Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Question 157: To ask the Minister for Transport the Government's estimate of the economic and social loss as a result of road congestion in view of the OECD estimate that this figure is around 2% per annum; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12531/05]

Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

There are no official estimates of the costs associated with traffic congestion. My Department is aware of international empirical research, which estimates the economic and social costs of road congestion to be significant and of work carried out by the Dublin Transportation Office in 2002 on the cost of congestion in the greater Dublin area. The 2002 study estimated the cost of congestion to be of the order of €2 billion per annum.

The European Conference of Ministers of Transport is undertaking a major research study on tackling congestion in larger metropolitan areas and one of the issues it is seeking to address is whether congestion can be measured in a consistent and meaningful way. I am aware of the adverse impacts of traffic congestion on the economy and on the national well-being. The growth in population, employment, the economy and traffic in recent years has added to traffic congestion. It is an unfortunate side effect of our sustained economic success.

In response to the congestion problem the Government has significantly increased investment in Ireland's transport system over the last several years. Capital investment in public transport since 2000 amounts to more than €2 billion and a large portion of this is focused on measures to increase capacity, particularly in the greater Dublin area. This includes the provision of additional rolling stock and buses, measures to facilitate the operation of longer trains and the quality bus corridor programme. Investment in the ambitious national roads programme is at an all time high. Over €115 million per month is being provided to fund the various upgrade projects. The beneficial impact of this major increase in investment is already evident in the elimination of major traffic bottlenecks leading to shorter journey times and greater journey time certainty. Long standing bottlenecks such as Kildare, Monasterevin, Cashel, Sligo, Ballincollig, Drogheda, and Youghal have already been addressed.

This high level of investment is set to continue over the next decade. I am finalising a ten year transport investment framework to identify the investment and outline the measures required to further develop all elements of the national transport infrastructure. A key objective of this plan will be to put in place a series of integrated measures that will address the congestion problem. The plan will detail how we plan to tackle the transport system's remaining bottlenecks and capacity constraints as well at looking at how we can optimise the use of the network and make prudent advance provision for future economic growth. However, investment alone is not the sole answer. The Dublin Transportation Office is working on the development of a demand management strategy for the greater Dublin area and I look forward to receiving its recommendations in due course.