Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark Gleeson
You miss the slot, you get fitted in in line with the published priority order. EU regulations set down rules about this and it has to be followed.
DART is assigned priority as its close to 40% of Irish Rail's business and there is little scope to recover if a delay occurs, so holding a train in Howth Junction will mean late arrival Bray which in turn ripples back
There was further DART cancellation of Malahide Dun Laoghaire service so that Howth DART had to run as planned or else cause serious build of commuters
|
There was already a massive build up of commuters from points north of Howth Junction, numerically way in excess of the numbers at the intermeduiate DART stations between Howth Junction and Connolly.
DART may represent 40% of Irish Rail business (by volume), it certainly doesn't represent the same proportion either by revenue or length of journey.
In any event basic maths and common sense says put the Dundalk service first - 900 passengers gratuitously delayed by at least 13 minutes versus a potential 3 minute delay to perhaps 700 passengers on the DART. The 0802 is normally one of the heavier loading DARTs as it picks up passengers at Connolly off the 0700 from Dundalk and (frequently) the 0745 from Maynooth.
Because of yesterday's nonsense passengers who turned up at Drogheda for the 0712 didn't reach Tara Street until 0844. Incidentally the 0712 from Drogheda had about 1600 passengers on board arrivin Connolly.
This DART first policy is taken to ludicrous extremes with northbound Belfast and commuter trains often severely delayed for a DART with a fraction of the numbers.
Irish Rail need to come up with an operating model far more sophisticated than the currently pathetically inadequate approach which they cuirrently employ. Otherwise see even more higher revenue traffic seep away to alternate modes.