Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

We all acknowledge that transport will be one of the three big areas we will have to deal with. We have to achieve a modal shift. That has got to be the objective, not least because of our climate obligations and the crisis the planet is in but also because there is a very strong economic reason. We need our public transport services to connect and work.

I am a strong advocate of public transport and have been for decades. I have been very active in this regard, including through my co-ordination, along with CIÉ, of a sizeable survey in my area in the 1980s that delivered very significant changes tailored to the needs. I have got to say, however, that my experience with BusConnects has been horrendous. I just do not believe people were listened to. It was said in the opening statement that two phases of the BusConnects Dublin network have been successfully delivered and that there are plans to deliver three more this year. One of them certainly has not been successfully delivered. There are significant problems. I can testify to that because my area is one of the areas where one phase, the C spine, has been rolled out. I cannot measure the H spine and do not know how the witnesses measure success, but success is not empty buses, the generation of more traffic, or people buying cars because the public transport is not working for them. It may well be working to some degree, but you could not say it is successful.

Let me use as examples the L58 and L59, the buses that connect to train stations in my area via Celbridge and Leixlip. The complaint that I most frequently get from the public concerns why money is wasted running empty buses. On most days, the number of people on each bus could be put into a taxi. The service runs every half hour from 4.30 a.m. until 11.30 p.m., empty. Services that were being used have been removed from routes to allow for the delivery of the new services. My office has become the complaints department for BusConnects. That has been my experience of it. It may well be working closer to town. I accept there is a much more direct route if one is going along the motorway or main carriageway rather than into communities, but it is in communities that people live. The buses are not connecting; the feeder buses come after those on the main route. They are not turning up and people are just giving up on them. They are running empty.

The witnesses might provide us with the information on the income. It is not a great time to measure it, because of Covid, but the witnesses might state the income and numbers of passengers before Covid and now. As far as I am concerned, the number of passengers indicates success. We were promised a dedicated line for people to give feedback. We got a booklet with a general number, which I have rung several times. To be honest, it is just a Dublin Bus general number; it is not a dedicated line. I do not know how the NTA picks up the feedback and complaints and how re-tailoring is done. We were given many commitments, including a commitment to have ambassadors along the route. I went out looking for them but did not come across any. Success is not the word that I would use. I am hugely disappointed that there has not been the desired opportunity for the public to engage directly, rather than engaging via other public representatives and me. There is no point in engaging with the witnesses because I do not get a response. I have found the whole process highly frustrating and disappointing. I believe money and opportunities are being wasted.

The NTA had better get the H spine and C spine right before starting to roll other ones out. Considering that the bus is the workhorse of the public transport system in terms of the number of people carried, we cannot afford to get this wrong. I do not want to be critical of the potential improvements to public transport but my experience of it has been awful. Most of the complaints I receive concern the waste. The booklet was sent out a week before the spine was delivered. The NTA needs to learn some lessons from that. People cannot make sense of it. If you have been over and back, made many submissions and are a bit familiar with it, it is fine, but it is not very clear. The NTA really needs to make a much bigger effort in communicating with the public. I would not rely on the feedback on the H spine that the NTA has got so far because my experience of the C spine is that the methods of feedback are wholly inadequate.

I would like an opportunity to contribute later because there are other issues, concerning the DART and the metro, on which I would like to engage. I would like to hear what the witnesses are going to do about measuring success and feedback, because we cannot afford to get this wrong.