Rail passenger trips just 39% of 2019 numbers
Before Covid rail user numbers up almost a third in five years to 2019
Rail passengers numbers for this year to early October are 39% of what they were for the same period last year, Kildare North TD, Bernard Durkan has been told in a Dail question reply.
This year the number of passengers up to early October was 15 million, which was only 39% of the passenger numbers carried over the same period in 2019.
The National Transport Authority said the reduction in travel by rail is similar to that seen across other public transport services since the onset of travel restrictions due to Covid-19. Government advice is that people should only travel on public transport if they are making essential journeys, and capacity restrictions have been imposed on board public transport vehicles.
Figures provided show that rail passenger (millions) figures rose steadily from 37.8 in 2014 to 50 in 2019 (for the full year).
The numbers for the first nine months of 2019 approx were 38.2 but this figures dropped to 15 for the equivalent period this year.
The NTA said: “Although passenger numbers have declined significantly since the onset of Covid-19, restrictions in the number of people permitted to travel on each service mean that only 25% of the passenger space on board trains is currently available for use by passengers. For this reason, and to avoid situations arising where people who need to make essential journeys are unable to travel, there are no plans to change timetables at this time. The NTA will continue to keep services under review and will respond to changes in travel patterns where appropriate, should these changes be sustained over time.”
The authority said that separately it is progressing plans for the development and expansion of the commuter rail network in the Greater Dublin Area.
NTA chief executive, Anne Graham, said a contract has already been executed with a train manufacturer (Mitsui) for the manufacture and delivery of 41 InterCity Rail Cars (ICRs) of the type already in operation on Dublin’s commuter lines. “The first units of this order are expected to be delivered in mid-2022. Thereafter, the completion of delivery of the full order will take a further 6 months approximately.”
The additional 41 InterCity Rail Cars will be deployed across the Northern Line, the Maynooth/M3 Parkway Line and the Kildare Line. In general, most of the new carriages will be used to extend the existing train sets, providing additional capacity where those train sets are used.
The DART+ Programme, which is in development, will increase the length of the DART network to 150 kilometres of railway corridor through the electrification and upgrade of existing lines transforming commuter train travel in the Greater Dublin Area. The DART+ Programme also includes the purchase of new train fleet.