24 hour Luas

Even the London Underground doesn’t operate 24 hours, it only operates from 5am to midnight. Overnight is used for maintenance. At night the service is largely replaced by night buses.

A similar night bus replacement or 24/7 bus route following similar area would be a fine alternative (same for DART).

"They do operate a night time service on some Tube lines and have done for 8 years."

Yes, but different from a 24/7 bus service.

It might make sense to operate DART and Luas all night on Friday and Saturday night * However the other 5 days would likely be needed for routine maintenance and as a result you would still need a 24/5 bus service shadowing the route for the other 5 days.

"*" You are likely to get lots of objections from residents along the DART and Luas lines due to noise at night time.

Of course I'd hope that Metrolink once opened would also operate all weekend at least, specially if fully automated.

Yep, I was thinking of exactly that when I mentioned Metrolink. Copenhagen operates 24/7 (though with periods of slower journey times and delays at night for maintenance) and I'm hoping Metrolink will be designed with the same operating pattern in mind.

Keep in mind that there is a world of difference in maintenance required for a new Metro system that is only a few years old and was designed from the outset for 24/7 operation, versus say a Victorian heavy rail line.

There is a very interesting video below on how Copenhagen does maintenance while maintaining 24/7 operation:

• There are crossovers between every other station
• During maintenance, one of the two tracks is closed between the crossovers
• A shuttle operates on the remaining open track between the two crossovers
• Passengers have to change from their train to the shuttle and back to another train at the other side of the maintenance zone.
• The Shuttle that operates in the maintenance zone, does so at a slow speed.

So you can see a lot of maintnenance is still done, they just have thought it out well and have designed the system (frequent crossovers) to be able to handle this type of operation. Hopefully Metrolink will be the same.

From the above video, it is very cool that you can sit at the front of the train and watch the view like you were a driver. The video also sort of shows the untrack maintenance vehicle.

Not to the same extent. For instance there are crossovers on the Red Line at Heuston and Connolly Stations. And south of Heuston it is a very long distance to the next one.

There is also the issue that Luas uses a shared overhead catenary along most of the line, while Copenhagen Metro uses a third rail. As a result, any work on the power lines or catenary would likely need to shut both tracks down.

I could be wrong, but unfortunately I don't think the Luas was designed with 24/7 type operations in mind.

I suspect 24 hour operation Friday and Saturday night, plus a shadowing bus service the other 5 days is probably the best we can hope for now.