Mr. Ray Coyne:

We carry out surveys of people who have moved out of cars and we can track the length of the journeys people make. In Dublin, for example, we will track how many increased journeys are undertaken in a small, confined space within the city centre. If there have been more journeys within 1 km of the GPO, they will not generally be car users, assuming there has been no subsequent increase coming in from the suburbs, and we are able to find that out at a micro level and dig down into it. There is an expectation that the fares reductions will lead to an increase in the number of journeys but globally, fare reduction on its own does not result in modal shift, which is what we really want to achieve, rather than people using the bus more often in a way that will just take away from the Government’s strategy to promote walking and healthy travel at the top of the pyramid. It could counteract that, although there is no question the reductions will be welcome.

On the need to achieve consensus, this goes back to what I mentioned earlier in regard to multi-year funding. If all parties - business, the Government and operators - are in agreement and the funding is there to underpin what we are trying to aspire to and move towards, it will be far easier than if all the disparate parts have different views.

It is public transport, private transport and business. There will be different views but there needs to be some kind of view that this is what is best for the vast majority and does not really impact negatively on other people. That is what I mean by consensus. At least if we have a fair wind behind us, everyone can make a significant beneficial impact. We do not want to do that to the detriment of a large proportion of society. That is not useful.

On mobility as a service and demand responsive transport, DRT, mobility as a service, this is essentially a technology platform for all public transport and private modes, which a person would use through one app. If I want to rent a car or use six bus journeys, two train journeys, four e-scooters and seven bikes this week, I can plug that in and go. I do not have to buy a monthly or weekly ticket for this or that; I kind of pick and choose. The technology system is the enabler for that. Then, the National Transport Authority, NTA, or somebody else would be asked to implement it. The Government would be the keeper of the brand so it would only let really good operators that are investing in their own service into that system. There is a big spectrum within that. Account-based ticketing is part of that but there is a big spectrum. There is a choice to make for Government on what policy it wants to pursue within that area. Some areas are pursuing it quite aggressively.

Again, however, this will be around modal shift and giving people alternative options that are better than private mode. It is also about recognising that not all but many of us will still need a private car for some element. We are not going to do away with that but we can minimise the journey and make the alternative journey as attractive as the car. Mobility as a service will help to do that as well.

DRT, again, is around technology and transport merging. In an urban environment, one could have a localised service so, again, the DRT piece involves a person having the app. It is not door-to-door; it is a kind of corner-to-corner dynamic bus route. It is not a fixed route. It depends on how much resource people want to put into it. It could be set so that when a person requests a bus, it will be there guaranteed within 20, 30 or 40 minutes. It depends on how many buses are put into it. The algorithm will say here is the best route and here is how we can pick the people up. We can have smaller buses. We can have driverless buses, which they have in Europe. They have dynamic routes so money can be saved on that. That would generally feed into a hub and spoke system. If a person was out in Stamullen, therefore, he or she might have that sort of system into the rail station or into Swords or somewhere like that. That will connect that person in with a bigger transport network. It is dynamic, however.