Ms Anne Graham:

I thank the Chairperson and members of the committee for the invitation to attend. I understand the committee wishes to focus again upon the provision of bus services in Dublin. To assist me in dealing with their subsequent questions I am joined by Tim Gaston, director of public transport services with the authority.

The remit of the NTA is to regulate and develop the provision of integrated public transport services, that is, bus, rail, light rail and taxi, by public and private operators in the State; to secure the development and implementation of an integrated transport system within the greater Dublin area and to contribute to the effective integration of transport and land-use planning throughout the State. The authority is responsible for the provision of an integrated and accessible public transport system. BusConnects and Connecting Ireland are key public transport programmes where the authority, in association with transport operators and local authorities, has planned networks to allow the continued economic and social development of our cities, towns and rural areas. The services are planned to allow residents and visitors the choice of sustainable, low-carbon-emission transport for some or all of their journeys. The authority also provides services if a public service obligation exists, following the withdrawal of a commercial licensed service, if the funding to do so is available.

With regard to public service contracts, the authority is responsible for securing the provision of public bus services through two specified mechanisms. The first is public service contracts with operators such as Dublin Bus and Go-Ahead Ireland, where services would not otherwise be provided on a commercial basis and the second is the licensing of public bus services, which are operated on a commercial basis. Dublin Bus and Go-Ahead Ireland are contracted by the authority to deliver bus services in Dublin. The NTA contracts with Dublin Bus and Go-Ahead Ireland are available on the NTA website.

Along with a number of customer service metrics, the key performance metrics for both operators are as follows: lost kilometres which is a measure of the contracted service kilometres that were not operated and punctuality is measured for each stop along the route and is measured differently for low-frequency routes compared to high-frequency routes. Low-frequency bus routes are defined as services that operate less than five times per hour on a weekday, outside of peak periods.

The NTA continues to meet with operators on a very regular basis to review performance. The reports on transport operator performances are regularly published on our website and an annual performance report is produced, with the latest being available for 2021. We reported last month that operators were facing difficulties of recruiting and retaining drivers in their companies at a time of full employment in the country, which had resulted in a higher-than-normal cancellation of services. Both operators and the NTA have taken a number of steps to seek to address the current critical shortage of drivers including running recruitment campaigns, meeting with the Road Safety Authority, RSA, to secure improved throughput of driver testing; reducing some service frequency; delaying the introduction of phases of the BusConnects network redesign and reassigning resources to better match the demand.

Thanks to the efforts of both operators, driver recruitment has increased and we are now seeing a much-improved service delivery and the level of cancellations has significantly reduced. It is expected that both operators will be very close to meeting their contractual targets of lost kilometres in this current period. The NTA will continue to work with operators to match available resources to the demand for services.

The impact of congestion on punctuality has intensified in recent weeks and this can result in curtailments or cancellation of services when services are running very late. On the busiest bus routes, bus lanes are only in place for less than one third of the corridor. This means that for most of the journey, buses are competing for space with general traffic. Car traffic congestion across Dublin has increased to levels higher than the 2019 average. This level of congestion slows bus journeys and adds further unpredictability into the journey time.

In order to meet the timetable frequency contracted, operators have to build in more running time in routes and will have to add more drivers and fleet into the route just to provide the same level of service. Therefore, additional funding that may be available to the authority in 2023 for additional services may have to be assigned to address congestion issues, rather than additional coverage and frequency above the current levels to meet the growing demand for services.

Car congestion costs money to the authority with regard to the additional drivers and fleet that have to be assigned to maintain timetabled frequencies, as well as costing passengers for their lost productive time because their journeys on buses are longer. The only solution to this continues to be the reduction in the number of cars on the road and the delivery of the core bus corridor projects as part of BusConnects which will offer full priority to the bus service along 16 key corridors in Dublin city.

Despite the challenges being faced by operators public transport throughout Ireland is carrying more passengers than ever before with recent weeks' levels being over 105% of 2019 which was a record year. Most developed economies have not seen a return to 2019 levels of public transport usage and are typically carrying between 70% and 85% of pre-Covid levels. However, most regions, including Ireland, are experiencing increased levels of traffic congestion.

The authority is aware of occasional issues with the real-time passenger information, RTPI, displays where buses were not being tracked accurately or were identified as running when, in fact, they may have been cancelled. When a service is cancelled, the real-time information should be updated by the operator so that the bus no longer appears on the RTPI Displays or the mobile app. However, on occasion, the RTPI displays do not receive, or do not correctly process, the cancellation notification. In that scenario, because the displays are not receiving real-time updates they revert to the scheduled timetable for that bus when, in fact, the bus is not operating. This results in the bus not appearing at a stop when the displays say it should.

The authority had become aware of a software bug that was also impacting the accuracy of the RTPI information. This has been fixed and the indications from live monitoring is that this has improved the quality of the information. Work will continue with the bus operators to drive further improvements in the real-time information, with the key intervention being to match the timetables to the available resources in the operators, thereby reducing cancellations.

I trust we can answer any queries that arise.