Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the delegations for their submissions. My first two questions are for the NTA representatives. I ask them to give us figures on the subvention to Dublin Bus, Bus Éireann and Local Link, respectively. I also ask them to provide the expenditure per capitaof the population.

We know from experience that as frequency is increased, there will be more passengers. That is obvious when you take the train from Belfast to Derry, Cork to Cobh or anywhere else. As a very good example, after a long battle in which it took a year and a half for the NTA to make up its mind, the authority gave us three extra services to An Cheathrú Ruain the evening and the number of passengers exploded. Has the NTA done empirical studies to decide what is the optimum service frequency that brings the most gain in terms of the number of passengers versus cost? It is critical to have that information because it seems to becoming increasingly apparent that where there is, say, a minimum of ten services each way daily, it results in very good patronage. I stress that the services must be throughout the day.

An example of where the NTA is falling down is a case I have raised endlessly with the authority. The radial routes out of the cities are becoming hugely important, and I mean up to a distance of 100 km because lots of young people in particular cannot afford to get or cannot get accommodation in towns that have third level educational institutions. Therefore, people must travel huge distances to attend the University of Galway, Atlantic Technological University, the University of Limerick, University College Cork and so on. If a person wants to go west of Galway to Clifden, which is a very well frequented route where there are also a lot of new Ukrainian residents who are working, the Citylink bus timetable is such that the last bus departs at 17.50 or ten minutes to 6 p.m., which means anyone wishing to avail of it must get to the bus station ten or 15 minutes beforehand. Moreover, the last Bus Éireann bus departs at 18.15, which means getting to the bus station at 6 o'clock. Those departure times do not give much time for a student or anybody else to socialise. They do not give any time for working late or doing overtime or to get there within the city. Amazingly, for some reason, there are buses to Oughterard that depart at 20.15 and 22.15 and it looks like the NTA made that decision for no apparent reason. You will not see the population because there are no big towns in the region but the reality is that people must travel five or ten miles to get to the bus stop. They pick people up. We have seen this patronage pattern. For some reason, somebody decided that Oughterard was enough. My understanding is that in the morning the buses are full going in but the reality is that they would be even fuller if you could get out at the time you choose in the evening. Can you imagine if Dublin Bus closed down its operations in Dublin City at 6 p.m., which would be like saying that if you do not want to come home at that time, then you do not get home? Such a stance would be ridiculous and I think we all know that.

The NTA's representatives might give their empirical evidence as to the reasons for that.

A minimum service was mentioned, but on reading the document I did not find a definition of that. The witnesses might just tell us what is meant by a "minimum service". Is that one service in one direction or two services in both directions a day? If it is, it is not a minimum service, it is a totally deficient service. I am curious as to what is intended.

I really welcome the move in fares, having crossed swords with the chief executive about rural fares in particular time and time again. I congratulate the Minister, who took pre-emptive action by reducing them all by 20%. Could the witnesses give us data on rural services? I say "rural" but it could originate or terminate in an urban area or vice versa? Could data be provided as to the increase in patronage and how much of it could be associated with the reduction in fares where the service remained the same? What research has been done into how fare sensitive bus services are? This is a key factor. If the number of passengers on a 40-seater bus is doubled from 20 to 40 we can afford to halve the fares and still get the same amount of revenue.

There are regular rural service, RRS, or fixed routes under the new Connecting Ireland initiative. Do we have a list of all the routes and the figures for the patronage on each route? That would be very useful. It would be interesting to look at the frequency of the route, the actual routes themselves and the patronage on the route to see the relationship on these routes between frequency and patronage. That is a key issue as some of the areas have quite low populations.

What is the number of rural hackney licences in existence at the moment? I understand the number is abysmally low. I know people who gave up applying because the word on the street is that they are wasting their time. They applied, only to be told there were hackney licences in the area. If a person has a taxi or hackney licence, it does not stop him or her solely operating the taxi or hackney in the city. One can go 30 or 40 miles and work from the city. I know people who do that. The idea that an area has a hackney or taxi service available because somebody's residence is in the area is a myth.

The witnesses will be aware that I put forward the idea previously that in return for support, a person would have to provide a basic service at certain times within the operational area. Such people could do what they want outside of that but, for example, on a Thursday, Friday or Saturday night when the pubs are open and so on, they would have to provide a service in a fixed area on those nights in return for getting a subvention. I am very interested in such a scheme because it does not seem to me that the system is working. I have seen cases where the local authorities have recommended that an applicant would get a rural hackney licence, as there is a need. Could we get details from the NTA of the number of cases where the application stated the local authority recommended it and the NTA subsequently turned it down?

The roll-out of solar panels in rural Ireland will happen rapidly. Lots of rural people have plenty of roof spaces on their houses. It is not like living in an apartment. They own the roof space. A lot of them have big gardens also. Lots of rural people will be able to travel if they have an electric vehicle and will cause no pollution once the vehicle is purchased. What is the plan to ensure that Bus Éireann, Citylink, or the main contracted buses either operate electrically or on hydrogen? What is the plan for ensuring that the Local Link buses are electric? What assistance will be given in terms of charging points to ensure this? It is easier for Bus Éireann. I know it has great plans for hydrogen buses in Galway. It has already gone electric on the city fleet but not on the rural buses. Not everybody is as big as Bus Éireann, however. What plan does the NTA have? There is no point in having a decarbonised car fleet and not having a decarbonised bus fleet because then the buses will be a problem.

I join with Senator Garvey in saying that we need to clarify the situation with buses. I know the pick up and drop-off service is at a person's house or the nearest point to it, but on the regular rural services, the RRSs, what is the official position on where the bus stops? I am not asking about anything that might be happening in practice - I presume the NTA would prefer not to know about it - but is it the situation that there are fixed stops and how far apart are they? My understanding is that some of the stops are 10 km apart. That means people have to get into their car to get to the bus stop. That is stupid. On the other hand, the school bus manages to have pull-in points that it deems to be adequately safe, although it does not pull in everywhere. I agree we need to move fast with bus stops, but that is going to take a while. In the meantime, the next best thing is the point where everybody knows the bus stops, but we cannot accept that the stops would be 10 km apart.

My last point relates to disability. Does the NTA insist that the buses it licences to provide regular services on routes have the capacity to carry wheelchairs? It is very important to talk to wheelchair users about the specification of modern electric wheelchairs. There is no point in giving a specification that a bus must take a wheelchair in theory but it can only take a certain type of wheelchair. Can a bus take a number of wheelchairs? What happens if two or three people with wheelchairs arrive at a bus stop? First, what is the situation in regard to people with disabilities in wheelchairs accessing buses? How does the NTA ensure that all services – Local Link, Bus Éireann and all the other contracted services are accessible to people with disabilities?