Transport in Dublin
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This article deals with transport in the Greater Dublin Area centered on Dublin in the Republic of Ireland.
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[edit] Public transport
There are a number of modes of public transport in the Greater Dublin area run by a number of transport operators, most of them state or quasi-state entities. Public transport in Dublin is overseen by the Dublin Transportation Office. It has undergone expansion in recent years, and the Irish Government plans to invest heavily[1] in the system under the Transport 21 plan.
Due to the rapid economic expansion of the city, the transport system struggles to cope with demand and does not compare favorably with transit systems in other large European cities.[citation needed] The system suffers from inefficient planning and extremely slow implementation of new services and systems.
Dublin's transit system utilises electrified suburban trains, diesel commuter rail, trams and an extensive bus network to provide service to the population of the Greater Dublin Area.
As the public transport system is run by disjointed companies, connections are difficult to make within the transport system. As a result, suburb to suburb journeys are difficult to undertake in the city, often requiring long indirect journeys using several different bus routes.[citation needed] The Railway Procurement Agency is responsible for establishing an integrated ticketing system for use throughout Dublin City, but progress has been slow on the project.[2] A Dublin Transportation Authority will soon be created to make public transportation in Dublin more cohesive and better integrated.[3]
[edit] Rail
Rail services in Dublin include the five lines of the Dublin Suburban Rail operated by Iarnród Éireann, Ireland's national railway system.[4] One of these is the electrified Dublin Area Rapid Transit (DART). Passenger traffic to other Irish cities is also operated by Iarnród Éireann from Connolly and Heuston stations. Heuston Station connects with the south and west (Ballina, Westport, Galway, Ennis, Limerick, Tralee, Cork and Waterford lines) and Connolly Station serves Sligo, Wexford and Belfast.
[edit] Commuter rail
Commuter rail in Dublin operates on 4 lines. All commuter rail is operated by Irish Rail Diesel Multiple Units.
The Northern Commuter service extends from Dublin City Centre to Dundalk, the Kildare Commuter service extends west from Heuston Station to stations as far as Portlaoise, Maynooth Commuter service extends from Dublin City as far as Longford and the Southern Commuter service runs from Gorey to Dublin city. [5] All commuter rail service runs via Dublin City Centre, and there is no orbital service of any kind.
The Maynooth commuter service is the most recent to have benefited from significant improvement with the March 2007 opening of the new Docklands railway station in Dublin City Centre, which has allowed for more capacity on the route, not previously possible due to overcrowding at Connolly Station.[6]
Significant improvements on the Kildare line are also planned which involve doubling trackage on the line (to four tracks) to allow local traffic to move independently of higher speed intercity trains.[7]
[edit] DART
The Dublin Area Rapid Transit (DART) is part of the suburban railway network and consists of one line and a spur running primarily along the coastline of Dublin Bay, from Greystones in County Wicklow to Howth and Malahide in northern County Dublin. The DART line is the only electrified railway in the country and over 80,000 people use it every day making it arguably Ireland's greatest public transport success story.[8]
The DART system was opened in 1984 and, like all other rail service in Dublin, it suffers from extreme overcrowding at rush hours, but current expansion plans will increase its capacity by 40% to 22,800 passengers by 2009.[9] [10].
Transport 21 plans are also underway to greatly expand the DART suburban railway network by boring a tunnel through Dublin City Centre allowing the creation of two separate DART lines. Each will run from the North West & South West of the city, through the city centre and then extend South and North respectively. This plan is made possible with the Dublin Interconnector rail project, boring a tunnel under the city centre that will join Heuston Station with Pearse Station and a newly constructed Docklands station, via St Stephen's Green. The railway lines from Heuston toward Kildare (Hazelhatch) and from the city centre to Maynooth will be electrified, and the old line to Navan reopened and electrified. This will allow the creation of two separate but inter-connecting DART lines: one running from the north west (Dunboyne/Maynooth) through the city-centre to the southeast (Bray); and one running from south-west (Hazelhatch) through the city centre to the northeast (Howth/Balbriggan).
