Madam, - The report "Fix traffic lights to favour trams, says transport chief" ( The Irish Times, June 9th) gives the impression that there is no link between the trams and traffic signals at junctions throughout Dublin city. This is completely untrue.
All of the traffic signals under Dublin City Council control, on both red and green Luas lines, have been provided with a link between the tram system and the traffic signals since day one of tram operation. Not only does the computer-controlled traffic-light system (SCATS) detect the tram, it knows what type of priority it is requesting, and it detects it at three separate points on its approach to each junction. It also detects when the tram has successfully cleared a junction.
The traffic signals are set to provide high, medium, or low priority for the tram and indeed at 95 per cent of junctions the tram is afforded full priority. The time-saving per tram journey as a result of this connection is calculated to be about 10 minutes' journey time on the red line and five minutes on the green line.
Dublin City Council is surprised that the Dublin Transportation Office is unaware that the tram-to- traffic signal linking was designed and commissioned as an integral part of the Luas project and has always been operational on all Luas traffic signal junctions. Staff at both Dublin City Council and the Railway Procurement Agency spent considerable time and resources setting up this system and it is closely monitored to ensure it is working as well as possible.
Both agencies liaise weekly to ensure that any problems are quickly identified and resolved.
The Regional Traffic Control Room operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week. At peak times representatives from Dublin Bus and the AA are present and Dublin City Radio Station broadcasts live from the control room. In addition it is directly linked to the Garda Traffic Unit.
The traffic control system in Dublin is one of the most comprehensive and up-to-date in the world and the method of enabling tram priority in Dublin has been widely studied by other cities both in Europe and further afield. All future Luas lines will also have the tram system linked to the traffic signals as standard.
- Yours etc,
MICHEAL PHILLIPS, Director of Traffic, Dublin City Council, Wood Quay, Dublin 8.