IRISH RAIL TO INCREASE FREQUENCY OF DART AND OTHER SERVICES
More people are travelling by rail so far this year.
Passenger journeys increased by four per cent in the first three months of 2015.
DART journeys saw the biggest increase, at 6 percent.
Increases of 2.1 percent and 2.2 percent were also seen for Intercity and Commuter respectively.
The company has increased capacity on a number of services to meet the growth in demand, and has been operating additional services to supplement Intercity demand.
This includes a new Friday evening service from Dublin to Waterford.
Iarnród Éireann says it is targeting an increase in frequency of DART services in 2016, as growth is forecast to continue.
The increase in passenger numbers accelerates the trends of 2014, in which an increase of 1.1 million journeys on 2013 to 37.8 million journeys for the full year was recorded.
Spokesperson for Irish Rail, Barry Kenny, says the company is planning for the future of the rail network.
“There’s a lot of planning work looking at the longer term demands that will be there, looking at what additional lines might be needed” he said.
“Things like a DART line to the airport are being evaluated, using the Phoenix Park tunnel for commuter rail services from Kildare – and ultimately the DART underground line, which would dramatically expand the capacity of our networks” he added.
