The position with respect to the draft timetable issued was
Fails To Address Social Needs
No service on any route reaches Dublin before 0850 on a Sunday (and by extension a bank holiday). There should be at least 1 arrival from Maynooth, Greystones, Drogheda and Howth before 0850 on a Sunday No service after 2330 despite Luas operating for 10 years up to 0030 6 days a week
Poor Design
Loss of clockface timetabling on several routes is disappointing Saturday timetable is completely different to Monday to Friday, more confusion Dublin Belfast journey times now no better than those in 1947, first year of the Dublin Belfast Enterprise service DART journey times are ridiculously padded and are 10 minutes longer than needed. This is an attempt to hide lazy and slow operating practices. This will result in significant extra staff and operating costs by requiring an extra train set in service and drivers to drive.
Dublin Belfast
Improvements on Sunday long overdue
Pre 9am arrival in Dublin positive change, but journey time unacceptable Addition of Lisburn adds time to an already slow schedule, we see no justification for this Still no pre 9am arrival in Belfast from Dublin, this is unacceptable Connections between Commuter and Enterprise services at Drogheda/Dundalk are not timed to provide reasonable connections, ideally a northbound commuter train should arrive Drogheda 5-10 minutes before a Belfast bound train and depart to Dublin 5-10 minutes after the arrival of a train from Belfast No connection into 0710 Dublin Belfast at Drogheda Timetable PDF will need to show clearly that the 0910 Dublin Belfast overtakes the 0540 Rosslare Dundalk to avoid confusion
Dublin Rosslare
The 05:40 now arrives too late into Dublin to be of real use for commuters as a result of the ridiculously extended DART timetables. All Connolly Rosslare departures on Sunday should be scheduled to depart three minutes later from Connolly, trains would still arrive Bray in advance of the proposed time Evening departure to Dublin should depart Rosslare no earlier than 1845 to ensure connection with ferry.
Dublin Sligo
The alterations to the schedule and particularly the loss of the 1600 and retiming of 1305 are likely to result in serious overcrowding issues The loss of the simple clockface timetable is disappointing
Maynooth/M3 line
Later Sunday evening service is required.
Northern Line
A review of afternoon weekday services is required to ensure these meet the needs of the significant volume of school children who travel home. 30 minute gap between 1653 and 1723 northbound from Pearse is a major concern, the long standing 1713 was the first 8 coach commuter train introduced back in 1999
The 1712 Connolly Balbriggan service should now start from Pearse (or indeed from Dun Laoghaire as there won't be space to hold the train in Pearse)
23:23 Pearse Drogheda should run to Dundalk saving passengers the awkward change at Drogheda also saving passengers 9 minutes
DART
While the move to a 10 minute interval service is welcomed (having being promised as far back as 1983) the implementation is poor and shows little effort to operate the service efficiently which in turn has significant negative impacts on other routes.
DART end to end journey time is now 75 minutes. The original 1984 timetable was 60 minutes, with the addition of 2 stations we can see a justification for a time of 66 minutes off peak/70 minutes on peak.
Reducing the journey time by 5 minutes would
1. Allow each train set to make one extra trip per day, fewer trains and drivers required
2. Shorter journeys are more attractive to customers and will increase demand
3. Commuter and intercity services would benefit from reduced journey times
4. As fewer train sets needed, you can have longer trains, ability to make 3 6 coach trains 8 coaches in length
10 minute frequency in the very early morning and after 10pm is excessive and wasteful of limited funding. An early morning/late night (pre 7am, post 10pm) frequency of 15 minutes is sufficient and still represents an improvement on current. The savings from this should be used to provide 23:45, 00:00 departures north/south from City Mon-Thursday and 2345 0000 0015 0030 service on a Fri/Sat. Note last Luas has always been 0030
A rework is required with respect to Rosslare/Greystones services. The current busiest train in the country for several years in a row has been the 0800 Greystones Malahide will now leave at 0804 and take 6 minutes longer to reach the City Centre thus making the train useless for those with a 9am start for work. By applying the journey time reductions we identified above this train would be restored to 0800 and arrive as current in Dublin. This would return Greystones services to the current xx00 and xx30 departure times. This in turn would improve the arrival time of the 0540 Rosslare Dundalk. This would require a rethink of the entire timetable to factor in the journey time reductions on Northern Line and Belfast services.
|