Lack of connections

n97 mini

This does my head in. I have to go to Tullamore on Saturday, be there by 11am. Nearest station on that line to me is Hazelhatch.

As a result of poor connections seven out of nine trains that day have waits in Portarlington station of up to 45 minutes, making what should be a journey of around an hour into almost two hours, a large portion of time spent in a station that's a shadow of its former self with virtually no facilities.

The mind boggles at such poor connections, and lack of comfort at interchange stations, so unfortunately for IE I've opted to not freeze my nads off in Portarlington and take the car instead.

L1011

Unless you're connecting at Connolly, you don't exist; and even then they pad their journey planner to make many connections invisible. Its never been a proper concern.

Banjoxed

Now you know why the railway struggles to get enough business to make some lines properly viable.

Irish uniqueness :rolleyes:

Jamie2k9

Banjoxed wrote: »

Now you know why the railway struggles to get enough business to make some lines properly viable.

Irish uniqueness :rolleyes:

What one passenger once a year for a service!

IE provide reasonable connections for bus connection points.

Del.Monte

Yeah, we all know how well CIE does connections - especially in the case of where branchlines have been replaced. For example, how many passengers does the railway now bring to Cashel every year and where do the change for the connecting bus service - that would be Busaras if they are starting from Dublin.

The 5.75 mile branch must have been costing a fortune to maintain. The Rock of Cashel saw 272,500 visitors (2014 figure) and it's safe to say that almost none of them accessed the destination by a combination of CIE's rail/bus services.

end of the road

while i 100% agree about connections, what has to be done is to find the best stations to allow for interchange on the most services, which don't cause people to have to double back, yet not increasing journey times and having to add extra stops to all ready slow services. it's a tricky balancing act but one which can definitely be improved on hugely.

n97 mini

L1011 wrote: »

Unless you're connecting at Connolly, you don't exist; and even then they pad their journey planner to make many connections invisible. Its never been a proper concern.

I had noticed the unambitious journey planner. It looks like they consider a time of less than around 10 minutes too little to make the connection, even when you don't even need to change platform, i.e. in Pearse.

Here's a case in point. There is a hidden train 4 minutes after this one arrives into Pearse:



Voila!

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

L1011

The NTA journey planner will show connections that the Irish Rail one will not, from the same timetable data.

Makes the daily commute time for a Western Commuter -> Clontarf and return commute for a 9-5 worker look a good 20 minutes worse if you trust Irish Rail.

metrovick001

Jamie2k9 wrote: »

What one passenger once a year for a service!

IE provide reasonable connections for bus connection points.

I assume that this is sarcasm?

Jamie2k9

metrovick001 wrote: »

I assume that this is sarcasm?

Not really, when a commuter service is accommodating all IC routes there will always be winners and losers in connections. You cannot have really short connections to every point on the network.

Prospective needed....

The NTA journey planner will show connections that the Irish Rail one will not, from the same timetable data.

Makes the daily commute time for a Western Commuter -> Clontarf and return commute for a 9-5 worker look a good 20 minutes worse if you trust Irish Rail.

IE are not liable that's why, they are liable for missed connections which are shown on their website.

L1011

Jamie2k9 wrote: »

IE are not liable that's why, they are liable for missed connections which are shown on their website.

These aren't journeys you can buy tickets for in advance. The published "connections" can and do fail in cases of bad delays; no comeback.

Jamie2k9

L1011 wrote: »

These aren't journeys you can buy tickets for in advance. The published "connections" can and do fail in cases of bad delays; no comeback.

Yes but if there is no train after a delay and connection is shown IE must bring you to destination.

If they shortened connections they would have moan after moan saying I missed this and that and so on, it's not worth the hassle for IE are the majority of customers want to arrive somewhere as stated (most of the time anyway) than have tight connections and miss appointments etc.

Example if you had a job would you risk a 2-3 min connection on the network and risk been late everyday?

devnull

IE are using Hafas software for their journey planner which is excellent and the same system as used by DB and many other European Rail journey planners, so it's not a software issue, it's simply the way that IR have configured it to allow that amount of time for connections.

L1011

I'm pretty sure said software can provide tight connection warnings rather than just fail to display them at all.

From poking around, 7mins is the shortest they'll show - ignoring whether its Platform 1 to Platform 7 in Connolly or get off, get on same platform at P1/P2 in Pearse.

n97 mini

Google maps actually shows the (in my view) proper connection. It's how I spotted that IE's site is missing them.

devnull

L1011 wrote: »

I'm pretty sure said software can provide tight connection warnings rather than just fail to display them at all.

From poking around, 7mins is the shortest they'll show - ignoring whether its Platform 1 to Platform 7 in Connolly or get off, get on same platform at P1/P2 in Pearse.

It can - it's just not been set up that way.