Metro Dublin metro procurement to begin this year

[spudfan]

Hope the link works

Dublin metro procurement to begin this year | Metro Report International | Railway Gazette International

[Flying Snail]

The link works for me.

Long way to go yet on the Metrolink project before any works begin, but good to see some progress.

[LNERW1]

Anything for good public transport. It's long past time we got a proper European metro system, never mind rail. Hopefully this leads to more development of the Luas and new rail lines in cities around Ireland.

[murphaph]

I'm quietly confident they are really serious this time. If ML goes ahead, DART Underground will eventually follow as it's such a no-brainer. 

[Darrman]

I'll be convinced it's real when spades go into the ground.

[jhb171achill]

Woooohooooo!!!! Roll on the opening in 3012!

[Branchline121]

It may have took 20 years but at least we’re (nearly) getting there.

[Louth]

The Metrolink will go from just north of Swords to Ranelagh and link with Irish Rail at Tara Street and Drumcondra stations only. The latest cost estimate is approx €20 billion. If you live in any place off the route this project will be of very little benefit to you (think of people travelling to Dublin Airport from Belfast, Cork or Galway or indeed Malahide). The net result will be a very expensive piece of transport infrastructure benefiting part of Dublin only. It will also suck funds from all the other transport projects that are so urgently needed in Ireland. That said, I fear our politicians will give it the green light.

[Mol_PMB]

The same could be said of any piece of transport infrastructure though!

I wonder how many people travel from Belfast or Cork to Dublin Airport? Belfast and Cork both have their own airports with a good range of destinations, and if you want to go further afield then it's perhaps easier to fly from Belfast or Cork to (say) Manchester or Amsterdam and change there.

For those who do want to go to Dublin Airport there are some express road coaches which seem to provide for the market fairly well and have the advantage of a direct journey to the airport with no need to handle luggage through changes of transport mode. But I don't think there's a huge volume of traffic that way.

Malahide - well that also has a regular direct bus to the airport. It runs through from Sutton. I used it a few weeks ago and it was reliable and convenient.

 

This metro will surely be useful for commuting into Dublin from north and south, and for providing a quality link from the airport into the city centre for onward connections to greater Dublin by suburban train or LUAS.

[Flying Snail]

The metrolink will be hugely beneficial to more than just the people living along its route: it connects the airport to the city centre and rail network and provides 3,000 park and ride places.

And the parts of Dublin it serves directly are not insignificant. There will be 53 million trips annually. Swords in particular will benefit massively.

 

 

 

[GSR 800]

1 hour ago, Mol_PMB said:

The same could be said of any piece of transport infrastructure though!

I wonder how many people travel from Belfast or Cork to Dublin Airport? Belfast and Cork both have their own airports with a good range of destinations, and if you want to go further afield then it's perhaps easier to fly from Belfast or Cork to (say) Manchester or Amsterdam and change there.

For those who do want to go to Dublin Airport there are some express road coaches which seem to provide for the market fairly well and have the advantage of a direct journey to the airport with no need to handle luggage through changes of transport mode. But I don't think there's a huge volume of traffic that way.

Malahide - well that also has a regular direct bus to the airport. It runs through from Sutton. I used it a few weeks ago and it was reliable and convenient.

 

This metro will surely be useful for commuting into Dublin from north and south, and for providing a quality link from the airport into the city centre for onward connections to greater Dublin by suburban train or LUAS.

Anyone travelling via the Sligo line to the airport (I'll use Mullingar as my example) can get the train to Drumcondra and from there to the airport or city centre. Tara Street is a pretty good connection, a 5 minute DART to either Connolly or Pearse.

Of course this is beside the point. Getting a metro going means there's the expertise and infrastructure to continue with other metro projects down the road.

As to costs, the longer we wait the more it costs. I'd be more concerned with getting in a good contractor for the job so it stays to budget.

[leslie10646]

Reference the point about this being no use to you if you're heading to Dublin Airport from Belfast - The Northerners jump on the Express bus - members of my family in the North use them regularly and extol their virtues.

@Louth - I hope that you will live to see that it will be a magnet for people going into the City, just as Thameslink and the Elizabeth Line have been to London. However, with one caveat - there has to be car parking at each station in the suburbs so that people can "Park and Ride".

There may never be the volumes to make feeder buses really take over from people's own vehicles - but, it can be done. When I'm in Switzerland, I stay in a village a few kilometres out of Spiez and that place (population in the low hundreds) enjoys being on a two buses an hour service. People use them, sometimes they are full and standing, because they are utterly reliable - which is the key.

