In the event of a Bus Eireann strike, how much ability is there to increase capacity?
 

For the sake of discussion, let's assume
- A Bus Eireann strike doesn't spread to Irish Rail
- Unions in Irish Rail don't object to capacity being added.

A strike at Bus Eireann is looking more likely as every day goes on.

It occurs to me that there are some routes where Irish Rail provides the only competition to Bus Eireann. e.g.
- Cork-Tralee
- Limerick-Waterford
- Athlone-Westport (which might be for the permanent chop)

What's more, you have other locations where another competitor doesn't serve an intermediate town that is served by Irish Rail and Bus Eireann (e.g. Citylink doesn't serve Ennis, Charleville or Mallow)

Should that happen, there could be a considerable spike in demand for Irish Rail services along these corridors.

Cork-Tralee probably has enough capacity to cope (although maybe not on all services).

What would be Irish Rail's ability to react to this, by either increasing the length of trains on the services or even adding extra services?

Whatever about the first of your assumptions, the second is definitely not valid.

My understanding is that Irish Rail unions will not allow any extra capacity to be provided. Nor will they allow for Bus Eireann tickets to be redeemed on rail services. This has been the case for any recent strikes. Union members would regard any provision of extra services to help out the public as scabbing.

In any case, there isn't a huge amount of rolling stock lying in reserve in an operational condition that could be used to provide such services.

So let's say they won't allow extra services to be run.

Could they object to existing trains being made longer?

In a word, Yes. They could object. Nobody is going to want to risk contagion.

Quite frankly there isn't the rolling stock or drivers available to provide extra trains. Lengthening trains isn't really possible anymore given the fixed set formations.

Re ticketing - there is no agreement in place between the companies to accept one another's tickets, so that can't happen either.

I can imagine there would be regulatory issues for IE accepting commercially issued Expressway tickets on subsidised rail services in any case.

The unions are just scaremongering employing that some IE depot staff won't turn up for work. As for capacity, by the time IE could (if they had capacity) organise it the BE strike would be over.

Waterford/Limerick is closed until 7 March (new bridge fitted yesterday evening) and Athlone-Westport could easily cope with demand in event of a strike and if the bus route is for the chop clearly little usage. Most routes particularly Cork off peak could cope with additional demand and even at peak hours for most part. Friday/Sundays been the exceptions.

For short strikes, people tend to manage around them, e.g. by working from home, shopping on a different day, travelling the day before, etc. On such days, overall travel demand is usually down quite a bit.

It is longer strikes that become problematic on a grander scale.

The NTA journey planner will usually adjust schedules to account for days where operations are abnormal.

There is a map here of operators that serve Dublin Airport from around the country. Most of these will also serve Dublin City: http://www.transportforireland.ie/wp...al-Routes1.pdf

Looking at it, it looks like the worst affected people will be those using city / town and commuter services or using cross-radial Expressway services.

http://www.railusers.ie/forum/attach...d=148799688 5

Generally higher levels of sickness can often happen during strikes of sister companies, I'm not saying it happens all of the time, but there is certainly a trend and not just in Ireland either.

from RTE
http://www.rte.ie/news/2017/0227/855768-bus-eireann/

Although there really isnt any space capacity (if there was I would assume M3 and the Newbridge-GCD service would be getting it today) for such an urgent need, if there was one I would imagine it would be the Commuter Trains in the GDA/Cork area which will get them as the BE services there are very heavy.

However, the nightmare scenario is that of IE workers not passing a BE picket in places where there are co-location.

If those workers are suspended then we will be heading to an all out CIE strike.

At that point (indeed right now) the minister has to get off his hands and get involved.