Ryanair - and the lessons for Irish Rail...

Metrobest

If it were any other industry, companies would be straining their necks desperate to learn from Ryanair's success story.

But it would seem Irish Rail has learnt nothing.
-Staff costs are ridiculously high
-Unions are allowed walk all over management
-Punctuality is a pipe-dream
-Poor use is made of available infrastructure
-Customer service barely exists
-Fares are too high and the ticketing structure insane
-Stations are badly managed and overcrowded

Ryanair has a different way of doing things; passengers have voted with their bums. What lessons, if any, can Ryanair teach Irish Rail?

netwhizkid

Originally Posted By Metrobest
What lessons, if any, can Ryanair teach Irish Rail?

None.
Just look at the uk where railway privatisation wrecked the network. Right wing capitalism dosent work and never will. Look at Eircom where is broadband Ireland ?... nowhere thanks to privatisation and right wing policies.

Viva le reveloution !!!,

regards netwhizkid

P11 Comms

Metrobest wrote:

What lessons, if any, can Ryanair teach Irish Rail?

That Skangers can fly.

Metrobest

netwhizkid wrote:

None.
Just look at the uk where railway privatisation wrecked the network. Right wing capitalism dosent work and never will. Look at Eircom where is broadband Ireland ?... nowhere thanks to privatisation and right wing policies.

Viva le reveloution !!!,

regards netwhizkid

Bad management imploded the UK railways; nothing to do with capitalism. And poor business acumen. Just look at the things IE could do to make more money, but doesn't...

In the same way as planes make the money for Ryanair, trains make the LOSS for Iarnroad Eireann. Ryanair's philosophy is to keep the planes in the sky as much as possible: fast turnaround times, low fares to stimulate demand, early morning/late night departures.

Look at Irish Rail. The last trains leaves for Cork at 9pm, Galway and Longford far earlier. Don't you think the trains could run until midnight and lower fares be charged on off-peak services? Imagine if an 11pm train ran from Heuston to Cork at a fare of 8 euros each way. Each carriage would be jammed. Not only would IE make a fortune, pressure would be taken off the other services. What's stopping them doing this? Imagination, I say; or lack of it.

embraer170

Why make rail travel even more complicated and push people to the ever improving bus services, aided by the new roads.

Imagine if an 11pm train ran from Heuston to Cork at a fare of 8 euros each way. Each carriage would be jammed.

I am not at all convinced. You'd get a few people, a full train I doubt.
Ever actually travelled on any of IE's last services in the evening. The last Cork - Dublin (at the ridiculously early time of 7.15pm) is consistently empty and I am not sure a few E reduction would change that.

I am a big believer in the Swiss fare system. Fixed fare calculated per km, buy an annual card, get 50% off all railway services (but there it of course includes buses, trams, boats, mountain railways etc)

John R

Metrobest wrote:

Bad management imploded the UK railways; nothing to do with capitalism. And poor business acumen. Just look at the things IE could do to make more money, but doesn't...

The UK railways were very well managed when they before they were privatised, they were grossly underfunded and just scraping by but the money was wisely spent to keep the whole network going.

Under privatisation they were also well managed, in the sense that all of the companies managed the system so that they creamed as much as they possibly could out of fare money and a massively increased subvention while not bothering to keep the safety and maintenance up to standard. Capitalism and right-wing government neglect had everything to do with the state of the railways.

Metrobest wrote:

In the same way as planes make the money for Ryanair, trains make the LOSS for Iarnroad Eireann. Ryanair's philosophy is to keep the planes in the sky as much as possible: fast turnaround times, low fares to stimulate demand, early morning/late night departures.

Ryanair's only goal is to make a profit. IE are primarily involved in providing public services, many of which are unsuitable for producing a financial return.

Metrobest wrote:

Look at Irish Rail. The last trains leaves for Cork at 9pm, Galway and Longford far earlier. Don't you think the trains could run until midnight and lower fares be charged on off-peak services? Imagine if an 11pm train ran from Heuston to Cork at a fare of 8 euros each way. Each carriage would be jammed. Not only would IE make a fortune, pressure would be taken off the other services. What's stopping them doing this? Imagination, I say; or lack of it.

You seriously think there is a reasonable demand for a train from Dublin that arrives in Cork at after 1.30 am? There is light patronage on the current last services on several lines and the late buses from Dublin to Galway, Waterford and Limerick are also not very busy.

Metrobest

John R wrote:

Ryanair's only goal is to make a profit. IE are primarily involved in providing public services, many of which are unsuitable for producing a financial return..