I just hope that they get on with it before the costs rise any more!

 

 

 

[DoctorPan]

Metro will be a game changer but should also reviewed alongside the other projects that have been progressed at the same time.

DART+ will provide transformative connections to the metro, Heuston side of the network, the option of changing at Hazelhatch/Heuston for a DART to Glasnevin to connect with the metro, or luas/bus on to the city center to connect with the metro. On the Sligo line, changing at Maynooth for a DART to Glasnevin will bring you into the metro system. Northern and South Eastern line has connections at Tara Street. Also would not be surprised to see an extension to connect to the Northern line and unlock land development north of Swords announced around the time construction is nearing completion. 

 

Also it should not be viewed as a city center to airport connection, the town of Swords suffers from terrible public transport connectivity and a reliable consistent journey time will be transformative. NTA has found that there can be up to over 60 mins of a journey time variance of buses from Swords into town due to traffic congestion. 

It is one of the most congested corridors at the moment, its not surprising looking at the trip generators served by the alignment. The capacity the metro can bring is amazing, its around 20,000 people per hour per direction, the luas is roughly around ~8,000 in comparison while a bus on a bus corridor on a 15 min frequency tops out at around 3,000 people per hour per direction.

[Mol_PMB]

I wouldn't be surprised if Glasnevin becomes a stop on the Sligo trains once the Metro is in operation. 

[LNERW1]

4 hours ago, Flying Snail said:

The metrolink will be hugely beneficial to more than just the people living along its route: it connects the airport to the city centre and rail network and provides 3,000 park and ride places.

And the parts of Dublin it serves directly are not insignificant. There will be 53 million trips annually. Swords in particular will benefit massively.

 

 

 

More than a million trips a day- fair impressive, I’d say thats about 10x LUAS isn’t it? But then I’d use a rail line if it was built by my house so fair enough.

[Flying Snail]

28 minutes ago, LNERW1 said:

More than a million trips a day- fair impressive, I’d say thats about 10x LUAS isn’t it? But then I’d use a rail line if it was built by my house so fair enough.

a week  

I think its impressive alright - Luas had just over 48m trips in 2023 I think

Edited Thursday at 12:31 by Flying Snail

[Kevin Sweeney]

My great fear about this project is that it may turn into a Children's Hospital on steroids. According to the Irish Times we had spent 300 million back in 2023, on this project. Presumably more has been spent since. Given that Belfast Grand Central Station was done and dusted for 340 million pounds, I have major doubts that an administration like ours that can spend 300 million and have nothing built for that, is well placed to deliver the metro project on time and on budget.

[Flying Snail]

I can't see it coming in on time and on budget either. However, we should remember a few things:

• A project likes this must incur significant upfront costs for route selection and design before a spade ever gets in the ground.
• As with all construction projects, changes costs money. The row over Charlemont, for example, means returning to the drawing board and incurring redesign costs. The 2023 figure, I think, included MetroNorth costs - which has since been dropped. Many of these changes are driven by politicians responding to their constituents - this is a feature of the political and planning system we have rather than one specific administration. I expect there'll be more tinkering before it gets going ... regardless of who's in government at the time.

If you want a project like this to have any chance of coming in on time and budget, then a good design phase is essential to produce a properly specified and costed plan, followed by having the discipline not to make changes as you go through construction. Ands of course, even with both of these, there's likely to be cost increases. There's often good reasons why you need to change your plans as you go along - not to mention increases that may arise on the cost of labour and materials.

[DoctorPan]

Should point out that TII has a good track record regarding infrastructure projects, Luas Cross City was delivered on budget and ahead of schedule. It is a complex project with tunnelling but that is why good project management and goverence is vital for these big projects. NCH is the classic example of what happens when you rush initial works to get a decision due to political reasons. NCH was not fully designed before the contracts signed so any changes that have occured as different designs are being harmonised to each other, coupled with a client that keeps changing the scope, it is no wonder that BAM are making out with the change orders as what is currently built is not what they bid to build at the start.

 

Comparison to Grand Central is apples to orange comparison as the scale and civil engineering complexity between a new terminus station and gubbins and a brand new underground metro is absurd 

[Barl]

10 hours ago, DoctorPan said:

Should point out that TII has a good track record regarding infrastructure projects, Luas Cross City was delivered on budget and ahead of schedule. It is a complex project with tunnelling but that is why good project management and goverence is vital for these big projects. NCH is the classic example of what happens when you rush initial works to get a decision due to political reasons. NCH was not fully designed before the contracts signed so any changes that have occured as different designs are being harmonised to each other, coupled with a client that keeps changing the scope, it is no wonder that BAM are making out with the change orders as what is currently built is not what they bid to build at the start.

