Passenger growth on redesigned bus services related to the BusConnects project in Dublin is “far higher” than on services where no change has been made, the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) will be told.
Representatives of the National Transport Authority (NTA) are to appear before the committee on Thursday to be quizzed on BusConnects and the organisation’s 2022 financial statements.
BusConnects is the major project to improve bus services in Ireland’s cities.
In Dublin, the NTA has sought permission for 12 dedicated bus lanes as part of the programme to overhaul the capital’s bus system.
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A network redesign linked to the BusConnects project has seen increased frequency of buses and more evening and weekend services with changes made to routes in five areas so far.
Phase 1 included a redesign of routes on the northside including places like Howth and Malahide while Phase 2 included services in Maynooth and Lucan.
Phase 3 includes northern orbital routes serving areas such as Blanchardstown and Finglas while Phase 4 covers Ballyfermot and Clondalkin among other areas.
Phase 5a of the network redesign includes orbital routes serving areas including Tallaght, Liffey Valley and Blanchardstown.
The NTA’s opening statement for the PAC meeting outlines how the network redesign continued in 2022 and adds that: “passenger growth on the new BusConnects services is far higher than the services where no change has been made.”
Accompanying briefing documents say that passenger boardings in the last quarter of 2023 have increased by 26 per cent on routes included in phases 1 to 5a of the network redesign, compared to equivalent routes that were in place in the last quarter of 2019.
It adds: “By way of comparison, passenger boardings in Q4 2023 on Dublin metropolitan bus routes that have not yet been altered in the redesigned network were 2 per cent higher than in Q4 2019.”
The document adds: “Assuming the ‘excess’ growth rate of approximately 24 per cent experienced on Network Redesign Phase 1- 5a routes compared to the rest of the bus network were replicated over a full year, it is estimated that an additional 9.7 million passenger boardings could be expected as a result of these route changes.”
The NTA’s opening statement to the PAC says that 2022 “was a year of huge significance for the Authority as we guided the public transport system from a [pandemic-related] mini-lockdown in January to levels of passenger demand that hadn’t been seen since pre-Covid by the end of the year.”
It also notes the 20 per cent reduction in all public transport fares and fare cuts of 50 per cent for young adults saying these measures “have made a significant contribution in encouraging people back to using public transport services.”
The opening statement adds: “In fact Ireland was an outlier in Europe in terms of the speed of recovery of its passenger numbers and now well exceeds pre-Covid passenger numbers on our bus and light rail services.”
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