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Joint Committee on Public Enterprise and Transport

Report on

Evaluation of Dublin Transport Policy

April 2002

Evaluation of Dublin Transport Policy

Index

Appendix - Comments from interested parties on draft report

Joint Committee on Public Enterprise and Transport

Report on Evaluation of Dublin Transport Policy

Foreword

The Joint Committee on Public Enterprise is a Joint Committee of both Houses of the Oireachtas. On 27 June 2001, the Joint Committee appointed Richard Bruton, T.D., to examine Dublin transport issues with the following terms of reference:-

“Building on the Joint Committee’s previous assessments of (i) the preferred model for opening up competition for public bus services in Dublin and (ii) the preferred model for co-ordination of the development of the entire transport system, to conduct an assessment of the adequacy of existing policy

•For traffic management in Dublin

•For promoting a modal shift from private car to public transport or other transport modes

•For promoting competition in public transport services

•For selecting and funding new route development in public transport.

The study will seek to make recommendations

•For short term initiatives to improve the operation of Dublin’s transport system

•On the Government’s proposed new institutional arrangements for land use and transport in the greater Dublin area

•On the methods whereby the public could receive regular performance information on the effectiveness of the different elements of the transport system and hold the system accountable.”

The Joint Committee is grateful to Deputy Bruton for the work he has undertaken as rapporteur in the preparation of this report. The Joint Committee, on Deputy Bruton’s behalf, would like to thank all those who met with him during the course of his research in the area. Because of time constraints, it was not possible to include comment in this report on the subsequent written views, received from these and other interested parties, that were sought by the Joint Committee when the report was in draft form but these views are attached as an appendix.

Sean Doherty, T.D.

Chairman

Executive Summary

Dublin is a low density city sprawled over a wide area. Little effort has been made over the years to integrate a Transport strategy with the patterns of commercial and residential development.

There has been little coherence within transport policy in Dublin. It has been hindered by the large number of independent players (four Ministers, seven local authorities, the Garda and the CIÉ Group, the monopoly provider of all public transport).

Public transport has been losing its share of peak hour traffic steadily. Bus has been particularly affected and its share has fallen from 25% in 1991 to just 16% now.

In the past six years alone, car ownership in Dublin is up 35% and car travel by 40%. Suburban rail passenger growth has almost grown by 40%matched this as a result of new services, but bus use has languished, with only 5% passenger growth despite the boom years.

In the past ten years alone, extra journey times have occupied 21 million extra manhours of commuter’s time. This represents a monetary loss of €300 million. Congestion costs affect much more than the peak hour commuters and the overall cost of congestion in Dublin is exhausted at €200 million.

Since 1995, the subvention to Dublin bus has increased tenfold from €5 million to €52 million. While this is still low by European standards, it is not clear that this huge growth in subvention has been matched by any improved social benefits to justify the taxpayer’s contribution.

Quality Bus Corridors have been a major disappointment. While they secured an increase in passengers on the corridor, this was through a direct switch of passengers from other sections of the network. Even with the priority given to buses, peak hour passengers have been stagnant since 1998. QBCs have inflicted substantial losses on Dublin Bus.

The biggest failure of Dublin Transport Strategy is in the area of implementation. While the need for policy changes are articulated, the system has shown no capacity to deliver. Among the examples are –

•Bus competition

•Integrated ticketing

•Park & Ride

•Control of road openings

•Real Time Information systems

•Commercial vehicle delivery times

•Taxi service.

Responsibility is scattered or misplaced. Conflicting turfs, excessive influence of incumbents, and a lack of appropriate powers have all hampered progress.

Improved management of parking has been a significant success.

The Dublin Transport Strategy does not have sufficient democratic legitimacy. Many important decisions are taken by agencies that have no specific Dublin mandate. Key agencies have at best token public representation. