Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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As Minister for Transport, I have responsibility for policy and overall funding in relation to public transport; however, I am not involved in the day-to-day operations of public transport. The National Transport Authority (NTA) has statutory responsibility for securing the provision of public passenger transport services nationally, and for decisions in relation to these services in conjunction with the relevant transport operators.

I fully acknowledge that there have been issues with certain bus services in Dublin in recent months, which must be incredibly frustrating for users. These issues were exasperated by the ongoing challenges the public transport sector is facing in the recruitment of both mechanics and drivers. However, I am advised the due to the extensive driver recruitment campaigns undertaken by the operators, this is becoming less of an issue.

I want to assure the Deputy that the NTA is working closely with operators, including Dublin Bus and Go-Ahead, to address these service issues.

It should also be noted that the performance of public transport operators is monitored by the NTA as part of the contractual arrangements in place between it and the operators. These contractual arrangements allow for not just the monitoring of performance and the publication of annual performance reports, but importantly, they also allow for the imposition of financial penalties where performance does not meet the required standard.

In light of the NTA’s responsibility in this area, I have forwarded the Deputy's question to the NTA for direct reply. Please advise my private office if you do not receive a response within ten working days.

Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein)
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92. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport his views on the frequent issue of ghost buses and no shows across the fleets; the steps that have been taken to date to counteract this; and to give an update on any measures already implemented. [13048/24]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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As Minister for Transport, I have responsibility for policy and overall funding in relation to public transport; however, I am not involved in the day-to-day operations of public transport. The National Transport Authority (NTA) has statutory responsibility for securing the provision of public passenger transport services nationally and for the scheduling and timetabling of these services in conjunction with the relevant transport operators.

I understand that the data displayed in the TFI Live app is provided directly by the bus operators and that it is the responsibility of the operators to provide accurate vehicle location data relating to all their services. This data is provided by the on-bus AVL (Automatic Vehicle Location) system which records the position of the bus as it proceeds on its route and generates predicted arrival times for each bus stop.

The NTA TFI Live app receives this data from the bus operator and publishes it in the app. The issue of a bus service being displayed in the app but not showing up at the stop is typically caused by the operator not cancelling that service in their AVL system if that service is not being operated (for example, due to a shortage of drivers). TFI Live cannot display a service as cancelled if it has not received the appropriate cancellation message from the operator and as a result it reverts to showing the timetabled time that the bus is due to arrive at a stop.

In light of the NTA's responsibility in this area, I have referred the Deputy's question to the NTA for direct reply. Please advise my private office if you do not receive a reply within ten working days.