Has the Department examined international best practice in public transport app design? Are lessons from other jurisdictions are being considered in the digital strategy for TFI?

Sentiment score: 0.32

The Minister of State highlighted some of the issues. Deputy Currie also highlighted the issue of ghost buses and the unreliability of the app. Deputy Timmins also highlighted this issue as well. It is also very frustrating that there is not one single accessible platform. There are effectively five different apps that people might find themselves having to interact with to plan their journey. There is the journey planner, a taxi driver database and the Leap top-up. It is really extraordinarily complicated, particularly for someone who is new to it or not digitally savvy, for whatever reason. Addressing this type of issue really needs to be important if we are going to encourage people to rely on public transport and give up their car and move to public transport. Even if it is only part of their journey and they do use other forms of transportation, if that part of the journey becomes unreliable, and people cannot rely on or navigate the apps, all of these things will be barriers to trying to get these transformations and modal shifts.

Sentiment score: 0.06

I am delighted to hear the comments are being taken on board. At the moment, we expect we might have to hop off a bus and onto a Luas or a DART, but we have to hop between applications as well to do it. This is not something that makes it easy for people to use our public transportation network. I appreciate the Minister of State's comments about the regional providers as well and that he is looking to include them more in terms of an overall bus network so we are not hopping between different apps. From the users' perspective, they believe there should all be one seamless process and they should not have to try to figure out who is providing which service to know how to access it. I welcome the Minister of State's comments and look forward to developments on this matter.

Sentiment score: 0.40

85. Deputy Maeve O'Connell asked the Minister for Transport if analysis has been completed to study the way in which or if the completion of active travel projects have had a material effect on the carbon emissions of commuters in County Dublin, or across the country. [63312/25]

Sentiment score: 0.13

I ask the Minister for Transport if any analysis has been conducted on the completion of active travel projects and, in particular, any impact they may have had on the carbon emissions of commuters in Dublin or across the country.

Sentiment score: 0.40

My constituency of Dublin-Rathdown has seen significant change during the past five years through the development of active travel greenways and other similar schemes. Over €80 million has been spent, with €29 million allocated in 2025 alone, to support the various commitments in the national sustainable mobility policy to get people out of cars to walk and cycle instead, as well as the climate action plan which aims to reduce transport emissions overall. Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, of which I was a member, led the way on these schemes. Kilometres of lanes have been built, concrete and plastic dividers have been installed, junctions have been narrowed, filter lanes have been removed, roads have been closed and new traffic lights and traffic sequences have been installed. After five years of investment, and counting, we still do not really have any clarity as to whether this investment is actually delivering because we do not really know whether our emissions have been reduced. We have estimates and surveys but have we actually done the assessment before all of these things were implemented, and afterwards, to see whether the emissions were actually reduced?

Sentiment score: 0.25

I appreciate that the Minister of State and I seem to be singing off the same hymn sheet. I attended one of the original proposal meetings on what are now called "active travel schemes" back in 2020. The overseeing consultants assured us then that traffic would just disappear if we implemented these schemes. The only real, empirical report I am aware of is on Kilmacud after new cycle lanes, road closures and various other infrastructure were implemented. It showed traffic did not disappear but was just displaced, with increased rat-running car speeds. After that particular scheme, there was actually less walking and cycling in the area. Anecdotally, my constituents in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown report that they are making longer journeys than they did five years ago. For example, a constituent recently highlighted to me that when doing the big family shop, her 3 km car journey from Dunnes Stores in Cornelscourt took her 45 minutes. One possible consequence of a lot of these investments has been increased motor vehicle congestion. I accept some people are definitely walking and cycling more. I know that from anecdotal evidence from constituents as well. However, others are driving more and taking longer journeys. My question, therefore, is whether overall emissions are up or down.

Sentiment score: 0.22

If we cannot say, do not know or do not know yet, then do we know if we are pouring good money after bad?

Sentiment score: -0.15