Luas Red Line Frequency

MaceFace

Does anyone have any idea of when the Red Line will go to a frequency of 5 mins during peak time?
It was supposed to happen by now, but with the accidents that have happened, I just hope they didn't decide to change their minds.

Also, I am getting really sick of using the Luas between Heuston and the City Center. Most Monday mornings, the Luas slows to 10-15km/h at intersections (and as these are enterances to car parks etc), that means the average speed is about 20km/h on this section.
For the last week, the bus has been quicker than the Luas.

Getting really sick of it now!

antoinolachtnai

I used the Red line all this week (between Busaras and Four Courts - I had Jury Service and it was raining) and it gave me some idea of the problems that there are.

Funnily enough, the two problems you describe are directly connected.

Think about the determinants of train frequency.

Frequency depends on how long the line is (in minutes) and how many trains there are.

If you increase the journey time, the gap between services inevitably gets longer.

So, let's take an example. Say the round-trip is 90 minutes (including turnaround time at the end of the line), and there are 17 trains. Then the best frequency you can hope for is a train every 5 minutes or so (90/17).

Now, imagine you increase the journey time, by 5 minutes in each direction, that's 10 minutes in total. That means that there will be a train every 6 minutes or so(100/17).

(in practice, the frequency will be longer, because on a route with level crossings, it's difficult to keep an even gap between trains.)

Also, I understand that one of the trams has been 'stolen' from the red line for use on the green line.

Of course, it is possible to increase the peak capacity in one direction for 30 or 40 minutes by tinkering with the off-peak direction schedule. I don't know if they actually do this on Luas.

The other thing that would seem to help for Luas would be to synchronize its movements better with the quays traffic. The traffic light delays are caused by the Luas failing to 'fit in' with the other traffic flow. There are also some stupid traffic light setups (for example, at the pedestrian crossing at the bottom of Gardiner St. which screw things up too.

To work well, an on-street tram system has to be very well tuned. Every tiny delay makes quite a difference to speed, frequency and capacity. I think there is still a bit to go to get the best out of the Red Line service.

Antoin.