Jerry Buttimer (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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Question 8: To ask the Minister for Transport; Tourism and Sport his plans to roll out real time passenger information systems for bus users outside of Dublin; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26433/11]

Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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Following the establishment of the National Transport Authority, NTA, on 1 December 2009, the implementation of infrastructure projects in the greater Dublin area, such as the real time passenger information, RTPI, now comes under the remit of the NTA. The authority's functions were subsequently extended by ministerial order to include provision of RTPI to the four major regional cities of Cork, Galway, Limerick and Waterford and the contiguous areas of those counties.

I have been advised by the NTA that the RTPI programme is to deliver 50 signs in Cork city by the end of this year. The other regional cities of Waterford, Limerick and Galway will follow next year. The achievement of this target date is subject to the delivery of the interfaces which allow data from automatic vehicle location systems operated by Bus Éireann to be received by the real time system developed by ACIS technology for the NTA and their agent, Dublin City Council.

Work is proceeding on testing data from Bus Éireann's AVL system for the required level of accuracy to build the confidence of customers in the system. The authority plans to have a test sign available in October and have all signs lit in December 2011.

As Cork is the first city for the RTPI system with Bus Éireann data, the resolution of the data and interface issues will result in a faster rollout in the other regional cities next year. The authority is also developing a solution which will be delivered in 2012 to allow private transport operators to relay their positional data to the RTPI system.