Irish Rail have launched a new safety campaign to discourage people using bicycles, skateboards or scooters on train platforms.  

The national rail service reported 66 incidents of people cycling, skateboarding or scooting on train station platforms.

In the first three months of this year, they reported 24 similar incidents.  

The service also reported 145 platform accidents in 2022 and 52 so far this year – but the main goal is to prevent “reckless” cycling, skateboarding and scooting on platforms and aboard trains. 

Irish Rail Corporate Communications Manager Barry Kenny told The Pat Kenny Show not every wheeled incident involved bad-intentioned people – but they are still putting everyone on the platform at risk. 

“It’s a mixture of messers and people who wouldn’t think they are engaging in antisocial behaviour, but they are,” he said.  

“Frankly, if you're cycling, if you're using a e-scooter or skateboard on the platform, you're basically showing complete disregard for everyone else on the platform you are also putting yourself at risk.” 

Risk

He said this is particularly a problem on narrow platforms and on wet days as there is huge risk of injury. 

“We don't want to be talking about after the event,” he said. “That we were aware of this and did nothing about it.” 

Irish Rail’s new strategy includes a video campaign and actively penalising people who break platform rules. 

Combining modes of transport

Mr Kenny said people are free to bring their bikes, skateboards and scooters onto trains as Irish Rail “welcomes” combining forms of open travel – but people cannot think “to hell with everyone else, I’m going to just use the platform here and everyone else’s platform”. 

He said Irish Rail respects that some people might want to use a bike, skateboard or scooter in bigger stations where their platform is far away. 

Despite that, he urged people to be more aware of where the trains go from. 

“We get that it's really convenient for that the last mile in the journey,” he said. “It’s a big part of public transport for people to switch between active modes and public transport.” 

“But using the scooter or the bike within the station – that is not what we’re in this for.”