Spotlight on trams: Dublin

Next in our global transport series, guest blogger Phyllis Stephen takes us to Dublin, where similar problems to these in Edinburgh cropped up during the tram build
Luas tram in Dublin
The Luas tram in Dublin - Photograph: Phyllis Stephen

The Irish are very good at coining nicknames and in the case of the Luas, the light rail system in Dublin, it is no different. With a cheeky nod to the Irish actor, the tram has become known as the 'Daniel Day'.

'Luas' means speed in Irish Gaelic, and it is indeed a speedy and now generally well-loved means of travel. It started carrying passengers in 2004, runs for almost 30 km and there are 40 stations along the way, carrying just under 100,000 passengers each day. The cost of delivering the tram system to the city was around €750m as opposed to an original quote of around €250m.

The Luas was fiercely promoted as a green alternative and this is the clear message on the Luas website where they tell you exactly how many car journeys and tonnes of emissions have been saved.

The trams run from as early as 5.30am some days until after midnight, and you only ever need to wait about five minutes before one comes along. They are relatively safe, although there have been a couple of accidents, the most recent of which was in September 2009 when 21 people were injured during a crash between a bus and a tram.

There are two separate lines: a red line serving the area north of the city centre out as far as Tallaght. The green line goes south from St Stephen's Green to Sandyford which is a business district to the south of the city centre. It is the green line that I use most frequently when I visit Dublin as it serves Dundrum's shops and cinema, and Ranelagh's coffee shops and restaurants.

It was in Ranelagh I caught up with Gerry Breen, Lord Mayor of Dublin, who had not travelled out on the Luas himself, preferring his official car for the journey, but he is nonetheless a great supporter.


He said: "The Luas is an unmitigated success for Dublin. I think that is largely because the operating contract was awarded to Veolia which is a single union employer. They are also very strict about safety. Prior to opening the Luas the roadworks were however a problem. Lower Abbey Street in particular comes to mind. It was in a state and so was Harcourt Street.

"I've just been to Nice where there is a smaller tram system. Nonetheless it has taken a lot of traffic out of the city centre. The proposal is to run a Metro North to the Airport in Dublin but it is pretty marginal in cost benefit terms. One issue with the Luas is that on one of the lines there is significant interaction with the traffic on the public road and that can be problematic."

Stephen Giles, a medicinal chemistry student at Trinity College Dublin, thinks it is more comfortable than the bus. He told me: "I think it's great. Its really handy. I have used it since it started and it is cheaper than the bus. It's a really good transport system."

Eadine Hickey is a mother of two young children whose tram use is fuelled by concern for the environment and the fact her daughter gets awarded a sticker at school if she travels there by public transport.

All four of us went for a ride on the Luas from Milltown to Sandyford and back. During the journey we chatted about the trams as opposed to the buses.

Eadine said: "The bus is much more difficult with two young children but to use a buggy on the Luas is extremely convenient. The area at the stations is level and there is space inside the Luas for a buggy. They are more punctual than buses.

"There was of course some inconvenience in the city centre and traffic issues at the time of building the Luas but people soon realised that the Luas was a good thing. The red and green lines could be improved by integration of both the lines and the ticketing system. Something like the London Oyster card would be great.

There are some similarities between Dublin and Edinburgh. Dublin is the capital city of the Republic of Ireland with a population of around half a million. The city is home to most of the government and national cultural institutions including the National Library, National Archives, National Theatre. The terrain is much flatter than in Edinburgh but it seems that similar problems were encountered during the construction phase.

Finbarr Cox is a civil engineer living in Dublin city centre and he was the Senior Track Engineer for the Red Line and some of the Green Line. The company he worked for, MVMBNI JV, was the track and civil engineering contractor responsible for the six-year construction of the Luas.

He said: "I started in 2002 and 30km of track was laid in 24 months. It takes a lot more time to divert the services than to do the track itself, and you have no idea what is there beforehand. You need what is called an exclusion zone of 80cm deep and 500cm wide above the services.

"There will be the same difficulties in Edinburgh, as the two cities are very comparable. In the New Town you have wide streets that could perhaps make construction easier but the problem in Dublin was that no-one knew what was down there and that alone made it difficult.

"Traffic control was our biggest problem when building it. The fact that the council were not actually a party to the tram contracts took the politics out of it as they were able to blame the Railway Procurement Agency who had undertaken to deliver the trams to Dublin. I suppose this allowed the council to represent their constituents and their businesses.

"As for the hole in the middle between the red and green lines, well, it looks very bad in print. They will connect everything up eventually. Extensions are easy to build. All the infrastructure is already there and it is a pretty simple construction job. It is not possible to make the trams any longer than they are as the platforms are a certain length, but line extensions are easy.

"At certain times of day some people find the trams into town do not have capacity and they have to go on a tram going the other way to get a tram back into town. This is of course means the trams are a huge success.

"Once you have an integrated transport system you can then look at introducing other things like congestion charges. But you cannot make those arguments before you have the whole integrated system.

"I could not turn on the TV when we were in the middle of the contract. It was depressing at the time as there were so many people against it all. It was a horrible place to work day in day out. Shopkeepers and residents were very vocal about it but they had to see that the long-term benefit would be better."

Cox is adamant that Edinburgh must deliver the whole route which they proposed at the beginning.

He said: "If Edinburgh compromise on the length of the tram route then it will become a white elephant and it will not deliver the benefit that it had set out to do in the first place. The biggest problem for Edinburgh would arise from not completing it in full."

Adam Bruce lives in Edinburgh but often works in Dublin from his renewable energy company's office in Sandyford.

He said: "As a regular visitor to Dublin I almost exclusively use the Luas to travel from our office in Sandyford to the city centre. Depending on the time of day it is sometimes quicker to get the Luas into the centre, and then a taxi to the airport, and vice versa.

"The main flaw in the system is the limited nature of the network. The lack of interconnection between the two Luas lines, and the lack of an airport link, limits it to a convenient mode of transport from some of Dublin's suburbs to the city centre."

Ticketing for the LUAS takes a variety of forms. The 6 euro day ticket allows for unlimited travel on both lines, and so you can jump on and off where you wish. You can get a smartcard which works a lot like the Oyster card, and you have to pass it over a tag machine at the beginning and end of your journey.

There are also single journey tickets available for €1.50, so a day ticket could prove worthwhile. The touch screen is just like the machines in our train stations, but it can prove difficult to read outside in the sunshine rather than in a station building. If the eventual operating company in Edinburgh could learn something it might be to ensure that the ticket machines work.

What I have been left wondering is why there is not a body of knowledge about installation of tram systems among engineers which could be shared by the next city wanting to install one. If we had been able to learn from the Dublin example would it not have been possible for our engineering contracts to be written more tightly, with proper performance objectives and penalty clauses?

Would we not have been better warned about the possibility of the services contract encountering difficulties in advance rather than in arrears? The experience of others could have made the painful gestation in Edinburgh a lot easier to bear, even if the eventual transport system is much enhanced.

Phyllis Steven writes the news site The Edinburgh Reporter which can be found by clicking this link.

To view the other guest blog pieces in our Spotlight on Trams series, click here to view the tram map.