Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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18. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the measures he plans to put in place to ensure that local bus services will not be undermined, affecting the elderly, disabled and most vulnerable with the new plans for BusConnects from the NTA; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [37720/18]

Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent)
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As the Deputy is aware, the NTA supported by Dublin Bus have embarked on a process of full public consultation of BusConnects proposals, involving local brochures, local face to face events organised at various locations around the city, digital imaging of the network, on-line surveys and consultation with user groups. They are both in listening mode to people who have suggestions as to how these plans can be made even better.  The public consultation process will run until 28th September and presents a great opportunity for people to have their say before the plans are finalised by the NTA. The NTA expect to publish the finding from the public consultation phase before the year end.

As part of the consultation process, I am advised that the NTA has also engaged with disability groups, facilitated by the National Disability Authority, with regard to the BusConnects proposals. The NTA understand that the issue of interchange is more difficult for elderly people and people with disabilities.  Accordingly, it intends to make changes between services as seamless as possible and they are planning that each key interchange location will have a bus shelter, seating, lighting and passenger information.  Where bus routes intersect at a junction, the bus stops will be moved as close as possible to the junction to minimise any walking required during the bus interchange, and pedestrian crossings will be added where necessary.

Recent reports show that approximately 70% of people travelling into Dublin city each morning do so by sustainable transport. Well over half of all the public transport trips are by bus; some 136 million passenger journeys annually.  It is no surprise then that Bus is the main component of the planned approach to addressing our current congestion problem and to meeting our future transport needs.

As those numbers grow, and as congestion worsens, it is becoming increasingly difficult to operate a reliable bus system with sufficient capacity to cater for the needs of the region. On the busiest bus routes, bus lanes are only in place for less than one third of the corridor.  This means that for most of the journey, buses are competing for space with general traffic and so are also affected by the increasing levels of congestion.

BusConnects Dublin aims to overhaul the current bus system in the Dublin region by:

- building a network of new bus corridors on the busiest bus routes to make bus journeys for passengers faster, predictable and reliable;

- completely redesigning the network of bus routes to provide passengers with a more efficient network, connecting more places and carrying more people;

- developing a state-of-the-art ticketing system using credit and debit cards or mobile phones to link with payment accounts and making payment much more convenient for the travelling public;

- implementing a cashless payment system to vastly speed up passenger boarding times;

- revamping the fare system to provide a simpler fare structure;

- allowing seamless movement for passengers between different public transport services, without financial penalty;

- implementing a new bus livery providing a modern look and feel to the new bus system;

- rolling out new bus stops with better signage and passenger information, and increasing the provision of additional bus shelters; and

- transitioning - starting now - to a new bus fleet using low-emission vehicle technologies.

Last month the National Transport Authority (NTA) published the “Dublin Area Bus Network Redesign Public Consultation Report”. This report notes that the existing bus network in Dublin is very complex, is designed primarily around overlapping and long radial routes taking people into the city centre, but with very few orbital routes. Recent improvements to the rail and tram networks require changes to the bus services to exploit their full potential. Finally the city is growing and changing as are the bus journeys people are taking.

The report identifies 4 key strategies to address the issues with the current network: standardise service categories; simplify radial services; build frequent orbitals and grow suburban feeder networks.

While there will be concerns with any change, these strategies will deliver many benefits for the customer; much simpler city services; much simpler fare structure; provide more frequent all day services through new and frequent orbital services interchanging with local services and high frequency radial spines.

Under these proposals, an overall increase in services of 27% is expected, which as far as customers are concerned, can only be a good thing. The NTA estimate that  of people who currently have a direct service to the city centre about 92% will continue to have a direct service under the new bus proposals.  

To conclude, it is envisaged that BusConnects will deliver a bus system that will enable more people to travel by bus than ever before, support the elderly and people with disabilities in their travel,  and allow bus commuting to become a viable and attractive choice for employees, students, shoppers and visitors.