The Luas Text SMS Service (the “Luas Text Service”) is a service which allows customers to discreetly report incidents of anti-social behaviour on board a Luas tram or at a Luas stop.
Use the Luas Text Service when you see incidents of anti-social behaviour on board a Luas tram or at a Luas stop that you believe should be reported to improve the overall customer experience.
For safety-related incidents or tram emergencies, always call 999.
Text the keyword “LUAS”, along with your report of anti-social behaviour, to 51444.
It’s important that you use the keyword “LUAS”, as the text number 51444 is a Shared Text Service (see below) – using “LUAS” means that the text is directed to us.
Examples of emergencies include (but are not limited to) when:
Anti-social behaviour should be reported using the Luas Text Service. Anti-social behaviour occurs when a person acts in a way that causes or may cause another person harassment, significant or persistent alarm, distress, fear or intimidation, or impairs their use or enjoyment of their property, or of Luas services or of Luas property in a significant or persistent way.
Anti-social behaviour that may be reported using the Luas Text Service includes (but is not limited to) public intoxication, disorderly conduct, vandalism, or abusive or insulting behaviour.
Example texts that customers might send via the Luas Text Service to report anti-social behaviour are:
Yes. Safety-related incidents may be communicated to Luas by:-
No. The Luas Text Service is designed to improve overall customer satisfaction. This will be achieved by responding, when possible, to incidents of anti-social behaviour in real time.
When you text LUAS to 51444, your text message is received (firstly) by our service provider, Neon Communications, and is then passed to or is accessible by designated Luas Staff for investigation. (This is always subject to any system or network issues or time delays.)
You will know that your message is received because on receipt of your text message, an automated message will be sent to you to advise you that if your text relates to a safety incident and/or an emergency, you should call the Gardaí on 999.
You do not need to wait on the Luas tram or at a stop to ensure that Luas has responded to the concern raised. All messages related to anti-social behaviour will be responded to in accordance with Luas protocols.
No. Only text messages that relate to anti-social behaviour will be reviewed by Luas Staff.
Customer queries, comments, questions, and complaints may be communicated to Luas Customer Service by any of the following methods:
No. The Luas Text Service is a reporting system. Information regarding a service disruption will be available from Passenger Information Displays at stops, via on-board tram announcements, via @Luas on Twitter, at Luas.ie, on AA Roadwatch, and/or on media broadcasts
The Luas Text Service operates during Luas operational hours.
Yes. The customer texting Luas must pay for the cost of their text.
The message rate depends on the user’s mobile operator and particular price plan to which they are signed up.
For information on the standard message rate that applies, contact your mobile operator.
The Luas Text Service is not free because Luas was advised that a free text service may have resulted in more hoax / non-genuine texts being received.
The aim of the Text Service is to improve the customer experience while not disrupting the Luas service to deal with prank texts.
Your personal details obtained from the text will not be disclosed to Luas Staff (apart from those who designated to operate the Service) or to third parties. The aim of the text Service is to invite customers to text discreetly, to report an incident of anti-social behaviour.
However, Luas also monitors anti-social behaviour on the Luas and at Luas stops using CCTV. We may check the CCTV footage in relation to any incident reported to us via the Luas Text Service, and this footage may include footage of you, and it may identify you.
Depending on the nature of the incident, Luas may be required to pass your information to the Gardaí, particularly if the Gardaí are investigating criminal activity on the Luas or at Luas stops and you are a witness to the commission of a crime.
All passengers are expected to comply with the Light Railway (Regulation of Travel and Use) Bye-Laws 2015. The Bye-Laws prohibit:
(a) Acting in a manner that is abusive, threatening or offensive to any person;
(b) Acting in a manner that is a nuisance or a danger to any person;
(c) Using any threatening, obscene or offensive language or make any threatening, obscene or offensive gestures;
(d) Discarding any litter or rubbish other than in a container provided for that purpose;
(e) Writing on, scratching, burning, painting on, drawing on, or making in any way a light rail vehicle or light railway or affixing anything to a light rail vehicle or light railway;
(f) Damaging or attempting to damage any part of a light rail vehicle or light railway or the property of any person thereon;
(g) Causing undue soil to a light rail vehicle or light railway, or the property or any person thereon;
(h) Throwing anything or spitting in, at or from a light rail vehicle or light railway;
(i) Being intoxicated (within the meaning of section 4 of the Public Order Act 1994 (No 2 of 1994)) or be in possession of any open bottle or container of intoxicating liquor or a controlled drug (within the meaning of section 2 of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1977 (No 12 of 1977));
(j) Being in possession of any gun, knife, explosive device, or other weapon or other dangerous item.
