Mr. Brendan O'Brien:

On the time savings that will be made with the additional measures, the original measures removed 60 buses at peak hours and saved 20% in journey times. We anticipate that they it will probably save another 10% to 15% in journey times.

All Dublin Bus data are shared in real time with Dublin City Council which has a dedicated team of four people who work on bus routes. Once a week we meet representatives of Dublin Bus to review all of the data accumulatesd from the whole of the city to see where there are particular pinch points and where changes may be needed. According to these data, we will implement some changes. An example of how it worked was on the north and south quays. The data analysis showed that was the single worst route for Dublin Bus in the city and a plan was drawn up to deal with it. We are grateful for the way we work with Dublin Bus in that regard.

Once a week we also meet Transdev to go through particular issues which arise throughout the entire Luas network. We regularly meet the NTA, Dublin Bus and TII, particularly to discuss the College Green aspect. This afternoon I am due to meet TII again. That shows the level of co-operation. Every single vehicle in the Dublin Bus fleet transmits information to the city council every 20 seconds on where it is, if it is at a stop, the route it is serving and if there is congestion. We use data analysis to track what is happening. Dublin Bus also has dedicated staff working on the issue.

The particular proposal to introduce a plaza in the College Green area was examined in both the NTA's eastern regional model and by microsimulation. The latter also took into account cycling and so on in the area. The reason there is such emphasis on College Green is the number of routes which currently pass through it. We submitted to An Bord Pleanála a list of routes for Dublin Bus, as well as other bus services, and proposals for how they could run through Winetavern Street, Parliament Street, with additional routes on Dawson Street and the use of Westland Row.