Professor Aisling Reynolds-Feighan:

Rail requires subvention in most European countries. Mr. Quigley quoted from a study I conducted in 2000 which examined subvention rates. One the reasons that subvention rates for Irish public transport are relatively low is the fact that it is predominantly road based public transport. Rail and transit systems in other European cities require a larger level of subvention. However, we must also bear in mind that these cities have much higher population densities in the rail corridors. In terms of the investment required, there is very substantial investment in the rail track but also in the vehicles and signalling, while there is a single user, namely, the rail company. With roads, however, a large number of users share the road space. In terms of trying to provide for the population generally from an Irish perspective, this is why road based transport solutions are more attractive. Other than in Dublin and perhaps Cork, it is hard to see a role for rail transport because of the dispersed nature of the population and the low densities generally.

With regard to the commuter towns, users will use public transport. We conducted studies in UCD examining uptake and the responsiveness of people to public transport. When reasonable alternatives are presented people use public transport. It must be reasonable in matching the origin-destination pairs between which people have to travel. If one looks at the provision of public transport, one of the problems is that it does not match people's needs. One has to travel indirectly between the origin and destination so the generalised cost of travel by public transport, that is, the time and money costs of travelling between the origin and destination, is very high compared to private transport. That is the reason the private transport share is so high. That applies in the Dublin region as well as more generally in the country.

Regarding tendering for bus routes, will the Deputy remind me of his point?