Mr. Paddy Doherty:

With regard to service simplicity, one of the big criticisms of the Dublin Bus network four or five years ago would have been that it was complex and hard for a new user to understand. One of the prime objectives of the Network Direct project was to simplify the network by making it more understandable for customers. We started off with approximately 170 individual route numbers and we have reduced it to something of the order of 115. It does not mean we have taken out routes or services. As the Deputy will know, we had duplicated areas and we amended and redesigned so that, by and large, we cover the same catchment and population. We provide a service across the whole community but it is a lot more simple now. While we have 19 or 20 core big routes, we still have 95 relatively small routes which are providing local community services. That was the nature of the project and it has been successful in so far as it is now delivering in terms of usage.