Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)
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Question 57: To ask the Minister for Transport the way he intends to encourage greater use of public transport in view of the increasing volume of traffic, particularly in the greater Dublin area, and in view of a number of serious incidents on buses in the Dublin area. [35838/06]

Gay Mitchell (Dublin South Central, Fine Gael)
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Question 99: To ask the Minister for Transport his plans to announce further public transport projects for Dublin. [35597/06]

Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 57 and 99 together.

Investment in public transport is a critical element of Government policy on transport for the Greater Dublin Area (GDA). Transport 21 is designed to inject a large amount of additional capacity into the public transport network over the next ten years, with a total investment of over €16bn in the GDA over its investment period.

By developing Metro North, Metro West, by extending the Luas network; by providing greater capacity on the DART and suburban rail network and by increasing significantly bus capacity, the annual number of public transport passenger journeys in Dublin will almost double. The objective is a four-fold increase in the numbers using suburban rail, while it is expected that over 100 million passengers will take the Luas and Metro every year when Transport 21 is delivered in full. Combined with a 60% increase in bus capacity, the target for passenger journeys in 2015 is 375 million as against approximately 200 million today.

Substantial traffic management measures in the Greater Dublin Area will also be required.

Transport 21 includes substantial funding provision for traffic management measures as an integral part of the transportation strategy for the Greater Dublin Area. The strategy aims to increase the modal share of public transport through infrastructure and service improvements and by encouraging a transfer of trips from the private car to more sustainable modes of transport.

In January of this year, the Dublin Transportation Office reviewed the bus priority programme in the context of the goal set in Transport 21 to double the length of bus priority infrastructure in the GDA within the 10-year period of Transport 21. A number of projects are now being implemented during the first 5 years of the period. In addition, last month, the DTO agreed to develop a public information programme to encourage less frequent use of single occupancy cars in the peak travel periods.

I should add that issues of personal security on buses are dealt with directly between the bus operators concerned and the Garda Síochána.