The Case for Commuter Rail

Waterford City, one of Ireland’s fastest growing cities currently offers no commuter rail options for workers or students.

The earliest services from Limerick & Dublin arrive after 9AM, ruling out a large section of the travelling public.

Waterford - Rosslare & Wexford

In late 2010, rail services between Wexford/Rosslare and Waterford were suspended in the midst of the global financial crisis. This was the only rail closure to occur in Ireland during this period.

At this time the Rail Service had been downgraded to one return trip a day – from Rosslare Europort to Waterford City in the morning with a return service leaving Waterford at 5:20PM.

Despite not offering a viable service for passengers, Irish Rail’s main reason for closing down the line was low ridership. Irish Rail’s Business Case to withdraw services focused only on traffic from South Wexford to Waterford City and ignored wider markets and weekend traffic.

However, a basic analysis of the areas served using available Census data shows that this timetable and analysis was deeply flawed. Most of the catchment areas around the rail line are economically and culturally linked to Wexford Town, not Waterford City.

Taking the example of the first station on the suspended line, Bridgetown  - CSO data shows that approximately 17 people were going from this area to Waterford City for work. However, if one analyses the same set of data, one will find that 433 people are going every day to Wexford town to work. Over 25 times more people were going in the opposite direction to the rail service, but Irish Rail never ran a service in this direction.

Hundreds of people commute to Wexford Town from Enniscorthy to work every day, but there is no commuter rail service available. The earliest train currently gets a commuter from Enniscorthy to Wexford at 12:08 PM.

To provide for a greener future, commuter rail options need to be available.