“Reports have shown Dublin is one of the most congested cities in the world, and we need to examine if the lack of a dedicated school transport system is seriously contributing to this."
€22 million total - small change in the grand scheme of things. But of course they are using this unsourced, unverified €18 billion figure again.
>Irish Rail has opened Ireland's first purpose-built modular simulator training centre for Dart drivers at its historic Inchicore Railway Works. > >The 1,100 sq m facility, delivered by Cpac Modular, the Co Meath modern methods of construction specialist contractor, forms part of Irish Rail's wider Dart expansion programme. > £The facility is designed to train drivers using advanced simulation technology as the national rail operator prepares for a significant expansion of its electrified network.
>This is not an argument for privatisation. Nor is it a criticism of the thousands of Irish Rail staff who keep trains running every day. The question is whether the company itself would benefit from bringing in an experienced international operating or delivery partner to help manage one of the largest rail investment programmes in the country’s history. Ireland’s railway has never had greater political support or more money behind it. The question now is whether it also has the capability to deliver on that promise for passengers.
BANG***
I got hit by a medium sized green water balloon at 60mph, after leaving my 15 year old daughter back to her mums.
A white seat altea i think- (going by the shape of the grill) such a noise hitting my windscreen, it does not look like much but i was lower down than my crappy dashcam, and the water obscured the wind screen for several seconds. (i used the VLC program on a pc, to slow the video down, enhance it etc. but no joy at a number plate).
I had to slam on the brakes, to get pulled over. I'm just glad no one was behind me....
They were driving up and down doing this to other drivers as I saw several water marks on the road on both sides.
what do you think?
a) just good fun and high jinks
b) or as it was thrown from a moving car, by the driver, (with i think, 3 passengers), the police said it could be classed as criminal damage, dangerous driving, or even assault, resulting in fines, penalty points, or imprisonment.
I'm also wondering what's the best dashcam to have got the plate, that's not stupid money and maybe under £100 or less
“Politicians also attacked the NTA for stating it would not be able to add any new bus services this year due to funding constraints at the same time as Irish Rail faced costs of €50m over its failed traffic management system.”
Positive sign from the Government.
Took the 7:36am from Balbriggan to Connolly this morning and it was already overcrowded by the time it pulled in — people standing in the corridors between carriages, no seats left at all.
How is a 3-car train acceptable on a weekday morning when half the line is commuters trying to get to work? This is one of the busiest times of the day. Surely the demand on this route is well known by now.
Genuinely starting to wonder how public transport in this country is this consistently bad. Anyone else on the Northern Commuter line dealing with the same thing?
Fingers crossed this goes ahead on time - if I recall correctly, the Leap card rollout also started with a pilot on bus and Luas services too.
Hi folks,
I take the bus often to get to hospital appointments. Google Maps used to be fairly accurate about when I'd need to leave to get somewhere on time, but the traffic now is terrible. My bus gets caught up in it and I end up late.
Out of sheer curiosity, I wanted to see how my route was actually performing. To my surprise, the NTA / TFI don't surface this at all. They only publish overall network performance and even that only comes out quarterly. Way behind how things actually are right now on the day to day.
I'm trying to solve this by building rootrue.ie. It takes the NTA data and shows not just the baseline network stats from their reports, but performance route by route. On top of that I'm trying to capture the real commuter experience... which times you should give yourself more leeway based on past data and where a bus tends to get caught up most. Right now the route by route view gives you a recap of the last 7 days, while the network view can show anything from today so far back to 7 days ago.
After about a month and a half work, I launched the site a few days ago and it's in a very early state. If you wouldn't mind having a look and telling me what's working, what's not and anything you'd want to see, I'd really appreciate it. Look up your usual route and tell me whether the data matches your experience or if anything looks off.
Ghost buses are a huge problem of course. Right now the API only flags cancellations the operator confirms. I've been able to pick ghost buses out with high confidence. The 40E for one, loses about 1 in 4 of its scheduled trips this way. It's already built into the live stats, so these missing trips count against a route's score instead of passing as on time. An update in a week or so will show them directly on the site.
If there's interest, I'd like to add rail journeys or bus services in other cities.
Thanks
Key safety features on a proposed IT system for the country’s railways did not work reliably, staff who tested the software found. Alarms designed to issue alerts when trains had passed danger signals did not operate correctly if they had previously been stationary for long periods.
Based, in part, on the testing results, the board of Irish Rail in recent days decided the contract with the company that provided the IT system should be ended.
However, it will be up to the National Transport Authority (NTA) – which funded what is known as the traffic-management system (TMS) – to make a final decision on the future of the project and the role of contractor, Indra.
About €30 million has so far been spent on the TMS project which would integrate signals, communications and other systems on the rail network.
I have a question for bike commuters here - have any of you ever tried using an internal gear hub instead of a standard derailleur?
From everything I've read about these systems, and having tried them myself, I'm kind of shocked by how few of them I've seen in Ireland. Especially with this rainy climate, they seem like a no-brainer.
Having commuted for years in Galway on a bike, the amount of wear and rust compared to continental Europe was insane! Constant issues with skipping, readjusting, stiffening, chain replacing...
I guess my question really is, why doesn't Ireland use more internal gear hubs? Would they perhaps be more attractive for commuters considering the bike as a viable option?
“The NTA have confirmed to Fine Gael TD Maeve O’Connell that the initial timeline is being re-considered with a possible accelerated delivery for the much-anticipated green line Luas extension”
>Commuters can expect plenty of disruption, but no new lines, until at least the next general election.
“Rail projects across the island of Ireland have been allocated €228 million through the Government of Ireland’s Shared Island Fund, with projects targeted for full delivery by 2030.”
“Dublin Bus withdrew a number of services in the Tallaght area last weekend due to what locals describe as “reprehensible” behaviour
Buses on the 77A, 65B and 65 routes were recalled from the West Tallaght Area, a trend that has increased in the past number of months.”
“All intercity trains have air-conditioning, Irish Rail confirmed.
When it comes to commuter services, the 29000 fleet that is the mainstay of Dublin commuter services – so those that pass through Connolly or Pearse – have air-conditioning.
The 2600 fleet, which operates Cork commuter services (and occasionally Limerick), is made up of older vehicles and does not have air-conditioning, although it has windows that can be opened.
The newest fleet of Darts, delivered in 2005, has air-conditioning, while the rest don’t. This means 40 of the 144 Dart carriages have air-conditioning. The rest have opening windows.”