Irish Rail approaches the last stop?

[Mark Gleeson]

The elimination of ticket checkers and their replacement, where possible, by train hostesses.

Train host has been a very successful initiative on the Cork service, has delivered a significant improvement in passenger experience, it needs a bit more work but it is drastically better than the old guard and checker routine. The train host/manager idea is used Europe wide, and they manage to handle the customer service and ticket checking without trouble, better service for lower cost.

The total discontinuation of Fastrack from 31/3/09.

If there is any aspect of the business beyond those for which a statutory obligation exists (passenger services) making a loss its got to be restructured or closed down it is totally unacceptable that part of the business is propped up by passengers fares. Loss of fastrack will have zero impact on passenger experience and will reduce presure to increase fares. Every 2.5 million loss means 1% more on the fares

Speeding up the closure of remaining signal cabins and manned level crossings.

You have totally lost any credibilty by trying to make this out to be a bad thing, not doing this is putting passengers and staff lives at risk

The automation aspect has saved millions per annum while improving the passenger service and I know for a fact accidents have been prevented thanks to it. At least 6 signal cabins are going by years end. It means we can have a 24 hour railway and the end to the delays when the crossing keeper decides to sleep it in, Kerry line and Waterford passengers are well familar with this problem.

The possible replacement of bookings offices at stations with 'alternative arrangements'

Online ticket sales for all routes is coming, Sligo and Rosslare are coming. A massive expansion in the number of locations where internet tickets can be collected is coming soon as well. There will be a Social Welfare smartcard in place of the current pass, smartcards in Dublin and possibly elsewhere. The need for a traditional booking office is reducing fast. The word possible of course doesn't mean its happening

I've seen elsewhere very effective staffing approaches where its only when a passenger seeks a complicated ticket that they enter the booking office, other times they are about the station in a customer service role which also doubles up as a security and revenue protection role. Passenger reaction in UK positive in both surveys and increased travel to this setup.

How a station such as Thurles justifies 4 staff on duty (and still closes for lunch) is seriously questionable, two is more than enough. For regional routes the onboard conductor approach is perfectly acceptable, it works fine elsewhere, Northern Ireland Railways has few staffed stations yet its passengers are signifcantly happier with the customer service.

How exactly it is going to be implemented is a concern which we are already watching, but massive savings can be made and an improved customer service can be provided as well as part of the exercise, plus it give Irish Rail the power sack those lazy and unless ticket clerks, this forum is far too familiar with the Maynooth situation.


I really don't see a problem, the vast majority of this is very much in favour of the passenger, not doing this would actually make things worse. Its following well established practices used successfully elsewhere, much of this should have been done 5 if not 10 years ago.

In fact the recession could be a blessing in disguse to finally force Irish Rail into a cost effective passenger focused operator, if they don't it will be curtains. There are massive savings to be made within Irish Rail, through a combination of better staffing, better timetabling, sweating the assets and other small steps many tens of millions can be knocked off the losses.

Those who attended the AGM in December already know the package of measures we will be proposing to improve the service while implementing a combination of savings and also measures to increase revenue. A formal publication of this is coming soon

Despite all the doom and gloom, the 6 months of random cancellations and 5 days or so no trains in Cork/Kerry intercity passenger numbers are actually up 2008 vs 2007 and there are some timetabling improvements coming this Summer where fuel prices will be half what CIE is currently paying combined with a fleet of trains using significantly less than locomotive hauled services. The real problem is the pension fund has gone south, not the passenger side of the business