Ceisteanna Coitianta

A wide range of surveys are required as part of the DART+ Coastal North project. These include, but are not limited to, Topographical Surveys, Ecological and other environmental Surveys, Ground Investigation Surveys.

Should you have any queries or concerns regarding these surveys please contact the Community Liaison Officer for this Project Garry Keegan at 01 233 4515 or by email at DARTCoastalNorth@irishrail.ie

The DART+ Coastal North project, as part of the DART+ Programme, will deliver an improved electrified network, with increased passenger capacity and enhanced train service between Dublin City Centre and Howth. The project will provide the infrastructure to deliver a planned increase in train frequency from 9 to 18 trains, and a planned increase in passenger capacity from 10,800 to 21,600 passengers, for the new 3-hour AM peak period for inbound / southbound services from Howth to Dublin City Centre.

To achieve the peak capacity increases proposed by the DART+ Programme, DART+ Coastal North will seek to implement a reconfiguration of Howth Junction & Donaghmede Station and the removal of existing train crossing conflicts currently experienced at the station. The Preferred Option will enable the operation of both a DART shuttle service on the Howth Branch line as required, and/or a direct through service to/from Dublin City Centre, allowing for the capacity and frequency of DART+ services on both the Northern, and Howth Branch, lines to be maximised. The removal of crossing conflicts at Howth Junction & Donaghmede Station will also result in a more frequent and reliable Howth Branch DART service with frequency of service potentially doubling to deliver a service every ten minutes each way. The scale of increase in services will vary across the extents of DART+ Coastal North and will be directly dependent on passenger demand over time.

Should future passenger demand warrant the operation of a DART Shuttle Service on the Howth Branch Line, passengers travelling to/from Dublin City Centre will be required to interchange between services at Howth Junction and Donaghmede Station where a variety of significant modification works are proposed to both improve the passenger experience generally, and to develop the station to better serve as an interchange station. The works will involve modifying the entrances to provide a more accessible, user friendly and customer focused station for all rail users, as well as to improve the connection to the surrounding areas of Donaghmede and Kilbarrack. Upgrades will also take place to the footbridge and connections to the centre platforms, as well as the lighting, signage, and finishes throughout. The interchange at Howth Junction & Donaghmede station will be facilitated by an increase in Northern Line stopping trains which will minimise wait times for connecting services.

At this stage it is too early to say exactly what wait times would be, when interchanging at Howth Junction & Donaghmede Station, or indeed what the exact journey time from stations on the Howth Branch into Dublin City Centre will be. It is expected that sectional journey times (e.g. Bayside to Howth Stations) along the Howth Branch Line will remain similar to current journey times experienced by DART passengers, and that any adjustment to journey times from the Howth Branch into the city centre will be as a result of the interchange between services at Howth Junction & Donaghmede Station which is expected to be minimal. Changes to journey times will be somewhat offset by increased service frequency resulting in more choice for passengers and reduced wait times to commence DART journeys in the first instance.

It is also important to note that the operation of a DART shuttle service is not something that would come into effect immediately upon the delivery of the DART+ Coastal North project. There will be different phases of timetable development that will be gradually introduced as the project builds towards maximum level of service. The operational detail behind each of these phases has not been worked through at this early stage in the project planning and development. Any substantial timetable change will go through a Public Consultation process of its own organised by the National Transport Authority (NTA) known as the Timetable Customer Consultation Process.

DART+ Coastal North is seeking to extend the existing electrified rail network from Malahide to Drogheda as well as increasing rail capacity on the Northern Line between Dublin City Centre and Drogheda MacBride Station, including the Howth Branch. This increased rail capacity can be achieved by implementing an extended electrified railway network with high-capacity DART trains and an increased frequency of train services. In addition, the DART+ Coastal North project requires that some track modifications are implemented, including the provision of turnback facilities at Malahide, Clongriffin and Howth Junction & Donaghmede Stations. These modifications are essential to facilitate the increase in train services by allowing trains to be turned back clear of continuing services and to allow for a higher frequency and a more reliable service.

The proposed changes to the Howth Branch will facilitate an increase in both DART service frequency and capacity, along with improvements to the reliability of timetabling and service operation. Operational benefits linked to the infrastructural upgrades will allow for greater operational flexibility and optimisation of services on the Howth Branch.

The current level crossing barrier opening and closing timings have been used to inform a traffic model assessing the effects on vehicles, cyclists, and pedestrians. Detailed assessment of the four existing level crossings along the Howth Branch Line has concluded that these level crossings can continue to operate and provide an appropriate level of cross connectivity and accessibility whilst still meeting the increased DART service frequency requirement. The increased frequency of level crossing closures will result in a greater likelihood of vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists being required to queue at the crossings, however, the traffic modelling and sensitivity analysis has shown that queue lengths are likely to remain within the available queueing road space in all cases. Based on the assessments carried out to date, additional infrastructural interventions at the four level crossings are not considered necessary.

The impacts on traffic surrounding the Howth Branch level crossings have been assessed using LinSig modelling software. LinSig is an industry standard software tool which allows traffic engineers to model traffic signals and their effect on traffic capacities and queuing. This was used to investigate the impacts of the barrier closures on the surrounding road network and further details are included in Annex 3.7 Appendix B of the published material which is available through the project website https://www.dartplus.ie/en-ie/projects/dart-north.

The traffic data used in the level crossing assessments was based on surveys carried out in May 2022. These included classified vehicle junction turning count surveys over a 14-hour time period between 0600 and 2000 at the junctions within the study area and also at the level crossings within the study area. The data also included queue length surveys and pedestrian count surveys. The AM peak hour was determined to occur between 0800 and 0900 and the PM peak hour between 1730 and 1830 (refer to Annex A). These are the busiest periods on the road network and the impact of the proposed level crossing closures was therefore assessed for these time periods. Historical traffic data (2018/2019) was available at some of the junctions adjacent to the Kilbarrack and Sutton level crossings and a comparison of the most recent traffic data (2022) and the historic traffic data (2018/2019) has shown that traffic levels observed in the recent surveys have, to a large extent, returned to pre-Covid levels in the study area. The most recent 2022 traffic count data were therefore considered a suitable data source for the assessment.

The effects of any changes to traffic patterns will be fully assessed as part of the Environmental Impact Assessment Report (EIAR) and Traffic Impact Assessment (TIA) and it should also be noted that the EIAR accompanying the Railway Order application will include a comprehensive assessment of potential air quality and climate impacts resulting from the proposed DART+ Coastal North development.