Dublin - Metrolink (Swords to Charlemont only)

And yet DB had just 500 incidents to last September.

What is the multiple of passengers?

Also I acknowledged Irish Rail does not properly use fare gates.

Denying that they impact on anti social behaviour is bizarro.

I can fully appreciate an argument that says the trade offs might not be worth it.

I’m not going to get into a slagging match over areas of Dublin. I would say on balance the LUAS is less “nice” but I would not discount some DART locations.

Again, explain Dublin Bus that goes all over and carries a multiple of passengers.

Pro rata for the year that is 652. Try 700 if you want to claim some kind of seasonality.

I’d fully agree that there are trade offs that might not make them worth it but what I am certain on is claiming having fare gates doesn’t discourage an element of anti social behaviour is not correct.

Dublin Bus data is not comparable because it isn’t convenient?

Why would you say that Dublin Bus manages to have a fraction of the incidents with multiples of the journeys?

Not in practice.

Most DB drivers do not intervene when there is ASB. They rightfully will not put themselves in harms way and will call the relevant authorities.

What it is though is a clear deterrent from casual users out to cause trouble or to behave in an undesirable manner.

I fully agree that the LUAS style tram is very convenient. I also think the RPO structure is very good for cutting down on fare evasion. In fact it is probably more effective that the DART is in suburban locations where the fare gates are left open and there is little fare enforcement.

It isn’t effective at stopping anti social behaviour though. RPOs regularly do not challenge anti social behaviour. It isn’t their job and good luck getting addresses from many people in Dublin. They are good for having eyes on the system but that’s why the heavies were brought in. But the heavies can only do so much when there is 60 odd stations on the system.

I’ve no doubt they did their studies and Copenhagen sounds lovely. But we aren’t Copenhagen. Nor are we Houston for that matter.

You have no data, and now you're resorting to woeful insults.

There is no data in Ireland that can suit you.

(and I know why, it isn’t convenient)

Mental that rather than discuss the issue substantively, we have people disputing the obvious.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10610-020-09472-1

The measure aims to limit access to train stations for people without a valid entry ticket. In 2015, the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management (as it is now called) encouraged municipalities to facilitate the implementation of this measure, originally in response to a violent incident directed at a train conductor at a Dutch station. The Ministry expected entry gates to lead to a decrease in fare evasion, and this in turn to reduce aggression against train personnel. The plan was to place entry gates at stations so that, each day, at least 90% of passengers would encounter such a gate. Hence, the first entry gates were placed at train stations in large cities or with high numbers of travelers (NS 2018; Parliamentary Papers II, 28642, No. 60 2015). Broekhuizen et al. (2017) concluded that the majority of train passengers expected the use of entry gates to reduce crime.

After these measures were implemented, studies by the NS found the number of fines for fare evasion to have dropped by 34% in 2018, compared to 2015, and the number of incidents involving aggression in trains also to have decreased (Middelkoop 2018)

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-08/have-the-dutch-figured-out-how-to-fight-fare-evasion

Dutch Railways has been attempting to do this by more rigidly controlling access to its stations. Pay a visit to Amsterdam’s Central Station, one of the 76 major stations (through which 90 percent of the country’s rail passengers pass through annually) that were overhauled at the end of 2017, and you will find yourself confronted with electronic ticket gates. These are far enough inside the building to allow access to ticket booths and machines, but they prevent ticket-free access to most of the concourse. There is, however, a way to enter without paying. If you touch in with a local transit card, then touch out at the same station within the hour, your transit card is not charged, making it possible to visit a store or see someone off on a train cost-free.

The ploy is simple enough, but the effects have been dramatic. In the past year, the number of violent incidents on the Dutch rail network has fallen by 27 percent

Fin

The issue here is that it isn't "the obvious". Its your opinion and opinions can be, and often are, wrong. You need data to back it up.

Have you read those articles beyond the abstracts? Do they show that the reduction is statistically significant when compared to overall Dutch crime figures, which fell significantly anyway in 2015 and 2016?

Do they have any figures for 2018, which would cover the significant national increase in 2017, that these reports would not cover? Because the reality is that the figures in these reports are just the national drop, nothing else. You'll find the NYC figures that someone else is referencing are pretty similar to the reduction in ASB/violence across NYC as a whole at the time, too.

You think its obvious, but not everyone else does. You are scrabbling for data, and not getting anything much of use.

And yes, as pointed out, the RO isn't going to be changed. That's the only thing that deserves a "fin" here.

I can give you a whole host of articles and studies on it.

Your summary point is the same as the other fellas “doesn’t matter anyway, it’s going ahead with none!”. Doesn’t mean it isn’t a relevant topic. And it doesn’t mean it’s an element of the project that can’t be discussed.

Same way the built environment of automated metros is great for cutting down on costs….

But will you have read any of them beyond the abstract, and will any of them stand up to scrutiny?

Based on your bad science and articles that show at best an equivalent reduction in violence to the rest of the country; I hold out very little hope.

This does not give a solid basis for a discussion; when one side has an entrenched viewpoint and is frantically googling for something, anything to back it up after their initial attempts at providing data were shown to be invalid.

Based on you linking to abstracts that showed that the results were basically comparable to what happened everywhere else in the entire country at the same time; I don't put any trust in you identifying useful data even if you did read beyond the abstracts.

Your attempts to get away from your data being useless with glib insults isn't working.

It is completely pointless trying to have a discussion with someone who will throw any old junk at you to justify their baseless opinion; and its very clear this is what I'm dealing with here.

Again- did you not read the studies references? Like how they compared NY Subway stops at the same time. Or the two way fixed effects panel model used in the Dutch study because of this very variable.

I would have thought this was obvious, I’m sorry I overestimated you so much.

I came here and was having a perfectly normal discussion and you just kept saying the data was irrelevant.

In the Irish context we can only by the modes we have. One in Dublin Bus has strong environmental infrastructure that limits access to it and the other (the LUAS) has minimal amounts. If you pro rata’d LUAS level of anti social behaviour to DB you’d have 4-5k incidents per year. Of course that’s not the right way to do it- the LUAS goes through specific areas that may or may not have crime rates exceeding the Dublin average. There is also a limit to what ASB is possible. There’s others differences too- but it is pretty undeniable that the physical infrastructure plays a role.

My sense here is that fare gates throughout the system through all operating hours is not possible and probably not operationally desirable. But I do think ones in the core Charlemount-SSG-OCS-Mater section would have value. I think we will end up with expensive security there at the outset (and along the rest of the line) and in time we will see a push for fare gates like we see over and over in Anglospheric countries.

We have two modes, one with strong fare gates and another without them.

The best way to stop low lying anti social behaviour is to preclude access in the first instance.

That happens more often than not on the bus and it is key.

I am not saying it is the only variable, but it is clear that it is one.

We also have international evidence on their use. This “trend” is in a couple of Nordic countries, although notably the Netherlands retreated from it. In Anglospheric countries it is the opposite. City by city we see fare gates being put up.

The question here is on trade offs.

I already said even if the policing costs are 1/4 of LA then the claims on value for money here are dubious.

I think in outer lying stations it makes sense for none (basically the DART model). The ability to reduce staff at stations saves costs and rapid moving security and CCTV can help. In the city centre though I completely disagree.