Railway Procurement Agency

Many of the staff of the agency came from the Light Rail Project Office of Córas Iompair Éireann (CIÉ), which dissolved upon the RPA's inception. The agency operates completely independently of CIÉ.

The RPA's main role is overseeing the operation of the Luas system. This is operated for the agency by Veolia.

The agency has no role in the mainline railway system, which is operated by Iarnród Éireann (a subsidiary of CIÉ).

Future Projects

• Light Rail Metro North route
• Connolly Station to Point Depot extension - Red Line
• Belgard to Citywest extension - Red Line
• Stephens Green to O'Connell Street extension - Green Line
• Sandyford to Cherrywook/Brides Glen extension - Green Line.

Controversies

Oireachtas Transport Committee

The agency came under serious criticism by the Oireachtas (national parliament) Transport Committee for the refusal to cooperate with them in regarding the cost of the proposed Metro from Stephen's Green to Dublin Airport. The agency has also come under criticism for the cost of the Luas light rail system. This had led to calls for the planned Dublin Metro system to be developed by a different agency.

Dublin Airport Metro Line

With figures for the Metro exceeding €5Billion, some argued that the RPA were desperate to make the metro appear affordable. The RPA announced that the cost of the Metro to the Airport would be €1.9 Billion. It has been claimed that to achieve that figure they shortened the route by starting from O’Connell Street rather than Stephen’s Green as initially planned. This figure did not include the cost of elevators, ticket machines and rolling stock.

Dublin Integrated Ticketing System

The RPA are also managing the introduction of an integrated ticketing system such that one ticket would be need for all modes of Public transports, like Luas, Dublin Bus and the DART. Although over €40Million has been spent so far, as of now (2006), no such system is planned to be introduced in the near future.

Luas Red Line - Capacity

The agency also came under criticism regarding the Red Luas line. It was strongly argued , before the Red line was completed that the 30m trams would not be able to handle the passenger numbers. Although the Red line had a larger population in its catchment area than the Green line, the Green line trams were 40m in length. The RPA publicly stated that "it was nonsense to say that the Red line needs 40m trams" and that "people calling for the 40m tram don’t know what they are talking about". A year after the line opened, the RPA announced that the Red line trams would be lengthened to 40m due to overcrowding.

When the Red Line was opened, the RPA gave a commitment that the Red line would have a tram every 5 minutes and that the capacity existed to increase the frequency to every 2 minutes 30 seconds. Today the average frequency on the Red line is 7 minutes. Recently,([2005]]) ,the Connolly - Heuston shuttle came into effect. The shortage of trams has resulted on the frequency remaining the same (execept for the Conolly-Heuston leg) but the shuttle helps alleviate rush hour crowds.

Luas Red Line - Engineering

Chief Executive Dispute

Early on the CIÉ project director of Luas, Donal Mangan, took legal action as he felt that he had the right to be its chief executive. For two years the agency paid his salary and gave him an office, even though the chief executive's position had been filled by Frank Allen.

References

External links

• [Railway Procurement Agency]
• [Platform 11 - Ireland's National Rail Users Group]

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