Sir, - Overcrowding on the DART has been very evident for a number of years and has imposed an artificial ceiling on the number of passengers being carried, especially in the morning peak period. This is because most trains already operate at or near crush-load capacity.
Indeed, the overcrowding compromises the efficient operation of the service as trains are required to spend an excessive amount of time in the busier stations as passengers squeeze on and off. Despite extra time being allowed in the DART schedules many peak services routinely run late almost entirely due to delays caused by overcrowding.
Listening to various Ministers and reading the mountains of reports produced over the years one could form the impression that the relevant authorities wish to maximise the use of public transport in Dublin and encourage people to leave their cars at home. Yet services such as DART are hopelessly under-resourced. We are told that 10 additional DART carriages are to be purchased although almost three times that number would be required to bring all morning peak services up to six carriages, a change that is long overdue. The situation is even worse when one realises that, apart from the 10 carriages already mentioned, no additional stock is to be purchased to accommodate new business generated by the Malahide and Greystones extensions due to open in 1999.
The inevitable consequences of this under provision are that more and more passengers will be left behind at stations and that new peak period business will displace existing users - a lamentable state of affairs that should be addressed by Mrs O'Rourke at the Department of Public Enterprise as a matter of urgency. - Yours, etc.,
Anthony Gray,
Crescent House, Dublin 3.