 

Comparison to Grand Central is apples to orange comparison as the scale and civil engineering complexity between a new terminus station and gubbins and a brand new underground metro is absurd 

It seems to be easier for the tabloids to bash BAM over the NCH than to look at the bigger issues with the incomplete design and poor management of the project from the start. BAM have successfully completed many large projects in Ireland, including large motorway schemes with no problems and are currently carrying out the Midleton line twin tracking with no major issues that I am aware of. 

As DoctorPan has said, the contract for the NCH was a pay as you go form of contract, hence the constant cost increases. Most public infrastructure projects are now fixed term contracts, which puts almost all of the risk onto the contractor and not the state - this can have the negative impact of increasing costs as there are only a handful of large contractors who can afford to tender for such schemes.

The Luas Cross City (LCC) had a fairly decent scheme design completed by RPA/TII even before a design consultant was appointed by SISK/Steconfer. This helped massively in ensuring there were no major hiccups during the scheme, other than the usual items like discovering a cholera burial ground! 

Several members of the LCC project team now work for Irish Rail as part of the Capital Investments Team which should, hopefully, be a good sign for future heavy rail projects.

It will be interesting to see what route the government go down and whether it will be a PPP scheme with Design-Build-Operate contract.

[Louth]

On 17/7/2025 at 10:36 AM, leslie10646 said:

Reference the point about this being no use to you if you're heading to Dublin Airport from Belfast - The Northerners jump on the Express bus - members of my family in the North use them regularly and extol their virtues.

@Louth - I hope that you will live to see that it will be a magnet for people going into the City, just as Thameslink and the Elizabeth Line have been to London. However, with one caveat - there has to be car parking at each station in the suburbs so that people can "Park and Ride".

There may never be the volumes to make feeder buses really take over from people's own vehicles - but, it can be done. When I'm in Switzerland, I stay in a village a few kilometres out of Spiez and that place (population in the low hundreds) enjoys being on a two buses an hour service. People use them, sometimes they are full and standing, because they are utterly reliable - which is the key.

I just hope that they get on with it before the costs rise any more!

 

 

 

A few points in relation to Metrolink. It will be built to a 1435 mm gauge rather than Irish Rail's 1600 mm so it cannot be integrated into the national rail system. The Elisabeth Line is full integrated into the mainline system and was designed to provide cross-city interconnectivity of existing lines. That said, Metrolink will have a big advantage as it will be driverless. As with any project it is a matter of weighing the balance between it and the alternatives. For Dublin Airport the alternative is a heavy rail line running from the Northern line in the Donabate or Rush/Lusk area skirting Swords, through Dublin Airport and in to Dublin ideally linking to a DART Underground line (connecting the Northern Line to Heuston). This would be made practical by four-tracking the relevant section of the Northern Line (currently being reviewed under the "Four North" study). There is nothing new in this alternative as it was first mooted by CIE in the 1970s. Unfortunately our land-use planning (or lack of) has allowed developments along the route, particularly in Dublin Airport. If Metrolink is given the go ahead, it is likely that neither four-tracking or DART Underground (cancelled in 2016 by the government at the point it was about to start) will proceed. There are pros and cons to all options. The main question is whether spending €9.5-21 billion on Metrolink is the best use of resources. Also keep in mind that a heavy rail line to Dublin Airport is required by the EU under TEN-T policy by 2040.

[Horsetan]

5 hours ago, Louth said:

... Metrolink will have a big advantage as it will be driverless...

Bet SIPTU, etc. weren't happy about that 

[murphaph]

On 17/7/2025 at 8:48 AM, Louth said:

The Metrolink will go from just north of Swords to Ranelagh and link with Irish Rail at Tara Street and Drumcondra stations only. The latest cost estimate is approx €20 billion. If you live in any place off the route this project will be of very little benefit to you (think of people travelling to Dublin Airport from Belfast, Cork or Galway or indeed Malahide). The net result will be a very expensive piece of transport infrastructure benefiting part of Dublin only. It will also suck funds from all the other transport projects that are so urgently needed in Ireland. That said, I fear our politicians will give it the green light.

