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DART PASSENGERS ARE now able to report anti-social or suspicious behaviour via text message.
The new service, flagged back in June, has now been launched.
Members of the public can text the word TRAIN followed by their location, carriage number if possible, and details of the incident in question to 51444. Texts will be charged at standard network rates.
The message will alert the Dart security centre, which will then make contact with security teams, Iarnród Éireann staff, and/or gardaí as needed.
Customers will receive an automated response to confirm that their message has been received. The text alert system is due to be extended to Dublin commuter routes in the coming weeks.
Irish Rail is also increasing security patrols, installing new CCTV, increasing cooperation with gardaí and recruiting a senior security specialist in a bid to crack down on anti-social behaviour.
Just over 800 incidents of such behaviour, including 14 assaults on staff members, were reported to Irish Rail last year – up from 705 in 2017.
There have been 635 incidents, including six assaults on employees, to date in 2019. The reported incidents include vandalism, intimidation and theft.
“While the overwhelming majority of journeys occur without incident, we have been experiencing an increase in anti-social behaviour incidents, so are determined to take the necessary measures to reverse this trend,” spokesperson Barry Kenny previously said of the service.
You’re being mugged at knifepoint. “Hang on a sec there Anto, just need to send a txt”.
@Luke Lee: Perhaps Joe walking behind you might send the Text after he posts the video of you getting your butt kicked online
@Luke Lee: and the Gardai will show up two days later if at all….
Why not an app with ability to download evidence
@Niallers: or upload
@Niallers: Exactly! Easily done, as well. A computer science grad could easily create such an app, and for free! Build a database that could start tracking trouble hotspots and repeat offenders, and take the necessary action.
@Niallers: WONT SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE GDPR!!!
That would be a data scandal waiting to happen
@K: obviously someone who doesn’t know much about GDPR!
@Niallers: 1990s stuff here by the government yes an app is the way to go, built in maybe with the train app with GPS location for rapid response
@Niallers: facecrime
It’s not just the dart it’s all over Dublin gangs of them intimidating the public shopkeepers and a mix of vandalism thrown in for good measure pure evil !
@Sergio: Ya I remember when Ireland was a crime free utopia
I’d like to know how many of the incidents were prosecuted and what was the sentencing. If the gardai decided to act on these reports, with a sense of urgency, it should be like shooting fish in a barrell.
Nah that’s not 21st century enough. Need to have a system where you connect to a VPN, then download an app, sign up to the app while waiving your privacy rights, spending half an hour trying to solve the recapcha puzzle that doesn’t work, finally doing it, waiting half a year to activate your account, then make a vertical Snapchat video that’s angled slightly, add some captions with emojis and filters, upload it to the app that’ll take months to finish, then by the time you’ve done that the perpetrators would half been halfway to Cork already.
If all else fails, just call 999.
@Dan Skelton: are you still training those winners pal, how’s Harry keeping the aul stable jockey
@Jonny: I’m assuming you’re referring to the horse racing Dan Skelton?
Can we also use it to get the driver to turn the air con on when it’s hotter than hell and there are no openable windows?
I watched a video of a probe touch down on an asteroid and sweep up a sample for analysis this week. Happened out in deep space. Can the DART not have security on the train and a button to hail them?
I’m sure the D4 heads will be furiously texting “oh my god loike, these northsiders were loike causing loike trouble on the dort”
Wow. So much better than putting security officers on all trains. Idiotic….
@Thomas Quinn: ‘security officers on all trains’.. I presume you have done the costings?
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