[Mark Hennessy]

RUI mentioned Porto as the model years ago.

Better hurry up and get the submissions for tender in before the T21 gig is up!

The light rail system of Portugal’s second city could be the perfect model to meet Dublin’s needs, writes Nicola Cooke in Porto.

Invitations to tender for the much-vaunted Metro North in Dublin will be sent out to four consortiums within the next 12 weeks,
when the real work of designing a suitable system will finally begin.

The 19-kilometre commuter rail system, intended to serve a corridor from Swords to Dublin city centre, with a spur to Dublin Airport,
has a projected design capacity of 34 million passengers per year.

The necessity of such a capacity is debatable - the system would be able to carry 20,000 passengers per hour - but the Railway Procurement Agency (RPA) said it is ‘‘future-proofing’’ the system for the passenger increase with Terminal 2 at Dublin Airport, and Fingal County Council’s plans for a new ‘city’ of up to 100,000 people in Swords.




The RPA has looked at other European cities for design inspiration for Metro North. Portugal’s Metro do Porto, in the country’s second-largest city, is one in which it is particularly interested, because of many parallels it has with Dublin.

Porto, north of Lisbon, has a population of 1.2 million and a new metro system was completed there in 2006. It was easy to see, from a visit to the city, how its urban rail system had revolutionised public transport - mainly as a result of an innovative integrated ticketing system.

Transdev, one of the bidders for the construction and operation of Metro North (and whose bid financiers include AIB and Macquarie Bank) operates the system in Porto with impressive efficiency. While Metro North will have 15 stops on one line - and around half of it (10km) will be underground -Metro do Porto runs on five different lines, is 70km long, and has 69s tops.

Metro do Porto was a regional project, not a central government one, and requests for tenders to build it were put forward in 1995. These were awarded in 1998, and construction began that year. The first line opened in 2002, and the system was completed in 2006.So far, this initial timeframe is similar to that of Metro North.

The Porto network runs underground for seven kilometres in the city’s central district. Again, this would be similar to the Metro North underground tunnel plans, that bring it to the final stop in St Stephen’s Green, where the green Luas line terminates. The total construction cost of Metro do Porto was €2 billion, while transport experts have indicated to The Sunday Business Post that the estimated cost of Metro North would be around €3.2 billion.

Reasons why the cost will be more expensive in Dublin include the price of acquiring property here, more expensive underground tunnelling, and a stop underneath the River Liffey at O’Connell Bridge. Construction, scheduled to start at the end of next year, would begin 11 years later than in Porto, so inflation and higher labour costs are also taken into account.

Porto’s red line - 17.2 km in length and serving a route from the suburb of Povoa to the city centre - is also similar in length to Metro North’s route. Metro do Porto’s airport route still only carries 10 per cent of Porto airport’s passengers, but this is expected to increase significantly in the coming years.

Metro do Porto spokesman Jorge Morgado said the company was in contact with the RPA, and that it was helping the RPA with ‘‘the Dublin project’’. Morgado said the new metro system had reversed a 15-year decline of public transport use in the city, and led to a decrease of 100,000 car journeys a year into the city.

‘‘Traffic in the city ten years ago was chaotic, and there was no good or effective bus system,” said Morgado. The train system was old, too. While the metro alone was not the solution, it was part of the solution, and the modernisation of transport in the city. Bus, metro and heavy train services are now co-ordinated to provide an integrated public transport system, and people are increasingly using this again. There was a 25 per cent growth in passenger numbers – from 3.8 million a month to 5 million a month - in the 18 months between June 2006 and November 2007, Morgado said.

Porto public transport users have embraced the smartcard system of travelling, where pre-paid cards are scanned electronically and can be used across travel zones, on any mode of public transport. Half of all passengers use these.

According to the RPA, integrated ticket use between Dublin Bus and Luas will be possible in autumn next year. Irish Rail and Dart will be added to the system in 2010 and, when Metro North is operational by 2013, integrated ticketing will also apply.

The major differences between Metro North and Metro do Porto are the 200 security staff employed to travel on the rail network, and a €5 million compensation scheme for businesses which suffered losses when the system was under construction.

While the underground stations for the Dublin metro will be manned, there will be no specialised security staff employed for trains - or a business compensation scheme - according to RPA spokesman Tom Manning.

‘‘We will apply for the detailed railway order [planning permission] in the next few months, but we don’t envisage a need for security personnel on Metro North.

‘‘The nine underground stations on the route will be manned by metro employees, but the situation would be similar to Luas where contact with the control room is available to staff.

‘‘There is no compensation scheme for any business in Ireland where major infrastructure, such as a railway, gas lines or waterworks is being laid - but the legal remedy is open to anyone.

‘‘The next 18 months is crucial to the whole process, and will include a railway order decision, the selection of a preferred bidder, financial closure on the project and the commencement of construction towards the end of next year,’’ Manning said.