Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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71. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport his plans to alleviate the pressure in view of severe overcrowding on public transport in Dublin; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [45655/18]

Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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73. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport if his attention has been drawn to the significant overcrowding on the DART network; and the steps he is taking to alleviate this issue. [45631/18]

Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 71 and 73 together.

Public transport passenger numbers have increased in recent years reflecting broader economic and employment growth. The NTA’s recent Bus & Rail Statistics bulletin shows over 250 million passenger journeys were provided nationally last year on public obligation services provided by the transport operators.

I welcome these increases, and I have no doubt the Deputy does too, as we all want more people to use public transport and/or active travel in terms of how they make journeys to work, school or leisure.

But obviously increased passenger numbers presents challenges in terms of ensuring appropriate levels of service and infrastructure to deal with the increases.

And we are working to ensure those appropriate levels of service and infrastructure and I am supporting those efforts through the increases in funding I have secured in successive Budgets.

There have been some notable additions to the public transport landscape in Dublin in recent years –

- We’ve increased rail capacity and services by re-opening the Phoenix Park Tunnel to commuter services;

- We’ve opened the new Luas CrossCity last December which has added around 10 million passenger journeys to the network;

- We’ve expanded the PSO bus fleet by around 17% in recent years which means more capacity and more services for passengers;

- We’ve introduced 10-minute DART services which has again increased services across the network.

In the coming months we will see further improvements to DART services through some service adjustments and the elimination of 4-car train sets during peak time, while we’ll also see enhanced off-peak services on the Kildare, Northern and Maynooth lines.

So there have been improvements and those improvements have been welcomed by the travelling public as evidenced by the numbers using them.

But I know we need to continue to improve so that’s why the increased funding I have secured for the period 2018 to 2021 will see further improvements as outlined in the NDP.

Those improvements include –

- The procurement of additional rail fleet in the short term, with the potential for acquiring second-hand rail fleet either through lease or purchase currently being explored;

- The provision of both extended and new trams on the Luas network;

- The continued renewal and expansion of the bus fleet under BusConnects;

- The provision of next generation bus corridors under BusConnects;

- The significant expansion of the rail fleet in the medium term as part of the DART Expansion programme, with a procurement notice to issue by year end; and

- The continued development of MetroLink, with construction expected to start in 2021.

In addition there have been increases already announced to services across the Dublin Bus network with more expected in the coming months which will result in significantly improved frequencies across 25 routes on the Company’s network.

As the Deputy can see, there are a number of immediate, short, medium and longer-term measures underway which are designed to design with the increased numbers of passengers availing of our public transport network.

These measures are underpinned by the significantly improved funding I have secured in recent Budgets as reflected in the €8.6billion allocated to public transport under the National Development Plan.