[article] DART trains to run every 10 minutes to cope with passenger increases

[Mark Gleeson]

No surprises as this has been flagged for some months.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/consu...utes-1.2169093

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news...-31128780.html

http://www.thejournal.ie/how-many-pe...35942-Apr2015/

Based on what we know this is not expected to occur until later 2015 early 2016 due a combination of staff training and signalling upgrades

[Inniskeen]

This proposal, which has been promoted for years, will extend journey times by 5 to 10 minutes for non DART users particularly on the northern line and create additional congestion. If more capacity is needed on DART it would be far more effective to then take advantage of idle rolling stock and under utilised platform extensions.

The half hourly Malahide and Greystones services are major congestion generators due to the single line between Bray and Malahide and the wholly unsuitable station layout at Malahide. Looks like a mess is in prospect !

[Jamie2k9]

So two additional hourly service, the real facts will be if net capacity increases or services are standardized to 4 coach operations.

Still good to see Intercity and Commuter numbers increase also.

[Traincustomer]

Hopefully this will not result in more crawling for South Eastern line commuter services and Rosslare Intercity services.

[Inniskeen]

Absolutely inevitable that all services sharing track with DART will be even slower than at present.

Nobody would have believed you if told them twenty years ago that the fastest part of the trip to Greystones would be the section between Bray and Greystones !

[ThomasJ]

So both Kildare and maynooth line services will have to wait at north strand when entering connolly where there are north and south bound services passing the north strand area.

Should be fun!

[Eddie]

I can see the merit in extra trains during the rush hour, but if 2 and 4 carriage trains at a 15 minute frequency are sufficient for the capacity off peak, then it would seem hard to justify extending it beyond this.

[berneyarms]

If DART is to become a truly walk up and go service then the 10 minute frequency has to happen. Time is far more important to people these days, and higher frequencies will generate higher passenger numbers - one only has to look at LUAS to see that.

This proposal is trying to grow the business rather than meet existing demand.

However the downside is that all of the other services including Rosslare and Belfast Intercity services will face longer journey times - there is no way around that.

[Inniskeen]

It is incomprehensible that additional time journey time should be added to already slow Belfast, Rosslare and longer distance commuter services.

Time is important to everybody these days not just DART users. If DART is developed at the expense of other services, these other services will become irrelevant and what remains can be turned into a high frequenccy, low speed tramway style operation. It is questionable if this would produce a net growth in passenger numbers let alone revenue.

While usage of services on the northern line beyond Howth Junction has not declined that much in volume terms the failure to make the service more attractive has led to a very significant decline in modal split, something which is all too evident by the huge volume of traffic now using the M1.

As for services beyond Greystones, the addition of almost 20 minutes to journey times has made the railway to Wicklow and beyond almost irrelevant.

[berneyarms]

Well clearly the NTA don't fully agree with this view as they are the ones who are advocating this proposal to increase the DART frequency to every 10 minutes. It would appear that they view the DART as the principal service on the Connolly side for developing new business.

I would imagine that the impact on a Belfast trains can be minimised by sending them out of Connolly directly ahead of a Malahide bound DART?

Similarly southbound that they pass Malahide directly ahead of a Malahide departing DART?

Realistically there is a much greater market for the DART than Rosslare line services I'm afraid, and that really isn't going to change.

There's no solution given that you are trying to run a high frequency commuter service and other commuter/Intercity services on a double track railway.

[Inniskeen]

There are two solutions

1) Match infrastructure and business requirements, all the big ideas and many of the smaller ones are a nonsense without additional tracks north of Connolly. Without this the railway market share will keep falling as people will not tolerate tram link speeds for longer journeys.

2) Cater for additional DART demand by increasing set sizes and using idle rolling stock. The infrastructure is not capable of efficienly handling increased frequency without degrading already indifferent service quality for customers spending significantly more than your typical DART user.