(k) Smoking any cigarette, cigar or pipe, or be in possession of any lighted material or use any nicotine inhalation device or electronic cigarette;
(l) Using any skateboard, roller blades, roller skate, or similar articles;
(m) Leaving baggage, goods or property unattended;
(n) Opening the door of a light rail vehicle, or board or alight from a light rail vehicle, other than at a place designated by an operator as a place where passengers can board and alight from a light rail vehicle and when the light rail vehicle is stationary;
(o) Boarding or alighting from or attempting to board or alight from a light rail vehicle when a warning tone indicating that the doors of the light rail vehicle are about to close is sounding;
(p) Boarding or alighting from or attempting to board or alight from a light rail vehicle when it might be unsafe to do so, including when the light rail vehicle is fully occupied;
(q) Boarding or attempting to board a light rail vehicle with a bicycle unless it is folded and fully encased;
(r) Entering or attempting to enter any part of a light rail vehicle or light railway that is not designated for the use of passengers;
(s) Queueing in a disorderly way;
(t) Distracting or attempting to distract the driver of a light rail vehicle without reasonable and sufficient cause;
(u) Placing any object on a light rail vehicle or light railway in a manner that is or may become a danger to life or health, the operation and maintenance of a light rail vehicle or light railway, or would otherwise interfere with the proper operation of a light rail vehicle or light railway.
In addition, the Bye-Laws prohibit the following unless a person has been given permission by or on behalf of an operator: –
(a) Distributing or displaying any leaflet, poster, advertisement, free newspaper or other document;
(b) Soliciting, touting or plying for alms, reward, custom or employment;
(c) Selling or offering for sale any goods or services;
(d) Singing or performing with or without musical instruments or other equipment;
(e) Using any radio or television or any form of equipment for replaying recorded sound or images so as to interfere with any other person;
(f) Carrying on any form of gambling;
(g) Being in possession of any animal (other than a guide dog or a Peata therapy dog);
(h) Loitering or remaining on a light railway without reasonable and sufficient cause;
(i) Conducting or taking part in any public meeting or demonstration.
We do not envisage stopping the service as a result of reported anti-social behaviour.
However, in the event of an emergency or safety related incident, the Luas will follow normal protocols and a service or services may be disrupted.
Your mobile phone number and the text you send will be collected and processed by both Transdev (as operator of the Luas Light Rail Service in Dublin) and by our data processor, Neon Communications. When a text message is received via the Luas Text Service, Transdev may also check the CCTV footage on the tram and/or at the tram stop for the time of the reported incident, and this footage may include footage of you and may identify you (as well as customers at Luas stops and/or travelling on the Luas at the time of the reported incident, and the person(s) alleged to be responsible for the reported anti-social or other behaviour).
For all text messages received, and unless we are otherwise required to retain the personal data for legal purposes (for example to allow the Gardaí to investigate criminal offences and to contact you as a witness to a crime or as evidence for our insurers or as part of a civil legal claim by us) we will delete the text message and your number at the end of the month following the month in which the text was sent. Otherwise, we will retain the number and text message until advised by the Gardaí, or our insurers or our legal advisers that we are no longer required to hold the data.
For more information about our processing of personal information as part of the Luas Text Service, please see our Privacy Policy available at www.luas.ie.
The purpose of this processing is to enable Transdev to track and appropriately deal with anti-social behaviour on the Luas or at Luas stops and/or to track and appropriately deal with damage to property.
For more information about our processing of personal information as part of the Luas Text Service, please see our Privacy Policy available at www.luas.ie.
