John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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706. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the specific actions he and his Department will take in conjunction with the NTA in 2017 to address the increasing congestion in Dublin and on the M50; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3818/17]

Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent)
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​I recognise that there is considerable evidence emerging of increased travel demand across the Dublin region, with growing traffic levels on many of the region's roads and streets. The increase in the number in employment has impacted on transport through the beginning of a recovery in public transport numbers, but also through increased car use and re-emergence of peak period congestion. Insofar as congestion issues in Dublin are concerned, the National Transport Authority (NTA) has overall responsibility for the implementation of their published Transport Strategy for the GDA. My Department is working closely with the NTA with a view to intensifying efforts to combat congestion in the short to medium term through greater use of bus priority, demand management and other alleviating measures. I expect this work will help to strengthen the case for increased public transport investment, as part of the Mid-Term Review of the Government's Capital Plan in 2017. With regard to the M50, Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII), along with other stakeholders are continuing to implement a number of measures on the M50 to manage demand and optimise operational efficiency, including changes to merge and diverge layouts at junctions; the introduction of permanently signed emergency diversion routes; increased incident access points and increased provision of incident response units together with enhanced interagency co-ordination to improve incident management. TII have also established a project team to manage the design and procurement of a system of Mandatory Variable Speed Limits for the M50 and will progress this project in 2017.