But I would contend that Ryanair delivers better public service than Iarnroad Eireann. Don't you think it's odd that a Dublin-Cork train ticket can cost twice as much as Dublin-Paris on the plane? There's no reason why IE can't adopt Ryanair's business model. There is huge potential for ancillary revenue which IE fails to exploit. Also huge potential exists to expand existing services and keep each train on the tracks for longer. They don't do it. You can't run from the facts. Customers want cheap fares, flexible ticketing options and frequent services; Irish Rail is failing to deliver.

John R wrote:

ou seriously think there is a reasonable demand for a train from Dublin that arrives in Cork at after 1.30 am? There is light patronage on the current last services on several lines and the late buses from Dublin to Galway, Waterford and Limerick are also not very busy.

Basic economics is that you reduce price to stimulate demand. When price falls below a certain level (8 euros one way to Cork), people who wouldn't have considered traveling at that time suddenly decide they will because they're saving a packet on Irish Rail's outrageous existing fares.

John R

Metrobest wrote:

But I would contend that Ryanair delivers better public service than Iarnroad Eireann. Don't you think it's odd that a Dublin-Cork train ticket can cost twice as much as Dublin-Paris on the plane? There's no reason why IE can't adopt Ryanair's business model. There is huge potential for ancillary revenue which IE fails to exploit. Also huge potential exists to expand existing services and keep each train on the tracks for longer. They don't do it. You can't run from the facts. Customers want cheap fares, flexible ticketing options and frequent services; Irish Rail is failing to deliver.

Twice the price? NO. Not even close, try again.

The other side of the Ryanair model is the negatives that would be VERY unpopular on IE. Compulsory advance booking, a big premium on peak time fares and restrictive terms and conditions.

Metrobest wrote:

Basic economics is that you reduce price to stimulate demand. When price falls below a certain level (8 euros one way to Cork), people who wouldn't have considered traveling at that time suddenly decide they will because they're saving a packet on Irish Rail's outrageous existing fares.

Basic intelligence would tell you that there are not hundreds of people every night that would want to arrive in Cork station at 1.30/2.00am
The current 9pm departure is late enough.

At that price it the train would need to be packed to the brim all the time to make it economic.

Zaph0d

Metrobest wrote:

Ryanair has a different way of doing things; passengers have voted with their bums. What lessons, if any, can Ryanair teach Irish Rail?

Irish Rail is subject to constraints on its behaviour that do not apply to a private company. For historical reasons, the company is highly unionised. Management knows from past experience that if it attempts to face down the unions that the single shareholder may take the side of the workers. It would be great to see Irish Rail changing its business to a low fares / high capacity model and offering more variable pricing with cheap night trains but how can it innovate when the government and unions act only in the short term workers interest rather than the interest of the public? We vote for parties that act in this way so we can only blame ourselves.

Ryanair is a smelly company in many respects. Everything from its idiotically poor PR to it in-house graphic design and advertising, its confrontational and ineffective bullying of politicians, the contempt you receive from the overworked and badly dressed staff and the con artistry they employ to hide the true costs of their fares all leave a bad taste in the mouth. But their efficiency has brought untold benefits to millions of consumers and made Ireland a more competitve country.

Nobody believes that Ryanair could have delivered the public service to Ireland that they have achieved had they been under state ownership.

Redundancies have to be voluntary in a semistate, so the best workers often leave when an attempt is made to make the operation more efficient. A private company would just clear out the dead wood, often to the secret relief of the other workers who had been carrying them. A private company can operate with a high degree of worker-management co-operation with everyone trying to improve service to the customer and constantly changing work practices. Irish Rail knows it has to fight for every change that is used by the unions as an excuse for compensation.

Management of a semi-state is often paid a fraction of the salaries offered in the private sector for a simliar turnover business, as it is politically unacceptable to pay high salaries to state employees. High salaries attract headlines that appeal to the begrudging jealousy of the masses. We'd rather have second rate management of a 900 million euro trunover business than see that fecker become a millionaire.

On the other hand, privatising a monopoly like water or fixed line telecoms is not always a great idea when the result is a company with no incentive to compete. The UK has shown how not to privatise railways but other European countries have managed to create a number of competing train operators sharing the same track.

Having Connex run the Luas will improve the operations in Irish Rail as people draw comparisons between the respective ticketing systems.

If the Irish Rail plan is adopted there will be massive capacity added to many routes and it would be great if Irish Rail had the flexibility to sell this cheaply to the public.