The legal basis for the processing of the text message and mobile number is based on the texter’s consent by virtue of their use of the Luas Text Service. Our further processing of this information and other personal information relating to the reported incident (including of our CCTV footage, if necessary) is based on our legitimate interests to track and appropriately deal with anti-social behaviour / property damage on the Luas or at Luas stops.
For more information about our processing of your personal information as part of the Luas Text Service, please see our Privacy Policy available at www.luas.ie.
Please note that at all times, personal data will be processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner in accordance with all applicable data protection legislation.
Our text service provider, Neon Communication Solutions Limited, will receive your data to assist us in operating the Luas Text Service.
Depending on the nature of the incident, Luas may be required to pass your information to the Gardaí, particularly if the Gardaí are investigating criminal activity on the Luas (or at Luas stops) and you are a witness to the commission of a crime.
In addition, we may need to pass your information to our insurers or legal advisers as part of any claim in relation to the reported incident.
If you have any questions about how your personal data is collected and processed, you can review our Privacy Policy (which includes information about data processing in the context of the Luas Text Service), at www.luas.ie.
You can also contact us by email at dataprotection@transdev.ie.
You have the right to information about, and (separately) to access, your personal data and in certain circumstances to correct or erase your personal data, “to be forgotten”, to object to the processing (including profiling), rights against automated decision-making and rights to data portability.
Please contact us in writing if you wish to exercise any of these rights, preferably please by email at dataprotection@transdev.ie.
No. Luas will not share your personal information with third parties except as necessary to address to the information contained in your text message through the Luas Text Service and as identified in these Terms and FAQs and in our Privacy Policy.
Luas may share customer information across Luas-owned business entities and companies working on our behalf. However, the information you provide as part of the Luas Text Service will not be used for the purposes of marketing to you.
As identified in these Terms and FAQs, Luas contracts with third-party service providers to assist with the Luas Text Service. Our service providers are required to keep confidential the information received on behalf of Luas and may not use it for any purpose other than to carry out the services they are performing for Luas. These service providers may change or we may contract with additional service providers to better accommodate our customers.
Luas, on its own behalf and the behalf of any contractor, subcontractor, agent or partner of Luas, does not accept any responsibility for any technical failure or malfunction or any other problem in any network, system, server, provider, or otherwise which may result in any text sent via the Service being lost or not properly sent/received or responded to.
Customers and other users of the Service hereby waive any claim whatsoever against Luas for any liability, loss, costs, damages and expenses arising from any such problems or arising as a result of or in connection with using the Service.
Our usage policy for the Luas Text Service is set out below.
The Luas Text Service should be used only to report genuine incidents of anti-social behaviour on board a Luas tram or at a Luas stop.
Luas reserves the right to apply a message block to some and/or all messages sent to Luas from mobile phone numbers which send messages deemed by Luas to be threatening, abusive or offensive in nature. In instances where a block is applied, text messages will continue to be charged for by network operators, but these messages will no longer reach Luas for review.
As part of this process, Luas will send a text message to the mobile phone number from which the threatening, abusive or offensive message(s) originate, requesting that the sender cease and desist from sending messages of this nature in future and informing them that, if not, a message block will be applied which will result in some/all of their messages no longer reaching Luas for review and outlining that, irrespective of this, network operators will continue to charge for these messages.
Should messages of a threatening, abusive or offensive nature continue to be received from the mobile phone number in question, Luas will send one further text message to the offending number confirming that a message block has now been applied.
Luas’ decision in relation to message blocks and the duration of such blocks is final and no correspondence will be entered into.
Where it deems appropriate, Luas also reserves the right to pass sender and message data to the appropriate authorities for investigation and follow-up action.
We use the number 51444 as our text number. This number is provided to us for use by Neon Communications. Other services use the 51444 number, meaning that it is a shared number.
However, by using the keyword “LUAS” in your text, this designates your text as belonging to the Luas Text Service, and it means that your text is directed to us (and specifically to the designated Neon Communications and Luas Staff teams who will review and act on it).