[edit] Light Rail
A two-line light rail tram network called the Luas opened in 2004 and has proved popular in the areas it serves, although the lack of a link between the two lines is widely criticised. The Transport 21 plan calls for the joining of the two lines in the city centre as well as seven other expansion projects. It is estimated that around 80,000 people use the Luas daily.
In 2006, the Railway Procurement Agency announced that the Luas system reached profitability ahead of schedule, after only a year of operation. It is now the only mass transit in the country to operate without Government assistance, and among the few in Europe.
Currently, the two unconnected on-street light rail lines are:
- Red Line: Tallaght to Connolly
- Green Line: St. Stephen's Green to Sandyford
There are currently seven projects for adding new Luas lines, as well as extending the existing two.
[edit] Metro
As of 2006, the Dublin Metro is a planned two-line rapid transit (underground) system set out in the Irish government's 2005 Transport 21 plan.
[edit] Bus
The state-owned Dublin Bus operates an extensive bus network of nearly 200 radial, cross-city and peripheral routes in the Greater Dublin Area, which constitutes the bulk of the area's public transport system. Daytime routes are identified by number and sometimes suffixed with a letter (e.g. 40, 40A, 40B, 40C, 40D) and 24 "Nitelink" overnight services which run on Monday to Saturday nights are identified by a number suffixed with "N" (e.g. 40N). Apart from some tourist buses, all Dublin Bus' services are one-person operated, and daytime fares are determined by the number of fare stages travelled through — fares are payable in coin and only the exact fare is acceptable — if passengers overpay, they are issued "change tickets" which must be presented at the Dublin Bus office in O'Connell Street to be converted to cash. Alternatively, various pre-paid tickets and passes can be bought from Dublin Bus or its agents, and are processed by a validating machine on the right of the entrance door of the bus. Nitelink buses charge a flat fare regardless of the distance travelled. A number of smaller other bus companies provide services such as airport buses as well.
Dublin Bus has been criticised for over crowding and under-serviced routes.[citation needed] Under Transport 21, Dublin Bus's passenger-carrying capacity will increase by 60% in phases by 2015, through new and replacement bus acquisition.
Intercity bus routes are operated by state-owned Bus Éireann largely from Busáras, the central bus depot and the busiest in Ireland, near Connolly Railway Station. There are frequent departures to all areas of the Island. A limited number of intra- and inter-city routes are run by private entities.
As well as the usual complement of open-top Bus Tours run by Dublin Bus around Dublin city, there's also a Ghost Bus Tour that runs at night through some of the supposedly haunted places in the cuty.
[edit] Roads
[edit] Motorways
- See also: Roads in Ireland
Greater Dublin is directly served by several motorways. The M50 motorway, arguably the most important to the city is an intra-area thoroughfare that is a partial ring road around the southern, western, and northern edges of the city. Construction of the M50 took almost 20 years, with the final section opening in June 2005. A court case regarding the destruction of medieval ruins at Carrickmines Castle delayed the final completion of the route. The M50 currently has two traffic lanes going either direction but work is underway between the N4 and N7 junctions to increase it to three. The National Roads Authority also intends to increase capacity at many of the motorway's busiest junctions by building triple-grade interchanges instead, on which work has begun. As of 2008, a toll of €2 applies on the West-Link, two adjacent concrete bridges that tower high above the River Liffey near the village of Lucan.
To complete the ring road, an eastern bypass is also proposed for the city of Dublin. The first half of this project is the Dublin Port Tunnel. It opened on 20 December 2006 and caters mainly for heavy vehicles, with tolls being levied on lighter vehicles. From February 2007, 5-axle vehicles are prohibited from travelling within the city centre cordon between 7:00 and 19:00 Monday to Sunday (unless the vehicle has obtained a valid permit for necessary deliveries from the Dublin City Council HGV website).
Though originally intended to be a two-lane single-bore system catering specifically to HGV traffic, the Port Tunnel has been built to motorway standard as two separate tunnels to cater for all traffic (although HGV traffic is not tolled). The tunnels are deeper than originally planned to reduce disturbance to residential areas, and were built one kilometre longer and with more ancillary works to facilitate this.
The M1, M4, M7, M9, and M11 motorways all serve the Greater Dublin Area but, with the exception of the M1, none is of significant length or serves the city of Dublin directly. Several other National Primary Routes in Greater Dublin are dual carriageways that are close to motorway standards.
