Irish rail prices compared to Europe

[James Shields]

http://www.thejournal.ie/irish-rail-...omment-4653819

Not sure the single route they picked is representative, but interesting anyway.

James

[Dublin13]

As my old lecturer used to say, they are lies, damned lies and statistic.

I tend not to take any notice of such surveys, because if you look hard enough for any country you can find a pair of stations that would back up your viewpoint either way.

[James Howard]

As far as I know in Ireland, season tickets are directly proportional to distance and don't make the allowances to quality of service that are included in ticket office fares.

The real elephant in the room in Ireland is the massive implicit discount handed to top-rate tax payers which is very regressive. While I am personally a huge beneficiary of this it is fundamentally unfair that somebody on the top-rate tax pays less for their train pass that somebody on the minimum wage or even a student.

It would be far better for the government to just increase the subvention to support heavier monthly pass discounting and kill Taxsaver or else convert it into a Tax Credit.

Without tax-saver the discount for a monthly pass (over return tickets for each working day) on the Sligo line past Maynooth is only around 25% which is very low. I got a 60% discount in Germany for a weekly ticket between two cities about 40km apart and the weekly also included all local public transport in both cities. No faffing about with point-to-point, bus, bus+rail, bus+rail+Luas, etc - it included everything.

[vegas82]

I agree...pricing structures need to be fairer to all...and I hadnt even considered that as a higher rate tax payer i'm getting a cheaper train ticket.

It also BAFFLES me that the annual tax saver dart ticket is cheaper than a leap card for my journey. I travel from Clontarf Road to Lansdowne and return every day which is a short journey yet the annual unlimited travel train ticket is cheaper...ridiculous...

[berneyarms]

To be fair the people paying the higher rate of tax are more likely to be driving in the first place rather than taking public transport than those on the lower rate.

You need to provide a decent carrot to make them switch - that's what the taxsaver scheme does through the reduction in gross pay.

[James Howard]

Correspondingly though, the high cost of a travel pass for the lower-paid is a significant barrier to them taking up employment. At the very most, the standard rate (or lower) tax-payer should be paying the same for their transport as somebody making 100 grand a year.

Changing the system over to a tax-credit would allow all workers to access public transport at the same cost. The present system is a strongly regressive tax measure.

In the overall scheme of things, it probably wouldn't cost very much as it would allow people from areas with poor employment prospects take up employment in areas where there is a shortage of workers.

[Mark Gleeson]

The problem is taxsaver is effectively a subsidy without falling foul of EU rules

So in Dublin a Bus/Rail/Luas annual is 2140 euro, same in Berlin is 970 euro

Even if you get 52% back you are still paying more

[vegas82]

thats ridiculous the variance in prices...i wonder what are the reasons that our service is so much less competitive...while also probably providing only a 10th of the service that you get in Berlin.

I know because i only travel a short distance my fare costs more in value terms but is there any plans to introduce proper integrated fares.

It makes no sense to me that for my 5 stop journey (and likely the shortest 5 stops in terms of distance on the dart line) that if i used leap it would cost me €900 for the year, but yet the taxsaver (after tax benefit) costs €700 for unlimited use for the entire year....ridiculous

I have also noticed standards are getting worse. While its true there are less signal failures trains are ALWAYS late...i dont think i have ever gotten on a train in lansdowne road in the last 12 months that is on time...i look at the board when i arrive and even if it says 2 minutes i know its more like 6/7 because for some reason the trains crawl into the station at snails pace. Sure they may make up the time elsewhere but that doesnt mean that I am'nt inconvenienced for my short journey.

[Dublin13]

I was at Clontarf and I heard an announcement that my train was delayed by 6 minutes due to Operational reasons.

I was delighted when I heard that, because that is the most on time it's been since the middle of December!

[Kilocharlie]

Originally Posted by vegas82

thats ridiculous the variance in prices...i wonder what are the reasons that our service is so much less competitive...while also probably providing only a 10th of the service that you get in Berlin.

