peaktime.ie - IE Service to incentivise staggered commutes

L1011

Muahahaha wrote: »

I wonder has Irish Rail done analysis on whether it could be done just for one set of carriages that are then placed for use on one line which would then free up carriages to be used on other lines? Like 165mm doesnt sound like much bridge wise, do we not have a commuter line anywhere that doesnt have banking corners and has enough clearance from bridges?

Otherwise how did we get here anyway when the British built the railways Why the differing gauge from the UK?

You are getting deeply confused between track gauge and loading gauge there.

They would do any loading gauge clearance tests using existing kit with outrigging. But there's no second hand 1600mm stock around

Buying second hand UK kit has been done before and was investigated again recently but there's nothing available

Muahahaha

L1011 wrote: »

You are getting deeply confused between track gauge and loading gauge there.

They would do any loading gauge clearance tests using existing kit with outrigging. But there's no second hand 1600mm stock around

Buying second hand UK kit has been done before and was investigated again recently but there's nothing available

yeah looked up loading gauge and it seems to relate to how much height you can have on a train that will allow passage under bridges. So if the 1600mm refers to the width of the tracks how many mm are we talking in difference in height between that and the 1435mm gauge trains?

The whole thing seems bizarre and it clearly limits our ability to buy rolling stock. Mad that this decision was made in 1846, was the British parliament enacting laws to favour one railway company over the other or something?

L1011

Loading gauge and track gauge are completely unconnected.

The UK (except NI) is 1435 with a mostly tiny loading gauge. Most of Europe is 1435 with a much larger one

The decision was made to favour no operator at all basically as it meant everyone had to change. The non-Irish 1600mm deployments were down to Irish engineers being involved in design.

tom1ie

L1011 wrote: »

Brazil, which has no passenger railways at all. (It has light rail). Parts of Australia which would have nothing to sell and a much bigger loading gauge.

So we are unique!
How the hell did we end up like this!

tom1ie

L1011 wrote: »

Loading gauge and track gauge are completely unconnected.

The UK (except NI) is 1435 with a mostly tiny loading gauge. Most of Europe is 1435 with a much larger one

The decision was made to favour no operator at all basically as it meant everyone had to change. The non-Irish 1600mm deployments were down to Irish engineers being involved in design.

Good god that is shocking. In other words we have a bespoke design, in other words it’s more expensive to get rolling stock for.

L1011

History and inertia.

Iberia has its own track gauge as well but its even wider than ours which makes gauge changers easier to do; their loading gauge (and dynamic envelope if you want to throw a *third* problem in...) and because they're physically joined on to France they are building new high speed lines either to 1435mm or with an intent to switch over. The Atlantic Axis highspeed line is 1668mm for instance.

Trying to see which of the UK loading gauge standards is most similar to ours but the details on it in the Irish Rail network statement are completely illegible!

tjhook

I'm not sure how we can force people out of cars and into public transport while this is going on...


Surely every driver is selflessly freeing up valuable space on congested trains

One of my parents had a hospital appointment yesterday at 9am, used their free travel pas to get in, but meant they were on a crowded, even jam packed dart. For this peak time thing to properly work would need joined up thinking across multiple departments.

end of the road

tjhook wrote: »

I'm not sure how we can force people out of cars and into public transport while this is going on...

quite easily tbh. a large congestion charge and higher taxes on motoring to discourage it where there is public transport available. the funding brought in by those who refuse to move to pt can then go to pt.

tjhook wrote: »

Surely every driver is selflessly freeing up valuable space on congested trains

they are freeing up space on the trains yes, but are taking up and wasting multiples of that via driving so are effectively undoing things and shifting a problem elsewhere but on multiples of the scale and at multiples of the cost.
the car is the biggest user of space and at a huge over all cost compared to pt. we will be unable to sustain that going forward, in fact we already can't sustain it.

L1011

People will just pay the congestion charge if the alternative is the current train service

An extremely limited amount of units could be recovered by bus substitution of some lower demand services but it would cause war and deliver very little - so it won't happen. There will be no extra capacity til 2022 at the earliest

tjhook

end of the road wrote: »

quite easily tbh. a large congestion charge and higher taxes on motoring to discourage it where there is public transport available. the funding brought in by those who refuse to move to pt can then go to pt.

My comment was mostly in jest. I'm all for public transport, I use it every day. But I do think that if something like congestion charging was to be introduced, it would have to be done with the aim of moving X thousand people to public transport. If that's not possible due to lack of capacity on public transport, then it can't meet that aim. And then there's not much point penalising people.