[edit] Orbital routes
Dublin is surrounded by what have been termed by Dublin City Council as an inner and outer orbital route. The inner orbital route runs roughly around the heart of the Georgian city from St. Stephen's Green to Mountjoy Square and from the King's Inns to St Patrick's Cathedral. The outer orbital route runs largely along the natural circle formed by Dublin's two canals, the Grand Canal and the Royal Canal, as well as the North and South Circular Roads.
[edit] Water traffic
[edit] Canals
Dublin has two major canals, the Royal Canal and the Grand Canal in the northern and southern portions of the city respectively. The canals were originally built for freight and passenger transportation from the River Liffey at Dublin to the River Shannon in western Ireland. Today, the canals, run by Waterways Ireland, are fully operable but are used only occasionally for pleasure craft.
[edit] Ports
Dublin is served by two ports which both handle a mixture of passengers and freight to and from the UK. Dun Laoghaire port to the south of Dublin and Dublin port which is situated just outsite the city centre.
[edit] Dun Laoghaire
Dun Laoghaire harbour is situated about 13.6km from Dublin city centre.[11]It is easily accessable by Road, Rail, Bus and of course by Sea. There are 4 Dublin Bus routes that serve the port including one direct from Dublin Airport. As for Rail, The DART serves Dun Laoghaire Harbour from both Malahide and Howth in the north which en route to Dun laoghaire goes straight the city centre. It is also served from Greystones in the south. Stena Line operates four daily sailings from Dun Laoghaire Harbour to Holyhead in Wales by means of the Stena HSS, a high speed ferry service.[12] Sailing time is generally around 90 mins.
[edit] Dublin Port
Dublin Port is situated closer o the city centre than Dun Laoghaire Harbour. It operates up to 18 daily sailings to the UK and the continent. Locations include Liverpool, Holyhead and Birkenhead[13]. The port carried 30.9 million tonnes of goods and passengers in 2007. 19.9 million tonnes of this was made up of material being imported and 10.9 million tonnes was material for export.[14] The port also handles aboout 1.3 million tourists yearly.[15] The port is only minutes from Dublin city centre and is accessed by a number of Dublin Bus routes. Taxis are also an easy way to get to the port.[16]
[edit] Air transport
Both domestic and international air traffic in Dublin is served by Dublin Airport which is located 10 km north of Dublin city centre in Collinstown and is accessible by car or bus. It is the busiest airport by far in Ireland, registering over 21 million passengers in 2006, making it the 16th busiest airport in Europe with flights to other airports in Ireland, Europe, North America, Africa and the Middle East. The route to London from Dublin Airport is the busiest air corridor in the European Union.[17]
[edit] Notes
- ^ RTÉ Business: Rail major part of huge transport plan
- ^ ITS - Public Transport Integrated Ticketing System, RPA Railway Procurement Agency Ireland LUAS
- ^ RTÉ Business: New chairman for Railway Procurement Agency
- ^ Irish Rail - Iarnród Éireann - train tickets, train times, Ireland rail travel information
- ^ Irish Rail - Iarnród Éireann - train tickets, train times, Ireland rail travel information
- ^ RTÉ News: New railway station opens in Dublin city
- ^ http://www.iarnrodeireann.ie/projects/introduction.asp
- ^ Save the Tara/Skryne(Gabhra) Valley from the destruction posed by the proposed construction of the M3 Motorway
- ^ Dáil Éireann - Volume 560 - 06 February, 2003 - Railway Safety Bill 2001: Second Stage (Resumed)
- ^ http://www.iarnrodeireann.ie/projects/pdf/page9and10.pdf
- ^ http://maps.google.com
- ^ http://www.dlharbour.ie/content/stena/index.php
- ^ http://www.dublinport.ie/
- ^ http://www.dublinport.ie/news/singlenews/article/trade-throughput-in-dublin-port-reaches-record-levels-in-2007//2/
- ^ http://www.dublinport.ie/about-dublin-port/corporate-information/
- ^ http://www.dublinport.ie/tourism/getting-to-dublin-port/
- ^ Dublin-London busiest air traffic route within EU March 31, 2003
