Mr. Andrew Edwards:

I thank the Senator. I thank her very much for her kind comments. We are working very hard with many public representatives and the many communities we serve. To answer her question about the no-show, I remember that case because I responded directly to Senator Doherty’s office on it. Unfortunately, there was some traffic in the area, which meant the bus was extremely late. In order to continue with our service so that it did not impact many hours, we curtailed the service at that time.

It all depends. Since coming out of the pandemic, we have all seen that traffic patterns have changed significantly. I remember when I moved to Dublin in October 2020, I did not think there was ever any traffic because it was so quiet at that time. Looking at our data from before we went into the pandemic, there were traditional peaks of 7.30 a.m. to approximately 9.30 a.m. and then at around 4 o’clock in the afternoon. We had a feel for what each day was like. I can speak from personal experience as I regularly take public transport. I use Dublin Bus frequently from where I live. We have seen traffic patterns change dramatically in the past year. They have become more erratic and there are new patterns. For example, Wednesday morning has become the new Friday morning, while Friday morning has become the new Sunday morning because it is so much quieter on a Friday than it is on a Wednesday. Pockets of congestion arise very quickly, and this can cause delays. With the BusConnects network redesign coming and all the work the Government is doing to create more bus priority, we will see improvements in reliability. Traffic congestion is growing and travel is certainly getting harder. On an average week, we probably lose up to 1% of our service kilometres through congestion. That means that if a bus is running extremely late, we will have to intervene to either protect the driver, who can legally only drive for a certain number of hours every day, or to ensure we offer the best service possible for the highest number of customers.

Delays can happen for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes we will see a pocket of congestion for a short period of time, and then it disperses. Sometimes there is just no rhyme or reason, and other times there are patterns. We look at the data and we are constantly reviewing our schedules. When we make changes we do so to reflect what we are seeing but we cannot get it right all the time, as much as we would love to do so. Sometimes, when we get it right it then changes.

On Balbriggan-----