So the lessons are:
Remove Irish Rail from the control of politicians perhaps under the direction of an independent state agency.
Allow Irish Rail to pay their staff and management according to performance and not civil service pay grades.
Allow Irish Rail to hire and fire like any private company
Allow Irish Rail to deal with their unions as any private company does.

A Dub in Glasgo

Metrobest wrote:

Bad management imploded the UK railways; nothing to do with capitalism. And poor business acumen.

Absolute and utter rubbish. The biggest reason (by far) the railway system here fell by the wayside was the way the Tory government in the UK carved up the railways. British Rail was disintegrated into 100 companies all competing for the same staff and trying to make a profit and with commercial contractual relationships with one another. Some of those contracts were horrendous to manage and pin down the responsibility for the railway system.

Sarsfield

Metrobest wrote:

-Customer service barely exists

compared to Ryanair?

Metrobest

A Dub in Glasgo wrote:

Absolute and utter rubbish. The biggest reason (by far) the railway system here fell by the wayside was the way the Tory government in the UK carved up the railways. British Rail was disintegrated into 100 companies all competing for the same staff and trying to make a profit and with commercial contractual relationships with one another. Some of those contracts were horrendous to manage and pin down the responsibility for the railway system.

I'm not saying privatise Irish Rail. Nor am I saying split it into a thousand sub-divisions. What I'm saying is, lessons can be learnt from the Ryanair model.

Every day, a massive percentage of off-peak trains have tonnes of spare capacity. That capacity goes un-used. If fares were adjusted to account for demand everyone benefits. For example, you want to take a 5pm Dublin-Cork train. Then pay a premium fare. You're going off-peak, say at 9pm? Then it's a tenner.

Borzoi

Metrobest wrote:

If fares were adjusted to account for demand everyone benefits. For example, you want to take a 5pm Dublin-Cork train. Then pay a premium fare. You're going off-peak, say at 9pm? Then it's a tenner.

Ah, but your model is flawed, this peak time premium fare has an upper limit because Rail can be compared to road, particularly the private car and it's costs/convenience. Obviously Ryanair are not competeing with people's abaility to drive to London

sliabh

Borzoi wrote:

Ah, but your model is flawed, this peak time premium fare has an upper limit because Rail can be compared to road, particularly the private car and it's costs/convenience. Obviously Ryanair are not competeing with people's abaility to drive to London

It's more about the filling the cheap seats than the expensive ones though.

It's better to have seats filled at €10 a pop (or lower) than to have them empty.

dmeehan

also, price the first x% really cheap, to grab peoples attention. so when the cheap seats are gone, up the price to the next level. keep doing this until you reach the top price when someone walks up to the counter 10 mins before departure.

jlang

Also would mean that you could get almost free tickets to travel to Clara on Tuesday mornings, but have to pay several times the current price for a Friday evening trip to Cork or Limerick or Belfast or anywhere you might actually want to go, when you atually want to go there.

dmeehan

jlang wrote:

Also would mean that you could get almost free tickets to travel to Clara on Tuesday mornings, but have to pay several times the current price for a Friday evening trip to Cork or Limerick or Belfast or anywhere you might actually want to go, when you atually want to go there.

exactly, it lessens the demand for the crush peak services, and encourages use of currently under utilised services

Zaph0d

Metrobest wrote:

Every day, a massive percentage of off-peak trains have tonnes of spare capacity. That capacity goes un-used. If fares were adjusted to account for demand everyone benefits. For example, you want to take a 5pm Dublin-Cork train. Then pay a premium fare. You're going off-peak, say at 9pm? Then it's a tenner.

This makes sense. Some routes already have cheaper fares if you don't travel on friday or sunday (eg Dublin-Galway).

Irish Rail's primary objective should be to carry as many passengers as possible per year, whereas a private airline wants to maximise profit per year which may not necessarily be achieved by filling planes. It would be good if Irish Rail could buy an off-the-shelf airline ticketing system that allowed for variable pricing and sell e-tickets to be collected at the kiosks in the station. I believe the TGV used an airline system many years ago complete with boarding passes etc.

Metrobest

Exactly. Let's take an example. Say I want to travel next Wednesday on the 11am train to Westport. If I bought that ticket today I'll pay the exact same fare as someone who turns up at Heuston today at 4.59pm to take the 5pm train, which will be packed (gee, I wonder why...!)