Probably because they get decent subsidies in Berlin. We have one of the lowest levels of subsidy in Europe and this is reflected in the higher fares.

[James Howard]

Originally Posted by vegas82

I have also noticed standards are getting worse. While its true there are less signal failures trains are ALWAYS late...i dont think i have ever gotten on a train in lansdowne road in the last 12 months that is on time...i look at the board when i arrive and even if it says 2 minutes i know its more like 6/7 because for some reason the trains crawl into the station at snails pace. Sure they may make up the time elsewhere but that doesnt mean that I am'nt inconvenienced for my short journey.

You want to try the 1905 to Sligo - 90% of whose passengers get off at or before Longford. Every single time (except for last week during the flooding) I've taken this train (over about 7 years I think), it has waited at Killucan to cross for 15 minutes and then arrived into Mullingar 9 or 10 minutes late. A few years back, the drivers used to be able to make a few minutes back by Longford but I presume the line has deteriorated to the point where this is no longer possible.

Yes, one train has to wait a few minutes to cross and than needs to be built into the timetable but there is no excuse for the service being 10 minutes late literally every time it runs.

Probably because they get decent subsidies in Berlin. We have one of the lowest levels of subsidy in Europe and this is reflected in the higher fares.

While direct subsidies are relatively low, Taxsaver is a massive indirect subsidy. Nobody on the long-distance commuter routes could afford the face value of season tickets.

[James Shields]

Originally Posted by Mark Gleeson

The problem is taxsaver is effectively a subsidy without falling foul of EU rules

If I'm not mistaken, the current government has cut subsidies to the railways by 40%, so presumably the axed subsidies didn't break the rules.

Other EU countries clearly offer more subsidies than we do.

Totally agree Taxsaver is a regressive tax (or untax), but I think there's a lot of people on the higher rate who couldn't afford the fares without it. They need to find a way to give people on lower tax rates the same level of savings.

James

[Jamie2k9]

Other places may offer more but I expect the demand for rail and the service in return by far outweigh's the cost which would not happen here.

Look over here the 40% cut's have been hard but there isn't a major loss in service and while fare's have increased the cost of travel is not significant with Leap/Online sales etc.

The level of funding given to IE should be limited for services and sensible and not the black hole funding which DART services will see this year. I expect that at some point when the NTA withdraw or reduce and IE refuse to cut services it will be commuter and intercity who suffer which have done for many years before somebody used their brain and realized DART had way to much over capacity.

What IE need is infrastructure funding and somebody to oversee that all money is spend on specific projects to improve the railways.

I am totally against this extra funding for DART when there is 101 other more critical projects it could be spent on and enhance existing services.

[Mark Gleeson]

DART runs at the lowest subsidy/passenger ratio on the network so little point making it out to be the bad guy. The DART could get to a surplus easy enough it ran as a surplus for many years in the early 1990's, it depends on a critical balance in demand vs capacity, capacity is expensive. While peak business has comes back to some degree off peak is still weak.

[Jamie2k9]

DART runs at the lowest subsidy/passenger ratio on the network so little point making it out to be the bad guy. The DART could get to a surplus easy enough it ran as a surplus for many years in the early 1990's, it depends on a critical balance in demand vs capacity, capacity is expensive. While peak business has comes back to some degree off peak is still weak.

Indeed it does however it spent many years wasting money before somebody decided to do something about it. I think after the major costs coming next month it will take significant changes to bring it into profit. It's been said here so much how crazy a 10 minute service it and I don't think it's appropriate for the NTA to be subsidizing ghost trains.

The NTA and IE should be answerable as to what sort of data backs up a 10 minute service all day on the DART and the NTA should be encouraging services to become self sufficient or as close as possible especially on a major commuter service where demand should deliver it. Instead they are throwing money at IE to waste on something which has no chance of been successful on what is proposed.

By all means increase frequency at peak times and at certain periods outside those however if you were to ask passengers what they want I think a service that runs to schedule (generally) and adequate capacity is provided when needed would be top of the list.

