Overtake lanes for Luas?

[seabhcan]

(gave a look for this topic but couldn't fine an appropriate thread)

I was on the Green luas there yesterday. I used to use it daily to commuttee to work and, as everyone knows, its packed between about 8am and 9am. When it gets extended to Bray, it will get worse, particularly for the people in the middle stations, who witness the odd event of a completely full train stop in the station, and then continue. They need to do this because if they whizzed passed the stations they would run into the back of the train ahead at the next station. Whats needed is an overtake lane.

I noticed that between around Beechwood and Windy Arbour, there are long sections of the route where extra land is owned by the rpa and this is being landscaped into nice verges - a waste of useful space? There isn't enough room to 4 track the line, but there is easily enough room to stick a third track in there. This could be used to allow full "express" trains from Bray to pass 5 or 6 intermediate stops on the way to the city center. The third line could be reversed in the evening rush hour to allow express trains back towards Bray.

Is this feasible?

[CelloP]

Sounds like an Oirish solution to an Oirish problem.

[seabhcan]

Sounds like an Oirish solution to an Oirish problem.

Lots of mainline raillines have sections of 4 track to allow passing by express trains. Why couldn't it be used for Luas?

[riven]

I have to say I have never seen this on an european light rail/tram syste.

The reason is of course simple. These systems were adequately sized for the population. The Luas is not.

[markpb]

It's not a bad idea but the added signalling complexity probably means it wouldn't work much better (tram skips past, pulls up at the next top and the tram behind has to wait while it loads). I think the plan is to run some trams from Bray to SSG and others only from Sandyford to SSG providing the same capacity to Sandyford.

[alonso]

The solution is for the FFPD govt to actually begin to implement their 7 year old Transport strategy which was to upgrade the Green Line to Metro standards. It will of course never happen. And with DLR CoCo building all along the line at Sandyford, Cherrywood, Rathmichael and Fassaroe the line will ultimately collapse as an effective service on day one that the extension opens

[seabhcan]

tram skips past, pulls up at the next top and the tram behind has to wait while it loads

Ya. It might just make bottlenecks farther up the line alright. But there are certainly large enough time-gaps between trains to allow for unloading of extra trains. In Moscow, they manage to load and unload a 110m metro train every 50 seconds at peak time. They could easily do one every 3-4 minutes on the Luas. They could also delay the inbound non-express luas at beechwood for an extra minute or two if needed, before allowing onto the 2 track section.

They could also expand the number of platforms at Stephens Green to 3 or four to create extra termanus capacity.

[Urban_Form]

I think the solution to overcrowding is to have some trains starting from Cherrywood, while others would still start in Sandyford

[alonso]

UF I believe that's the plan, and then perhaps from Bray when the line is completed. But it requires Metro capacity already so God help the commuters from Sandyford in next year or whenever B1 opens

[fergalr]

Yeah... whinge, whinge, whinge! Spare a thought for the northside - we have no Luasi