Iarnród Éireann is to maintain its summertime reduction in the size of some peak-hour Dart trains from eight carriages to four for the foreseeable future.
Dart carriages may “feel fuller than they would have” in the past, spokesman Barry Kenny said today.
It was “aligning train size with demand” as part of its cost reduction programme, Mr Kenny said.
Passenger numbers had reduced overall in recent years, he said. However the company would be “constantly monitoring loads” and should demand increase it would “respond to that as well”.
Earlier this year Iarnród Éireann said it had been reducing capacities since May to reflect passenger numbers dropping over the summer, while maintaining the number of departures.
Today the company confirmed that these summer train lengths were being maintained on the Dart service in response to the “difficult” financial situation of the company.
The summer service saw a number of trains at peak travel times reduced from eight-carriage trains to four with trains of two, four, six or eight carriages during the day depending on demand
The reduction particularly impacts on evening peak-time Darts between 4.30pm and 6.30pm. Northbound evening peak dart carriages have reduced by almost a quarter since before the summer, while southbound evening dart carriages have reduced by almost a fifth.
Southbound morning peak Dart trains from Howth and Malahide have seen a 10 per cent reduction in carriages since earlier this year.
Northbound trains have seen a 6 per cent fall in carriage numbers during peak morning times.
The company has been taking part in cost-cutting to tackle its €45m deficit including announcing plans for 450 redundancies earlier this year.
