Updated 11.45am

LUAS OPERATOR TRANSDEV has announced the introduction of a next text service it says will help to clampdown on anti-social behaviour.

If a passenger sees any anti-social behaviour, they can now send a text – beginning with the keyword LUAS – to 51444. Within 90 seconds they receive an automated reply to say that Luas has received their text, while its teams can respond to the incident.

National Transport Authority CEO Anne Graham said that the new service means “Luas staff can be made aware of these incidents and respond to them quicker than ever”.

In the message sent to the number, customers are advised to state the tram number, location and a short message (a maximum of 155 characters).

Speaking at the launch of the new service at the Luas stop at St Stephen’s Green, Simon Dobbin, a revenue protection officer with Transdev, said that anti-social behaviour didn’t happen that often but could be unpleasant for passengers.

“It’s more common at night,” he said. “You can have younger people drinking alcohol and making nuisances of themselves. That can get very loud on the trams.

It’s people coming home from their day’s work who have to listen to it. Some people might be only going four or five stops but be putting up with it two or three nights a week. It could get to the stage where enough is enough.

Dervla Brophy, communications manager at Transdev, said that the new service will help to offer passengers a better experience travelling on the service.

She said: “Passengers have mentioned that a simple, discreet way to inform Luas of people misbehaving would be a good idea.”

Graham added that, when passengers encounter anti-social behaviour, they wanted to make sure “people have an easy and effective way of reporting it”.

Each day, around 90,000 passenger journeys are made on the Luas, across the red and green lines.

Last year, a total of 34.2 million journeys were made on the service.

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