Only thinking of my own routes here, but Dublin has bad congestion for both road users and public transport. Maybe there's more scope elsewhere?

Edit... Given that it will be years before more train capacity is available, additional funds wont fix that problem for the time being.

tom1ie

end of the road wrote: »

quite easily tbh. a large congestion charge and higher taxes on motoring to discourage it where there is public transport available. the funding brought in by those who refuse to move to pt can then go to pt.



they are freeing up space on the trains yes, but are taking up and wasting multiples of that via driving so are effectively undoing things and shifting a problem elsewhere but on multiples of the scale and at multiples of the cost.
the car is the biggest user of space and at a huge over all cost compared to pt. we will be unable to sustain that going forward, in fact we already can't sustain it.

This would work if we had both capacity on pt and an interconnected pt service that allowed for orbital routes around Dublin, eg if I lived in Naas and worked in sandyford I could use pt to get there, but these two necessary things aren’t in place, so your idea of congestion charges wont work until the above two are in place.
Bring in a congestion charge once we’ve a proper pt system in place.

H3llR4iser

banie01 wrote: »

There are quite a few places in my locale (Not Dublin) that offer their employees flexi-time start and end times but where the vast majority of people stick to a working range of 8-6 with the main cohort being 9.30 to 5.

Standing that the DART could use with a capacity increase - which is in turn quite difficult to achieve, the quite frankly puzzling behaviour outlined above shouldn't be dismissed outright as a contributing factor.

Working in IT, every single company I ever worked here in Ireland had either "flexitime" or no specific working hours at all. What I've noticed in all of these companies is that the vast majority of the workforce still observe the 9-to-5 schedule; In some case you have a-hole managers who decide to ignore company policies on worktime and demand their team to be in by 8.30 or 9, but most of the times it's a self-imposed penance. The usual "reasoning" behind this is "so I can get out when it's still daylight" or "I can go shopping after work"; The "school run" is a factor only for a small subset of people.

Funnily enough, most of them also complained about traffic and crowding on buses and trains...when I tell them that by coming in at 10 and leaving at 6-6.30, as perfectly allowed by company policies I avoid essentially all of that, they look at me like I had two heads - some even going "oh that's sooooooo late!".

tom1ie wrote: »

This would work if we had both capacity on pt and an interconnected pt service that allowed for orbital routes around Dublin, eg if I lived in Naas and worked in sandyford I could use pt to get there, but these two necessary things aren’t in place, so your idea of congestion charges wont work until the above two are in place.
Bring in a congestion charge once we’ve a proper pt system in place.

Especially true considering Dublin pretty much already has a de-facto congestion charge, which is the lack of parking and subsequently the cost of the available spots. My office has no car park whatsoever, so the odd time I have to bring the car for one reason or the other, it's essentially 20-30 Euro to pay for parking...

Idbatterim

there is a total lack of visions, spend and action on transport here. I think car parking in town, that is free to employees should be taxed. possibly congestion charge for entering the canals, even a euro.

nothing dramatic, because its not the peoples fault for the appalling transport system here. (well you could argue they should be raising it as an election issue with politicians for years, but thats another story).

my point with the parking and congestion charge, is to get people who are just being lazy (understandably as its human nature) to walk or cycle, take public transport. But if it isnt, you arent financially hammering them...

Because its going to take time to sort out the appalling transport system here, a decade best case scenario, its been absolutely starved of funding since the foundation of the state...

even the metro link is now a total botch job, if we even get it! its needs to be metro all the way connecting to the northern line and down south as far as reasonably possible, to hoover traffic up as early as possible, relieve pressure on the dart etc and open up land for high density housing along the route...

Muahahaha

They could do the congestion charge piece meal, like take the N7 which has a train line running paralell to it. Build a large park and ride a few miles outside the m50 with a dedicated train service to the city centre. Then put a congestion charge on anyone who uses the N7 to cross over the m50 going into the city who opted not to use the park and ride.

Idbatterim

Muahahaha wrote: »

They could do the congestion charge piece meal, like take the N7 which has a train line running paralell to it. Build a large park and ride a few miles outside the m50 with a dedicated train service to the city centre. Then put a congestion charge on anyone who uses the N7 to cross over the m50 going into the city who opted not to use the park and ride.

YES! often I would like to take a train or bus down the country. I am not going into the city centre to do that, when I live beside the N7 near citywest. I drive, so I am not bothered with the circus. But on the N4 and N7 it would certainly make sense, if possible, to build a transport hub outside the on both of these routes... that was served by trains and buses...

