Delivering an efficient and accessible public transport system is essential to the daily lives of working people across Dublin city and to meeting our climate objectives. The case for public transport speaks for itself. Every single full bus takes 80 cars off the roads, reducing emissions by over 90% and freeing up 300 m of roadway. Week after week, however, I hear from northsiders that they have simply given up taking the bus, not because they do not want to use it but because they cannot afford to trust it. They cannot rely on it daily. Citizens are experiencing frequent no-shows, last-minute cancellations and long gaps between buses. We still hear on an ongoing basis of ghost buses, services that appear as due on the TFI Live app and on the displays but never arrive. How can we expect commuters to shift to public transport when they are plagued by issues every day? I have spoken about this in the Chamber before, but this situation has become so commonplace in Baile Átha Cliath that a website called buscancellationsdublin.eu has started pulling together the data on cancelled buses. In any other sector or walk of life, this would not be acceptable. Northsiders are just trying to get on with their daily lives, yet they are being let down time and again by Dublin Bus and the National Transport Authority, NTA. The delays cause real distress. People are missing work and medical appointments and struggling to get to childcare commitments. I understand from the CEO of Dublin Bus, Billy Hann, that a new next generation automatic vehicle location, NGAVL, system will be piloted in September. This cannot come soon enough, and I really welcome it. As Mr. Hann has acknowledged, the title “real-time passenger information” is effectively misleading, as the system now is just a countdown from when the bus leaves the depot, with no ability to respond to what happens en route to the bus stop. The next generation AVL system must provide passengers with the reassurance they need and deserve while waiting for a public transport service. The long list of issues I hear concerning the 73, 130 and 15 bus routes in my constituency are underpinned by the simple fact that commuters cannot trust that their bus will even show up. When a service is delayed or full, that is frustrating, but when it does not show up at all, with no explanation and no update, that really undermines public confidence in the system and in public transport as a whole. We cannot settle for this standard of service that people have been forced to tolerate in the last few years. This is even more relevant in the current climate and in the current energy crisis, with the pressure on fuels. It is an opportunity, at one level, to get people out of cars and onto public transport. If we are serious about our climate targets and about building a country where an carr a fhágáil sa bhaile is a genuine choice rather than a gamble, then public transport must be reliable enough from the first minute in the morning to the last minute at night.

Sentiment score: -0.11

Go raibh maith agat. I welcome the confirmation that the NTA is taking the issue seriously and progressing plans to modernise the existing system. I welcome the fact it looks at it weekly and has a structure in place in this regard. One thing that does concern me is that at the moment we are very reliant on the operators to share data and to push it into the system. I hope that in the new setup that will happen automatically, rather than there being a reliance on various operators to release data into the system. As much of that process as possible should be automated so that the end user is getting the data without even having to think about it and without having any dependency on an operator, whoever it is. The 73 bus service, which I mentioned earlier, was originally the 123 Imp service. These were smaller yellow and red buses that used to run in and out of the city centre. It was a hugely popular service on the north side. The NTA took a decision to give it to a new operator and rename it the 73 in the autumn of last year. There are ongoing issues with that service. We are awaiting detailed information on the performance of the route from the NTA since early March. We have clarified what we are looking for but we are still waiting for that information. This service is a vital one for that part of the north side. I want to keep it on the agenda until the service works for local citizens. I ask that the Minister of State give the NTA a nudge to publish that information and get it back to us.

Sentiment score: 0.16