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A TEXT ALERT system aimed at tackling anti-social behaviour on the Dart will be available to passengers next month, Irish Rail has announced.
The move comes amid increased reports of anti-social behaviour in recent times and concerns for passenger safety.
From July, commuters will be able to discreetly report any issues they witness or experience on board the Dart by texting a security centre, Irish Rail spokesperson Barry Kenny said.
The service will be live-monitored during all operational hours by a central security monitoring hub, “who can then liaise with staff and security teams to ensure issues are responded to and addressed,” Kenny added.
The system is expected to go live early next month.
Passengers who text the system will be charged the “standard text rate”, Kenny said, with the overall cost of the system expected to be around €100,000 per year.
Last November, there were calls for increased security along Dublin’s Dart line after a teenager was rushed to hospital, while a second was arrested following an incident between Killester and Harmonstown stations.
Following a rise in anti-social behaviour on the service, Kenny of Irish Rail said the company has “increased the number of security patrols as a deterrent to anti-social behaviour issues, and have been liaising with Gardaí both to proactively plan initiatives and resources”.
“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,” Kenny said.
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Text alert system.. About as useful as the community watch signs you see in some housing estates.. How about cameras and security personal on the trains.
@David Garland: …..they already have that?
@Shane Rrrrr: clearly not enough security personnel if there’s anti-social behaviour going on
Texts should be free.
Sounds like a great idea and hopefully successful. Can only hope culprits are prosecuted to the full extent of the law and commuters are not let down by the courts afterwards
@Marc Murphy: amazing how when Paddy goes to Dubai and gets on their metro system few chance being a messer .
@Means of escape:
Knowing of swift and terrible consequence concentrates even the most mischievous mind!
@Means of escape: The odd removal of ones hand by sword tends to calm ones agressive tendencies.
For the love of god just create a transport police.
On the Sligo line too please, often bullies and aggressive drunks on board, probably the same on all routes now.
@WoodlandBard: ya had the misfortune to be on the late train
Text alert system about as useful as a chocolate fire guard. Boots on the ground like the UK, they have their own rail police , this is just a cheap alternative that won’t be effective, who thinks this stuff up?
@Gus Sheridan: i have to disagree.i think the choclate fire guards are very tasty.
@Seriously stunned:
Yup.
Trouble is you need a spoon to eat them!
@Seriously stunned: they are, I agree but not very useful, some bean counter will be getting a commendation for this genius idea,,,
@Michael Kavanagh: I use my mouth to eat them, much easier
Text alerts will be useless. Live CCTV with buttons for people to discreetly hit when its happening. Security personal can monitor and then deploy security quickly.
@Darren Byrne: that would be badly abusef
@Noreen Court: they can press the button all they want but if they flick over to the camera and see nothing happening then nothing happens.
Not much to abuse other than wasting a few seconds of someones time
@Darren Byrne: waste of time. There should be help near at hand, no use looking at the movie later, the damage is done.
What’s the point? Until there’s a deterrence these scrotes will continue to run riot. Boot camps .. name and shame campaigns and real fines might be a good start. A serious look at what the legal system regards as a child might also help
IE don’t want to pay for security. A few of those fearsome looking Eastern European chaps that do security on LUAS needed for a start.
These scrotes need a hammering
“Free” texts and bloody transport Police, not security.
So if you’ve no credit, and/or texts are not included as part of your payg bundle what happens? It’s a good idea but accessibility should be considered carefully.
God forbid anyone would actually be employed to deal with/prevent the antisocial behaviour? Text to find out if your route home is safe! And what, make alternative arrangements?!
Maybe, just maybe, the same technology could be used in conjunction with security/Gardaí and maybe, just maybe, people won’t be charged extra to find out a service they paid for already is safe or not.
Profit before safety.
@Artugal: you’re misunderstanding how the text alert system works. It allows people on board the train to report incidents. You don’t text it to find out if there are any incidents or not.
You know someone on a huge salary thought this one up..
@M: a bean counter’s idea, a pretend to be doing something idea.
Texts should be free..but no will be at a premium rate for doing a good turn …Free !!!
Dublin Area Rat Texts (and rat we should on these szumbags) Dublin needs a good clean up
A dedicated transport police force is needed, Ireland’s transport network is expanding (admittedly, very slowly) and poorly trained security personnel with few powers are going to cut it.
Text services like this are useless and do little reassure passengers of their safety.
@Kevin Andrew: in 1948 British Transport Police was founded. It’s a nationwide force in the UK responsible for all transport systems on land. They dovetail with regular police forces and have exactly the same powers on and off duty. A lot more effect than text messages but not as cheap. Therein lies the problem, it’s not about passenger SAFETY it’s about spending as little as possible on passengers, safety is secondary here as usual.
irish solution to an irish problem…guess who causes the most disruption on darts – yep the scrotes with the ‘free travel pass’ – and when they get thrown off a train at a station guess what they do- yep – catch the next train free – WHEN are we going to toughen up and remove free travel passes from misbehaving muppets ?????? Ive seen this happen so many times – ya can see them use their free pass at the stations -ya can see they are drining middle of the day and are going to cause trouble – then they cause trouble but NO CONSEQUENCES – they didn’t pay for the journey anyways ! Its Nonsense. Complete Nonsense.
@Dave Hammond: if like to know why drug addicts are given free bus pass originally it was supposed to be so they could go get their metidone which they could only get in town but now they can get it in local chemist so how do they still get them puzzles me
@nelliekel: time to remove all addict treatment centres from central Dublin and move them to industrial areas where the general public don’t have to deal with their antisocial behaviour. Time to stop places like O’Connell Street looking like a set from the Walking Dead.
Treat these addicts yes but not in the middle of town.
I’m texting you to report antisocial behaviour on the dart line from Killbarick theres a woman picking her snots and chewing them
reply: sorry we only respond if she’s eating someone else’s snot.. but thanks for your observations…
Last time I used the text alert system in Tralee 2-3 different times to report anti-social behaviour etc, no one even bothered to respond. I’ve reported a few scraps causing nuisance, racial abuse in street, even an older person collapsed on the floor nearby passed out. Not one single response back.
How can we trust this proposed system would work?
@Dan Skelton: it won’t work, not funded properly and a cheap alternative to actually having police or security on the ground
Could always bring in a tax to fund this??
Lmao…
Okay
Last time I used the text alert system in Tralee 2-3 different times to report anti-social behaviour etc, no on
So now the civilised Dart commuters are expected to police the service?
What is needed is for the rowdy, bullying, uncivilised element to be arrested, removed to the nearest Garda station, in handcuffs, charged & banned from the trains.
Make our day, safe & pleasant on board.
Use a team of them ARW on board instead of sending them to Mali.
If this is successful and effective, I hope they introduce this on all Irish Rail services. I regularly travel on the Dublin-Waterford line and there is a lot of antisocial behaviour on board.
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