I'm not saying peak-time fares should be higher than current levels (they're high enough already!); what I'm saying is that the spare capacity on the off-peak services could be swallowed up by lower fares, stimulating demand and probably even enticing drivers off the dirt-track national roads!

Calina

The SNCF main reservation system is based on an airline system. I don't know if they ever used boarding cards for their TGVs - I somehow doubt it but I'm open to correction on that point. That said, all their tickets, TGV or not TGV are basically boarding pass sized anyway. Most of the train companies I've travelled with on the continent use a similar ticket format altbough I don't know what their ticket sales systems is based on. The SNCF res system is probably way, way too big and powerful for the needs of Irish Rail but there are smaller equivalent systems out there which could be bought and adapted but it needs something like a major mindset change in the way the rail system is operated here. And by that I don't mean that Ryanair is a role model to follow. It's anything but (see below).

The problem with Irish Rail isn't really a problem with Irish Rail as such - it's the whole problem with the idea of public transport in this country full stop. We don't do it well and when we try to fix it we tinker with it, and then wonder why a sticking plaster won't staunch a six foot long bloody gash. What is needed is 1) a realisation that we are getting it wrong and 2) a culture change across the board. This means customers of the various transport companies as well.

Irish Rail is at a significant disadvantage to Ryanair when it comes to certain operating costs - the staff ones I'll deal with in a moment - but firstly, it owns and tries to maintain its own infrastructure. By comparison, Ryanair tries to fleece every single airport operator it has to deal with. Secondly, Ryanair underwrites a considerable amount of its flying costs with things like car hire and hotel booking services. Ryanair made 25m from car hire last year. Remember this when you think how amazingly efficient it is. Thirdly - a lot of the work carried out on behalf of Ryanair is carried out by third party companies. Comparison of staff costs is therefore a pointless exercise.

What I would say is the following: the rail system in Ireland is a legacy system which has suffered from a chronic lack of vision over the past 25 years. Given that we can get some things right (eg getting IT in as the country's main industry, getting the IFSC off the ground), it's a bit of a tragedy. The one thing I will say is that Irish Rail are actually showing some signs of trying to play catch up. I've been travelling with them for well more than 15 years and believe me, the improvements in the last two or three years are more than tangible.

What is needed is a recognition that the public transport/rail system we need is going to cost a lot of money. I mean, a serious amount of money. There are several reasons for this:
1) the track infrastructure is inadequate. Commuter trains share a significant amount of the mainline rail track. This isn't really that good. It slows down the long distance trains and it wouldn't surprise me if it limits the number of commuter trains as well.
2) woeful lack of rolling stock for peak times. Fridays in Heuston Station is a scary place. Sundays coming up from Charleville has traditionally been awful.
3) the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it attitude" is fine for a lot of things. Unfortunately, for rail travel in Ireland, the attitude is more along the lines of sticking your head in the sand.

Some time ago, I was reading up on financing for track improvements in Brittany, western France. Bear with me because there is a point to this: One billion euro was going to be spent on the rail network in Brittany. In Brittany - population about 3 million, main city Rennes. The TGV runs from Paris via Rennes to Brest and Quimper. It is, however, highspeed as far as Le Mans (outside Brittany). As far as I can remember, that one billion was to be spent on making the track super highspeed as far as Rennes (ie, full TGV) and then raising the trackspeeds from Rennes to Quimper and Brest by a lesser extent. I can't remember for sure but something like 45 minutes was going to come off the time it took to get from Paris to Rennes. And for that, between them, the regional authority in Brittany, the SNCF, the national government and the departmental authority of Finistere were going to spend one billion euros.

At the time, Irish Rail had one billion euro over five years to try and sort out the network which was suffering from about 40 years of neglect and abuse.

For some reason, I see a different level of political will there.

What I would like to see at a political level is a recognition that the rail network is inadequate in many ways. What is necessary is going to be highly expensive in the short term but should, if it's done properly (and that's the key point) have medium to long term benefits.

1) Separate the commuter and the mainline tracks: translation we need to build additional track not replacement track.
2) Upgrade the mainline track to handle speeds of 120mph at least. It's almost certainly not economically viable to buy some TGVs to do Dublin Belfast/Dublin Cork or Dublin Galway or Dublin Limerick at the moment. Maybe this is
3) Consider replacement the diesel trains with electric trains.
4) Buy more rolling stock. A lot more rolling stock.
5) Consider local train services not unlike the TER system in France - Germany has an equivalent as well.
6) Integrate the national bus and train system - ie run feeder buses to the trains.
This is a matter of national policy.