I would politely ask you to at least get your facts right about the project before criticising it. It will interchange with DART at Tara and also not at Drumcondra but at a brand new station at Glasnevin Junction. This station will become akin to the Irish "Partick" for anyone familiar with the Glasgow system. DART+ West and DART+ South West will enable Irish Rail to (theoretically at least) let Intercity services stop at say Parkwest and Cherryorchard to allow airport bound customers from the provinces to wait for a (frequent) DART to Glasnevin Junction and from there take the metro to the airport. Sligo line inctercity customers can expect to interchange directly with metrolink at Glasnevin. The metro if built will IMHO be extended to Donabate to interchange with DART and Intercity services there some day. Rome wasn't built in a day and all that but metrolink will very definitely serve passengers from all over the country. Notwithstanding that, Dublin is the capital and principal generator of revenue in the country. It needs infrastructure to compete with other similarly sized European capitals to continue to attract investment and jobs. Starving it of that investment is folly.

[DoctorPan]

On 19/7/2025 at 1:57 PM, Louth said:

A few points in relation to Metrolink. It will be built to a 1435 mm gauge rather than Irish Rail's 1600 mm so it cannot be integrated into the national rail system. The Elisabeth Line is full integrated into the mainline system and was designed to provide cross-city interconnectivity of existing lines. That said, Metrolink will have a big advantage as it will be driverless. As with any project it is a matter of weighing the balance between it and the alternatives. For Dublin Airport the alternative is a heavy rail line running from the Northern line in the Donabate or Rush/Lusk area skirting Swords, through Dublin Airport and in to Dublin ideally linking to a DART Underground line (connecting the Northern Line to Heuston). This would be made practical by four-tracking the relevant section of the Northern Line (currently being reviewed under the "Four North" study). There is nothing new in this alternative as it was first mooted by CIE in the 1970s. Unfortunately our land-use planning (or lack of) has allowed developments along the route, particularly in Dublin Airport. If Metrolink is given the go ahead, it is likely that neither four-tracking or DART Underground (cancelled in 2016 by the government at the point it was about to start) will proceed. There are pros and cons to all options. The main question is whether spending €9.5-21 billion on Metrolink is the best use of resources. Also keep in mind that a heavy rail line to Dublin Airport is required by the EU under TEN-T policy by 2040.

Lot there to unpack but the main point that I wish to rebuke is the assertion that quad tracking the northern line will not proceed if Metrolink goes ahead. They are entirely separate projects and 4North has its separate pressures to push the project through. 

 

Also it will be integrated into the national rail system through ticketing and service connections, just because there isn't a physical connection does not mean it cannot and won't be.

[Louth]

I stand corrected!! As pointed out by Murphaph, the updated Metrolink route shows it just to the west at Glasnevin rather than at its previous Drumcondra location. And I agree, Metrolink will greatly benefit the capital and will provide indirect connections to the rest of the transport system. But there is nothing like an airport will direct rail links to other parts of the country as found in other European cites. Metrolink is a valid strategic planning choice but has disadvantages as well as advantages.

I hope Doctor Pan is correct and that 4North does go ahead. My concern is that Metrolink will use up the transport capital budget to the detriment of other projects. What we all find frustrating is that transport plans are announced and either long-fingered or never delivered. Perhaps the new National Development Plan will provide greater certainty in this respect. Let's hope so.

In advocating for better public transport, we are all on the same basic page here despite our differing views and it is good to see such lively debate.

[Auto-Train Original]

10 hours ago, Louth said:

I stand corrected!! As pointed out by Murphaph, the updated Metrolink route shows it just to the west at Glasnevin rather than at its previous Drumcondra location. And I agree, Metrolink will greatly benefit the capital and will provide indirect connections to the rest of the transport system. But there is nothing like an airport will direct rail links to other parts of the country as found in other European cites. Metrolink is a valid strategic planning choice but has disadvantages as well as advantages.

I hope Doctor Pan is correct and that 4North does go ahead. My concern is that Metrolink will use up the transport capital budget to the detriment of other projects. What we all find frustrating is that transport plans are announced and either long-fingered or never delivered. Perhaps the new National Development Plan will provide greater certainty in this respect. Let's hope so.

In advocating for better public transport, we are all on the same basic page here despite our differing views and it is good to see such lively debate.

I know where you are coming from, but I think Glasnevin will be a game changer in how people view public transport integration in Ireland. It will result in more calls to this type of interchange such as the Metro connecting with the Northern Line and so on. Not all European airports have heavy rail and many are metro only. But yes, it would be great to have both. 

Metro will feed millions of riders into the rail network and this will be good for future rail development nationally.

 

Edited Monday at 21:46 by Auto-Train Original