[berneyarms]

Originally Posted by Inniskeen

There are two solutions

1) Match infrastructure and business requirements, all the big ideas and many of the smaller ones are a nonsense without additional tracks north of Connolly. Without this the railway market share will keep falling as people will not tolerate tram link speeds for longer journeys.

2) Cater for additional DART demand by increasing set sizes and using idle rolling stock. The infrastructure is not capable of efficienly handling increased frequency without degrading already indifferent service quality for customers spending significantly more than your typical DART user.

Well solution 1 is obvious - but I was speaking from the perspective of the reality of the situation that we are in financially - adding extra tracks isn't likely to happen as there are no funds to do it - it would be pretty much prohibitively expensive.

I will respectively disagree with your view on how to stimulate more demand for DART - a 10 minute frequency will do much more than a 15 minute one. 15 minutes is not turn up and go - 10 minutes definitely is.

Clearly there is a trade-off to be made here and the NTA have taken the view that a 10 minute DART is what they want as the premier product.

[James Howard]

In fairness your typical DART user spends a lot more over the course of a month than your typical InterCity user so they do need to be catered for. Irish Rail have a hell of a lot of sloppy timekeeping on InterCity services. It has got better recently but it is very frequent to be on a train that is three or four minutes late.

This seems like nothing but when you're trying to catch a slot immediately ahead of a DART it makes all the difference in trying to keep the timetable together.

The DART frequency improvement is also of some benefit to the InterCity passenger as it allows them to connect more easily. I would generally walk between Connolly and Pearse or even GCD as the frequency on the DART is so poor that you are generally over there by the time a DART turns up.

[comcor]

Are there many stations where an additional platform could be built, allowing DARTs to stop on them to allow InterCity/Commuter trains to pass?

[James Howard]

They don't even need a platform. It's quite normal in other countries to put a third line in the middle between two platforms and have expresses run down the middle.

But there is no money to do anything infrastructural to help the intercity trains so any potential remedies are fairly moot. I'm afraid we'll just have to grin and bear it.

[Mark Gleeson]

There are demand models for Dublin suburban and the frequency has a significant impact on demand.

15 minutes is not good enough, 10 minutes is better but ideally we should be 7.5 minutes.

Should finally address the weak frequency on the Howth branch which should see a train every 20 minutes instead of 30 off peak.

Still leaves 20 minute gaps north of Howth Junction to fit in other services. The Enterprise timetable was never updated to efficiently slot in with the clock face timetable anyway so its unfair to blame the DART

[Inniskeen]

There are a whole host of factors that determine demand for services including frequency, journey time, cost, comfort and convenience of access to stations.

Yes a higher frequency of DART trains may well generate some modest additional short-haul business but there is a fundamental incompatability between an increased frequency of DART trains averaging 20 mph and a viable mainline/outer suburban service running at 70 to 90 mph on the existing infrastructure.

Joiurney times along the northern line already compare unfavourably with NIR outer suburban services from Belfast to Portadown both in terms of frequency and journey time. More significantly the combination of severe overcrowding, minimal frequency and slow journeys means that as demand has grown most of the additional journeys (public transport or otherwise is now via the M1). A higher frequency of DART's in the absence of additional running lines simply exacerbates the situation.

You are correct about the Enterprise, most of the existing conflicts could be relatively easily timetabled out without impacting on the existing DART service pattern and, apart from the 0650 from Belfast, are not primarily due to DART. Greater DART frequency on a fixed interval, all stops pattern means journey time increases of 6 to 12 minutes for both Belfast and longer distance commuter servces not to mention additional conflict with Maynooth and future Kildare services. Airport DART, DART underground and DART extensions will have a more dramatic effect and could see minimum journey times to most stations north of Skerries increase by 15 to 20 minutes.

At the present time the major portion of the existing peak-period DART service is provided by six or even four car trains. On the whole, off peak services are easily covered by four car trains with two car trains more than sufficient later after 2000. There is no pressing need for increased frequency given the consequential damage to other services and the ready ability to cater for most additional demand using larger sets.