As for Irish Rail:
1) Reconsider the fare structure. The 5 day and month returns should be a thing of the past. Implement a basic single fare, double it for a return and if it's booked more than two months in advance, lop a significant amount of money off the fare. For the record, certain long distance train tickets sold online by the SNCF can be issued as PDF files and printed out by their customers with their names printed on them. Consider this as it saves the vast majority of airlines millions every year in getting the customers to print out their own e-tickets. The SNCF ask only that you bring a photo id with you.

Additionally, they colour code trains depending on whether they are running peak periods/middling to busy periods/quiet periods and set the TGV fares accordingly. You might try that too. This should be standard.

2) I'm naively assuming that together with your brethren in CIE/Dublin Bus, you are considering introducing an RFID based commuter card not unlike the ones used in Paris and Lyon. If you're not, now is the time to start looking at it, along with mobile phone based technology.

3) The introduction of ticket machines is a good thing. I'm impressed. I realise it will take some time to roll it out to the whole station network but the sooner it is done the better.

4) Start making some trains reservation only, particularly any long distance train leaving Dublin after 4.30 on a Friday.

5) Lose the idea that standing passengers on long distance trains is acceptable. It is not.

6) Standing passengers are acceptable over short distances. Portlaois to Dublin is not a short distance. If the likely journey exceeds 15 minutes, it is not acceptable.

This is just the tip of the iceberg.

enterprise

IE have a number of different fare strategies for off-peak demand. Example it is cheaper to travel on the 09.10 & 10.55 ex Cork to Heuston than say the main business trains the 07.10 & 08.00.

Likewise it is cheaper to travel from Kerry to Dublin on Tues-Thurs & Sat than Fri, Sun or Mon as the the demand for travel is less.

This fare strategy has worked well over the years and some of the points made above are good ones and good be considered further. According to IE's spokesman Barry Kenny speaking to a Louth local newspaper (can't remember the name) the company are going to be launching a task force next year to examine their fares and make changes where nescessary.

Also I do know it is the wish of the Chief Operations Officer Dick Fearn to launch a "Ryanair" type fare model where for quite trains you pay a considerbly less than the full fare. Just look at the €10 fare promotion carried out this summer - this was testing the water to see how the market responds - and by god it responded!


In conclusion, Metrobest may get his wish sooner than he thinks!

Calina

yes but if I remember rightly that promotion was available from Dublin only. Not fair.

enterprise

True, it was. But it was a little experiment to see what the demand was - and the demand was there.

One little step at a time! Lets walk before we can run!

When the Internet reservation system is fully rolled out over the next few months and the ticket task force reports back - then we see some adventurous ticket pricing stratgies.

IE on-line ticket sales are currently available for the following journeys:
Dublin - Cork CityGold services.

First class on Cork, Tralee, Limerick, Galway and Waterford.

Standard Class on the following trains Friday only:

16.50 Heuston - Galway.
17.00 Heuston - Cork.
17.10 Heuston - Limerick - Ennis.
18.30 Heuston - Tralee.

The link to book your journey is:
http://www.irishrail.ie/your_journey2/timetables.asp

John R

Calina wrote:

yes but if I remember rightly that promotion was available from Dublin only. Not fair.

It's not a matter of fairness. These trains were the ones with spare capacity not the ones travelling to Dublin in the mornings.

The "Ryanair model" is also based on paying VERY high fares for peak travel, if IE followed that path there would be very low fares off-peak and much higher than the current ones for peak travel. You cannot have it one way only, If you want ultra-cheap off peak then the peak fares have to be put up to compensate.

Metrobest

Calina, you've raised some very interesting points there based on your experience of the French system. But I would say that the comparison with Ireland is ill-advised. France is far larger, both in size and in population. I love the French railway system. I use the Thalys to Paris (from Amsterdam) a few times a year. That system is reservations-based (ie. the sooner you book, the lower the fare) and there are special discounts for students, under 26s and SNCF card holders etc. It's always a pleasure.

The only comparable route we have in Ireland is Dublin-Cork or Dublin-Belfast; and in both cases that's a weak comparison.

