As was noted on another thread, there is little point in reducing the average wait time for a DART by 2.5 minutes if you increase the journey time by more. I think the key to improving DART services is improving speed and reliability - not frequency. This primarily means winter reliability - particularly in November and December.
If DART journey times could be improved to bring them back to what they were in the 80's, this would do far more to improve the attractiveness of the service than a slower more frequent timetable. This would also improve the network for everyone as the intercity and longer-distance commuter services waiting behind the DARTs could also have their journey times improved.
One of the features of this new timetable is a Sligo intercity service that takes a whopping 3 hours 40 minutes to cover the 218km between Connolly and Sligo. 12 years ago when I started commuting the evening Intercity left Connolly at 1810 and made it to Edgeworthstown within a couple of minutes of 1930. The nearest equivalent nowadays leaves at 1805 and gets in at 1939 and the old-time comfort of the old Mk2 intercity coaches is replaced with the noisy, draughty (with a whiff of toilet tank) 29K. While we now have much better frequency, the journey is far less attractive than it used to be due to increased journey time and vastly worse comfort.
It's almost as if they are trying deliberately to kill off the Sligo, Belfast and Rosslare lines by ratcheting down the quality of the service (and increasing the price) to the point where everybody just takes the car or bus instead. As I sit here watching the tumbleweeds on a 22K coach with about 8 passengers arriving into Enfield on the 0545 from Sligo, it certainly seems to be working.
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