CatInABox

Free employer provided parking in any city is a Benefit in Kind, and should be treated as such.

loyatemu

CatInABox wrote: »

Free employer provided parking in any city is a Benefit in Kind, and should be treated as such.

they tried to bring in a charge on free company parking a few years back, it was abandoned due to legal difficulties (and I suspect Civil Service resistance).

Tomrota

Muahahaha wrote: »

They could do the congestion charge piece meal, like take the N7 which has a train line running paralell to it. Build a large park and ride a few miles outside the m50 with a dedicated train service to the city centre. Then put a congestion charge on anyone who uses the N7 to cross over the m50 going into the city who opted not to use the park and ride.

That’s not gonna do much to help the N7. Thousands of commuters are coming up from as far as Kildare town, and maybe even further, on the N7. Dublin’s congestión problem isn’t just about transport for people within the metropolitan area. For example, I travel from Naas to Belfield every morning. 30€ petrol per week and 30 minute drive vs on PT 70€ per week and 1.5-2 hour journey. Even if the financial cost was lower, the time costs are huge. Again, this is why we need the DART expansion, DART underground, metro link, metro west, and even more before we even consider congestion charges. And I would hope that congestion charges would only apply during rush hour times.

expectationlost

the actually ads on the train for this

"don't follow the crowd" I don't have a choice

road_high

LazerShark wrote: »

See also takethebusinstead.ie or carzone.ie, from your friends in Irish Rail.

When had it been any different? Any excuse to not expand services. They’re not run for the benefit of the traveling joe public

road_high

Tomrota wrote: »

That’s not gonna do much to help the N7. Thousands of commuters are coming up from as far as Kildare town, and maybe even further, on the N7. Dublin’s congestiroblem isn’t just about transport for people within the metropolitan area. For example, I travel from Naas to Belfield every morning. 30€ petrol per week and 30 minute drive vs on PT 70€ per week and 1.5-2 hour journey. Even if the financial cost was lower, the time costs are huge. Again, this is why we need the DART expansion, DART underground, metro link, metro west, and even more before we even consider congestion charges. And I would hope that congestion charges would only apply during rush hour times.

A major solution to the M7 chaos is expansion of rail and building of a massive rail hub along the M7- people are driving from as far as Kilkenny and Carlow as the train Times are so crap and limiting. But no
Let’s continue as we are ala Irish rail

Tomrota

road_high wrote: »

A major solution to the M7 chaos is expansion of rail and building of a massive rail hub along the M7- people are driving from as far as Kilkenny and Carlow as the train Times are so crap and limiting. But no
Let’s continue as we are ala Irish rail

They could build a giant park and ride facility in Naas on the ring road and build another station there. Market it well. But this would only work in a scenario where there is DART, Metrolink, metro west and more. Half, maybe most, of the people on the N7 in the morning aren’t going to town and don’t want to go anywhere near it. The idea of transfers and lines meeting other lines seems to be a foreign concept to Ireland.

AlphabetCards

What company made the website? Its awful.

Last Stop

Is the height of the bars meant to reflect the train loading? If so then this could spread the demand even over the peak time and maximise capacity. If it’s just a graphic design then it’s the most stupid thing I’ve ever seen.
Needless to say, I suspect the later.

Another option worth considering would be removing seats from carriages or at least having them along the side rather than across. Surely not that difficult a job although I appreciate it would take time.

devnull

Last Stop wrote: »

Another option worth considering would be removing seats from carriages or at least having them along the side rather than across. Surely not that difficult a job although I appreciate it would take time.

There's a lot of problems with that and not just the large cost of what would be a fairly big refurbishment required to deliver it properly. It's simply not feasible to do this on the stock we have right now.

You'd have to relocate panels which include electrical and electronic equipment, you'd need to move heaters from under the seats, you'd also need to move all of the grab rails and bars which itself isn't cheap.

Then you'd have the problem that you can't put the seats along the sides because you have windows ther and the back of the seats would be half way up the windows, it's not like the Tube where windows are fairly high and seats low. Then there's the risk of seats blocking access to windows which is a no no for emergency exit reasons, so you're going to have to replace the windows too and rebuild the body sides.

Simply would be a tremendous waste of money for units which are hardly going to be around for a long time to come and that's before you consider how long it would take to convert the units to such a set-up and the resulting short forms there would have to be for a long long time. You can't afford to start taking a few trains out of service at a time for upgrade when they're so overcrowded already.

What you ask for in theory sounds good, but in practice it's flawed in my opinion.