I think a reservations system for Irish Rail is a step backward. It limits customers' flexibility. It slows down the train-boarding process. It increases staff costs (the Thalys has two staff members per carriage to deal with customers who can't find their seat number)

So the conclusion is: learn from the successes of French Rail comfort, and add in the efficiencies of the Dutch Railways (a better geographical comparison to Ireland)

Here's the way I think the system should work:
-If you know you're going to be travelling in advance (7 days' or 14 days') you get a substantial discount. (None of these tickets should be 'reservation' based except perhaps first class - instead the customer, upon booking, would be issued with a Ryanair-style confirmation number; the ticket would print out of a machine on the platform, or even the train, saving staff costs!
-Turn up 5 minutes before departure without a ticket; pay the highest fare

You mentioned Heuston being manic on Friday evenings. You're right. It's a disgrace. At least half the problem is bad management. Why does Iarnroad Eireann ask people to queue in the station concourse to get onto the platform? It's ridiculous! People should be allowed walk straight onto the train, and if the train hasn't arrived, wait on the platform. This is the norm across Europe. Tickets should be controlled on the train itself; there is no need to check tickets at the platform. It is a complete waste of staff resources, but it just shows you how pervasive an influence the trade unions have been allowed to have on the running of Irish Rail. At every turn they hold up progress and resist any change that would make passengers' lives easier.

Remember before Ryanair came along? People paid outrageous fares to travel Dublin-London with Aer Lingus. They didn't grumble; they accepted it; they knew no better. The same is true of the railways in Ireland. Every miniscule reform is greeted with joy in the media - and some other railway lobby groups whose name I won't mention! But what's needed is root and branch reform, not the party-political tweaking of a Martin Cullen press conference.

Zaph0d

According to Irish Rail's web site:

IrishRail.ie wrote:

Iarnród Éireann are currently working on a full e-commerce system which will include on-line ticket sales, seat reservations and fare enquiries.

I hope they sought opinions from the public as part of the analysis phase for this work. Platform 11 or some focus groups should be used rather than guessing what the public want. I also hope they are going to modify an existing booking engine rather than writing one themselves that then doesn't work, as Aer Lingus chose to do.

sliabh

Zaph0d wrote:

I also hope they are going to modify an existing booking engine rather than writing one themselves that then doesn't work, as Aer Lingus chose to do.

It's probably one for Secret Squirrel to answer but afaik Aer Lingus bought a packaged solution for their e-ticketing setup. They did not develop their own.

Zaph0d

sliabh wrote:

It's probably one for Secret Squirrel to answer but afaik Aer Lingus bought a packaged solution for their e-ticketing setup. They did not develop their own.

I believe they use something from Amadeus now. I'm not sure what they had 3 years ago when their site was impossible to use.

enterprise

Zaph0d wrote:

According to Irish Rail's web site:
I hope they sought opinions from the public as part of the analysis phase for this work. Platform 11 or some focus groups should be used rather than guessing what the public want. I also hope they are going to modify an existing booking engine rather than writing one themselves that then doesn't work, as Aer Lingus chose to do.

The seat reservation system is now going live - see my earlier post for the deatils and the link.

murphaph

I think IBM supply all AerLingus' booking requirements now. This post is pretty good. I think that to say that peak fares have to rise because off peak fares fall is wrong. Bums on seats, cheap fares for booking well ahead and incrementally increasing as departure approaches. Peak fares to remain as they are. Ireland does not have rediculously expensive ticket prices for IC journeys but value for money is another thing........standing to Port Laoise is a joke in this day and age.

John R

Metrobest wrote:

You mentioned Heuston being manic on Friday evenings. You're right. It's a disgrace. At least half the problem is bad management. Why does Iarnroad Eireann ask people to queue in the station concourse to get onto the platform? It's ridiculous! People should be allowed walk straight onto the train, and if the train hasn't arrived, wait on the platform. This is the norm across Europe. Tickets should be controlled on the train itself; there is no need to check tickets at the platform. It is a complete waste of staff resources, but it just shows you how pervasive an influence the trade unions have been allowed to have on the running of Irish Rail. At every turn they hold up progress and resist any change that would make passengers' lives easier.

Could you please back up this bullsh!t with some facts.

Exactly how is this anything to do with trade unions? Provide some evidence to back up your opinion.

The fact is that queues form because the sheep insist on queing far in advance of the departure time, before the train is ready for boarding, in many cases before the train has even arrived from it's previous service.

As soon as a few people start queing all the subsequent passengers just line up behind them, soon the whole station is cut in half by a line of people. Once the train starts boarding it doesn't take all that long for the queue to be dealt with and unless the boarding starts late the majority of passengers who arrive within 10-15 minutes of departure have no queues.

Depending on the distance to the first stop there is not always time for a conductor to check all the tickets, particularly as many people will, if not physically stopped, not bother to buy a ticket before travelling.