Empty Trains

[Gary]

Not sure if this is just co-incidence but twice this week have seen northbound trains at Clontarf Road at around 5.20pm with low passenger numbers ie no one standing and plenty of seats, meanwhile the traffic along the coast road is solid.

I know poeple like their cars but what's the missing link to get people out of the cars and into trains. Seems to be no shortage of trains at peak times on Dart. Is part of the challenge for people working & living relatively near a station getting them from their homes to the station and then from the station to work.

As being discussed on the Lusk Station scenario there doesn't seem to be a proper link between bus services and the trains. Would having the city imp style buses running around the housing estates within 2 mile radius of station help? That said they would then need priority getting out of the station to ensure they're not just sitting in traffic.

[markpb]

Originally Posted by Gary

Not sure if this is just co-incidence but twice this week have seen northbound trains at Clontarf Road at around 5.20pm with low passenger numbers ie no one standing and plenty of seats, meanwhile the traffic along the coast road is solid.

I know this isn't the in-depth answer you're looking for but when I worked in Seapoint near Clontarf Road station I never took the train because the bus was almost always faster and more frequent, even at rush hour. There are just too many 15 minute gaps and in 15 minutes I could be in the city centre. Obviously if you're travelling further afield, the Dart starts to make more sense.

If you want a deeper answer, it's probably because the transport network in dublin is quite poor. Some individual links (Dart, Luas, 46B) can be quite good but they don't cover enough of the city and interchange is poor. Feeder buses with decent bus priority along the route would help.

[Gary]

The other funny thing was the 32X passed by along the sea front less than half full aswell.

It must be lack of consumer confidence in the product, in fairness the buses and trains are clean, relatively reliable to timetable but guess lack of integration from ticketing to connecting services doesnt' help.

[MOH]

Originally Posted by Gary

the buses and trains are clean, relatively reliable to timetable

I commute by DART from Killester to Blackrock every day. So far this year the average daily delay I've experienced is over six minutes. In four and a half months, I've lost nine and a half hours due to late DARTs. At this rate, I'll effectively have to work 3 extra days this year to make up for time lost due to unreliable trains. Of course, 90% of these aren't counted as late by IE

I used to think I was just unlucky with the particular train I get (which IE assured me two years ago had been identified as a problem train and would be solved in the next timetable change), but anytime I get a different one that seems to be delayed too. Maybe I'm just cursed.

If there was any way of driving there that didn't involve going through the city centre, I'd never take a DART again.

[Colm Donoghue]

No way man, only 1% of commuter trains are late during the first quarter of this year. FACT!
I saw it on a poster on a train this morning.

Were these DARTs or Commuter trains?
17:07 first stop is Donabate and the next commuter's first stop is Skerries so these may have had lower loadings.

[Gary]

The train in question was Dart not sure if it was Malahide or Howth bound.