you've got proof that Cork will use 30 m trams, share it, but the length of the platforms and all of the communication on this project strongly suggests 40 m vehicles.

You haven't addressed my point that frequency is also dependent on number of vehicles, not just travel time. I assume you accept this is true, although you're still confusing services per hour and travel times. Why not ride the Red Line sometime and pay attention to the actual travel speeds through the city centre? It's not particularly fast, but it is reliable and frequent.

The service levels at start of operation on this service will be limited by demand, not any imaginary design "failures".

What do you think would be better? And, more importantly, how much extra would it cost?

irishfeen

Ok so ladies and gents I wouldn’t mind hearing ye’re comments on the following – I am from a Civil Engineering/Roads background but do not know a great deal on the limitations of light rail and traditional rail with regards maximum gradients, so I am open for clarification.

Firstly, on the overall route plan – while I agree there are issues especially with regards the loop route in Ballincollig I do actually think the suggested route if put in place tomorrow would bring massive changes for the good in terms of an upgrade to the public transport system in Cork.

My submission as described in previous post will be along the following lines – I think it is by far the easiest and most cost effective way to link Cork Airport with the new proposed luas red line… we have seen the absolute mess made of Dublin Airport and the lack of a rail link to the city – potentially costing billions – this would get out ahead of future expansion to the city and airport.

I would propose a new Park and Ride facility be also included in the plans – this would be directly linked to the CUH and could cater for hundreds of workers/people visiting the hospital.

The exiting CUH station would likely have to be moved closer to the Wilton roundabout where a new line (say orange) would branch off and head down past Wilton Shopping Centre, under the N40 flyover and up Sarsfield Road all the way up to Spur Hill – approximately 2km. 2 additional stations including Summertown and Doughcloyne alongside Spur Hill itself would add hundreds of more houses and population within even 1km taking in Togher Cross and beyond. There would I believe have to be a transfer between light rail and traditional rail at Spur hill (2km to Airport Terminal) with regards to gradient but having traditional rail all the way into the CUH would also be a possibility.

Again, I am not an expert in the design of rail gradients but from reading online with such small distances there seems to be a solution to most gradient challenges.

Would love to hear what you guys think.

irishfeen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123378946#Comment_123378946

I totally agree with you but unfortunately that might be 25 years down the road - this would be a very simple connection route given the fact that the area in question is mostly green fields currently - could be considerably cheaper and provide the airport with a link to public infrastructure across the country.

hans aus dtschl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123385797#Comment_123385797

I'm not an expert but if you're going for a mode change and green fields anyway, why would you not just send something up the old N27 rail alignment and connect lines at Kent instead? I understand that CUH is a major trip generator but you could leverage the existing P&R, reintroduce a southern station and possibly even feed Douglas from the same line.

I hate being negative and the airport is high on my list of destinations too, but I just don't see easy wins on any route to the airport.

Consonata

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123384111#Comment_123384111

I am using the CSO data, it may be inaccurate but the rest of the figures seem accurate?

My core argument is that, irrespective of the amount of vehicles you try to run down a corridor, you will be limited by the sections where you don't have true segregation of traffic. There is very little if any true grade seperation in Cork City centre on this route, vs. the Red Line which largely is seperated from public transport and car traffic. At best, they seem to be attempting to have one line shared running with only public transport and the other shared running with car traffic. I can't see how you don't see this as a design drawback with the project. Sure, from a pragmatic sense it might be the only option, but denying its existance seems foolish.

Please don't condescend to me about "why not riding the red line". I ride it every day for my commute. It is frankly quite childish.

My preferred alignment would be a route where both lanes of tram have, at minimum, do not share routine journeys with car traffic, and are only sharing with public transport in the core. And that when the alignment reaches the suburbs, the should aim for true grade seperation, like what they have on the Red line.

I'm not proposing aiming for Green line level of grade seperation, it's operating on an old railway alignment and obviously has pre-existing benefits which don't exist in the Cork case. But striving for, from the outset, sharing traffic only with public transport i.e Buses, I feel would be more prudent.

cantalach

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123385797#Comment_123385797

Two comments from me specifically on your proposal:

1. Heavy rail can’t handle significant gradients but LRT can. I suspect there’s no way in hell a DART type train would make it from the Doughcloyne Roundabout to the Airport. Cyclist don’t you know…there’s a sting in those hills.
2. Heavy rail usually has higher capacity so it’s counterintuitive that you’d have the system with the higher capacity on the part of the route where the capacity requirements would be lower.

More fundamentally though, I think LRT to the airport is unjustified. Cork is a small city with a small airport that averaged only 8,200 ppd in 2024. Let’s consider just the 4,100 ppd going to the airport every day. And let’s be ridiculously optimistic and assume that 50% of them will take the LRT to the airport (they won’t!). We’re now down to 2,050 ppd which, assuming an 18-hour airport day, works out at 115 an hour. The proposed Ballincollig to Mahon LRT will have an initial capacity of, what, 2,300 per hour per direction. 115 is just two double-decker buses or one third of a 40m tram.