24 hour Luas

DaBluBoi

What are the chances that this would happen? Just a thought that pondered in my mind while on the Luas

amdublin

During what timeframe?

Within the next decade? Probably zero

Within the next two decades? Probably zero

mikeybhoy

Probably won't happen as they do a lot of maintenance work on the system at night

Atlantic Dawn

Red Line would require some off books special forces teams to police.

Citrus_8

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058242584/24-hour-luas

BusConnects should bring some 24/7 services with each new phase.

p_haugh

I would imagine that 24 hour bus services in the vicinity of the Luas catchment area should be able to provide enough of a replacement service for the Luas at night

bk

Even the London Underground doesn’t operate 24 hours, it only operates from 5am to midnight. Overnight is used for maintenance. At night the service is largely replaced by night buses.

A similar night bus replacement or 24/7 bus route following similar area would be a fine alternative (same for DART).

mikeybhoy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118962344#Comment_118962344

To be fair parts of the tube network are 150+ years old. Wonder would a Night Luas on Friday and Saturday nights work similar to Night Tube could do that for the DART aswell like the way they ran late night services in the run up to Xmas but every Friday and Saturday nights.

TranslatorPS

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118962344#Comment_118962344

While it'd be rather difficult to provide a direct one-for-one service along the Northside half of the DART (short of making the H Spine 24/7), it should be relatively easy to do so with the B3 and E1, and I somehow wouldn't be surprised if the latter was a shoe-in for a 24/7 route already. Under the new network, the 48 and 87 would cover most of the Green line, however the Red line is problematic (the 58 would cover a lot, but the Tallaght areas are more trouble to cover, as the 71 isn't really a route that should be 24/7 otherwise) without setting up a dedicated bus route.

Even Berlin doesn't run a 24/7 U-Bahn service, with the night-time service provided by buses running as close to the route as possible and actually carrying the same Ux number as the corresponding train.

d51984

They cant even control the scum during the day, imagine what it would be like at night. Any other country they would be dealt with, here we just give them a free travel pass.

[Deleted User]

Some cities like Stockholm run their metro through the night on weekends so it's not like it's some maintenance impossibility situation

It's a frequency-reduced service and not at every station

The Red Line can be like "World War Z" during the day though so creative solutions would have to be found

"Discrimina-nation" would be the cry if it was restricted to the Green Line

https://youtu.be/w8ui9l0krZk?t=311

Viscount Aggro

A young girl on the Luas, had FT on her public services card. How is this possible? I noticed a certain accent.

crazy 88

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118952875#Comment_118952875

Like every single night?

JPup

24 hour metro will happen first I'd say, and that won't happen until at least 2034.

DaBluBoi

https://www.thejournal.ie/luas-late-night-5796985-Jun2022/

Interesting to note…

markpb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118962344#Comment_118962344

They do operate a night time service on some Tube lines and have done for 8 years.

https://tfl.gov.uk/campaign/tube-improvements/what-we-are-doing/night-tube

"Night Tube is currently running on Friday and Saturday nights on the Victoria and Central lines, and the Jubilee line from Saturday 21 May. Night Tube services on the Northern and Piccadilly lines will resume later in summer 2022.

When it's fully operational, Night Tube runs on Fridays and Saturdays on the Victoria, Jubilee, and most of the Central, Northern and Piccadilly lines."

bk

"They do operate a night time service on some Tube lines and have done for 8 years."

Yes, but different from a 24/7 bus service.

It might make sense to operate DART and Luas all night on Friday and Saturday night * However the other 5 days would likely be needed for routine maintenance and as a result you would still need a 24/5 bus service shadowing the route for the other 5 days.

"*" You are likely to get lots of objections from residents along the DART and Luas lines due to noise at night time.

Of course I'd hope that Metrolink once opened would also operate all weekend at least, specially if fully automated.

xper

Copenhagen Metro (which appears to have been the favoured model for Metrolink) runs 24/7 with no worse than 20 minutes headway. Maintenance can be carried out between services sometimes with a little delay and I am sure there are occasions when a line or section does have to be closed entirely overnight but the idea that whole systems have to shut down for hours every night is pretty outdated

bk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119236473#Comment_119236473

Yep, I was thinking of exactly that when I mentioned Metrolink. Copenhagen operates 24/7 (though with periods of slower journey times and delays at night for maintenance) and I'm hoping Metrolink will be designed with the same operating pattern in mind.

Keep in mind that there is a world of difference in maintenance required for a new Metro system that is only a few years old and was designed from the outset for 24/7 operation, versus say a Victorian heavy rail line.

There is a very interesting video below on how Copenhagen does maintenance while maintaining 24/7 operation:

• There are crossovers between every other station
• During maintenance, one of the two tracks is closed between the crossovers
• A shuttle operates on the remaining open track between the two crossovers
• Passengers have to change from their train to the shuttle and back to another train at the other side of the maintenance zone.
• The Shuttle that operates in the maintenance zone, does so at a slow speed.

So you can see a lot of maintnenance is still done, they just have thought it out well and have designed the system (frequent crossovers) to be able to handle this type of operation. Hopefully Metrolink will be the same.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwmy7oVJFBw

From the above video, it is very cool that you can sit at the front of the train and watch the view like you were a driver. The video also sort of shows the untrack maintenance vehicle.

ohnonotgmail

Do they have similar crossovers on the LUAS?

bk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119239932#Comment_119239932

Not to the same extent. For instance there are crossovers on the Red Line at Heuston and Connolly Stations. And south of Heuston it is a very long distance to the next one.

There is also the issue that Luas uses a shared overhead catenary along most of the line, while Copenhagen Metro uses a third rail. As a result, any work on the power lines or catenary would likely need to shut both tracks down.

I could be wrong, but unfortunately I don't think the Luas was designed with 24/7 type operations in mind.

I suspect 24 hour operation Friday and Saturday night, plus a shadowing bus service the other 5 days is probably the best we can hope for now.