An investigation into an incident in which around 2,000 passengers got off three DART services that had to stop between stations last year has criticised Iarnród Éireann.
The incident happened between Shankill and Bray during the Bray Air Display in July 2022.
The report by the Railway Accident Investigation Unit found that Iarnród Éireann has no safety system for the management of crowding on trains for large spectator events and was ill-prepared to manage the incident.
The report said a potentially dangerous situation arose from a combination of factors, including the hot weather, the lack of air conditioning and poor communication.
It also found no evidence of “customer-friendly” communications being used to deal with people in distress who were stuck on the trains.
RAIU investigators also established that none of the train drivers involved in the incident had undergone a customer communications training module that had been introduced in 2018.
The RAIU said a continuous reference by Iarnród Éireann’s Twitter account on the day that people who got off the DART services were “trespassing” on the railway line greatly annoyed some passengers.
The report observed that the risk of self-detrainments was “reasonably foreseeable” given there had been a similar incident in Dún Laoghaire in 2017.
The RAIU had issued a safety recommendation in August 2018 for Iarnród Éireann to review its process for dealing with major customer disruptions and emergencies in order to address any deficiencies in the management of uncontrolled impromptu evacuations of trains.
“Had this safety recommendation been addressed with the vigour that was warranted, the incident may not have escalated,” the RAIU said.
‘Litany of failures’
Labour transport spokesperson Duncan Smith said “the detailed report highlights a litany of failures”.
“Iarnród Eireann must put in place a plan to implement all the recommendations from the report. We can never see a repeat of such an event ever again,” he added.
The incident occurred on a hot, sunny day at a time when the DART network was operating at capacity with all available trains in service.
The first passenger who first used an emergency button to open the doors of a carriage while stopped between stations claimed conditions on the train were “unbearable”.
The 147-page report found that Iarnród Éireann staff and crowd control plans were in place at major stations on the DART line, including Bray.
It also revealed that a door fault on a train earlier that day had resulted in delays to services.
‘Uncomfortable conditions’ for passengers
The report noted that passengers at unmanned stations were left frustrated due to a lack of information and the fact that arriving trains were already close to capacity.
In the absence of staff being present in stations, it found that Iarnród Éireann had no way of managing overcrowding on trains.
In addition, the air conditioning in the first DART service that had to wait outside Bray station was off, unbeknown to the driver, while the windows were sealed, which created increasingly uncomfortable conditions for passengers.
The RAIU observed that some passengers appeared to be showing symptoms of heat exhaustion.
After being stopped for five minutes and 32 seconds without any announcement from the driver, a passenger who was travelling with young children and an elderly person used an emergency system to open a door, which resulted in more passengers leaving the train.
After spotting passengers on the railway line, the driver made an emergency call to his controller who directed another DART that had just left Bray heading towards Dublin to stop.
Another two DART services heading towards Greystones were also halted on the line between Shankill and Bray.
Passengers from both these services began to get off the train, despite the drivers making announcements, as they became aware that passengers had begun self-detraining from the DART stopped nearest to Bray.
Although the drivers of all trains made announcements for passengers to remain on board at this stage, passengers continued to leave the carriages.
Iarnród Éireann subsequently dispatched staff to carry out “controlled evacuations” of the trains, including the DART heading towards Dublin whose passengers had stayed on board.
Some passengers walked from Dalkey
It was also reported that some people started walking along the railway line towards Bray from as far away as the station at Dalkey.
The RAIU said the potentially dangerous situation arose from a combination of factors, including the hot weather, the lack of air conditioning and poor communication.
Investigators said the driver of the first DART to stop incorrectly assumed he was not required to communicate with passengers about what was happening.
They also noted the driver was not instructed by controllers to notify passengers about the cause of the delay.
The RAIU said announcements made by drivers of the other two trains were insufficient to deter passengers from getting out.
It observed that some passengers also complained that the announcements were difficult to hear because of poor sound quality.
The RAIU said the large number of families travelling with babies and young children together with the close proximity to Bray where the three trains stopped were likely to be contributory factors as to why people decided to leave the trains and walk along the railway line to the Bray Air Display.
It remarked that awareness as a result of phone calls, messaging and social media that passengers had got off the first DART, might have influenced passengers on the other services to detrain.
The report also revealed that passengers who contacted Iarnród Éireann’s emergency line were not provided with “any reassurances or useful information”.
RAIU investigators pointed out that there are no instructions for drivers in relation to self-detrainments or stranded trains in the company’s rule book.
They also remarked that “from the advertising, the passengers are likely to have had an expectation that their train journeys would be managed appropriately with staffed stations and platforms.”
The report also revealed that Iarnród Éireann staff failed to comply with directions given by gardaí.
The RAIU issued a total of 20 safety recommendations, including a review of how crowding at outlying stations is managed during major events as well as how and what information is provided to passengers on such occasions.
Other recommendations relate to the use of air conditioning and improved communications with passengers.