Is this the IE CEO goal like the 06.15 ex Cork which I have yet to be convinced has actually delivered anything removable profitable never mind an increase in actual passenger numbers or more a political stunt?

I just hope the NTA stop funding it if it doesn't deliver an acceptable increase in passengers/revenue by the end of this year. I'm all for increased service provided it is warranted and cost effective something which this DART change is not before 7am and after 9pm at least.

[James Howard]

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.

[Dublin13]

Originally Posted by James Howard

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 you're a passenger going to stations before the split, I grant you.

However if you are unfortunate enough to be on the Malahide branch, where four car trains are endemic in the second half of evening peak with 30-50 minute gaps between trains and some massive gaps at weekends (90 minutes in some cases), the 20 minute frequency is streets ahead of what is now, I think if you ask most people on the branch they'll bite your hand off if you offered them a regular clockface 20 minute timetable with slightly increased journey times rather than the shambolic two services between 5.30 and 7.10 there are now which are both 4 cars which leave people behind and always late because of dwell times at city centre stations. (the 17:54 was at Connolly for almost 4 minutes today as people attempted to squeeze on)

[James Howard]

The Malahide peak-time frequency and capacity is a separate issue and could be largely resolved by lengthening the peak-time trains. The current situation is certainly unacceptable and needs to be sorted out. The weekend and off-peak timetables probably need the Howth branch to become a shuttle service. This seems to work well elsewhere.

While not trying to diminish the pain that getting the 1754 seems to be, it doesn't appear to be strictly true that there are only two available services between 1730 and 1900. The journey planner lists services at 1735, 1754, 1802, 1823, and 1842 of which two are DARTS. Isn't the real problem the 20 minute gap before the 1754 which is obviously (to anybody except Irish Rail) going to be the evening's busiest train given the normal 1730 quitting time of the bulk of office workers? This train should be an 8-car set which would resolve the bulk of the issues on the Malahide service.

It doesn't look like this timetable is going to happen any time soon. I suspect the unions will give Irish Rail an excuse to kick it into the long grass and we'll see a more sensible proposal after the election that is missing the 10 minute frequency but will actually work better for everyone.

[Dublin13]

Originally Posted by James Howard

While not trying to diminish the pain that getting the 1754 seems to be, it doesn't appear to be strictly true that there are only two available services between 1730 and 1900. The journey planner lists services at 1735, 1754, 1802, 1823, and 1842 of which two are DARTS. Isn't the real problem the 20 minute gap before the 1754 which is obviously (to anybody except Irish Rail) going to be the evening's busiest train given the normal 1730 quitting time of the bulk of office workers? This train should be an 8-car set which wou

The 18:42 from Connolly also suffers from being a 4 car and being the first DART in almost 50 minutes to Malahide so that needs addressing too.

I commute to/from Clontarf normally. There are just two trains between 5.30 and 7.00pm to Malahide. Clontarf is home to a huge business park that is growing, only last week Oracle opened new offices for another few hundred staff and recently Google have opened another 5 storey building there and the numbers employed in the park are growing on a monthly basis.

What happens with the 17:58 from Clontarf (17:54 from Connolly) also repeats itself with the 18:46 from Clontarf (18;42 from Connolly), being the first Malahide train to service Clontarf for 48 minutes. Unlike the Howth Trains, who are carrying quite a large number of passengers for Kilester, Harmonstown, Raheny and Kilbarack very few on those Malahide services alight before the split and are still like sardines at Howth Junction whilst the Howth's are having banks of four seats free. .

For me there does not need to be a 10 minute frequency, but the following would really solve the issues

1) Lengthen the 17:54 from Connolly, 17:58 from Clontarf to eight cars
2) Fill in the big gap between 17:58 and 18:46 with something around 18:20 something, removing one of the Howths.

[James Howard]

One wonders how long the present technology employment boom in and around the city centre can continue without proper significant investment in railway infrastructure. By proper investment, I mean new track.

Given how much more passengers are contributing over the last few years, proper investment really should be on the agenda.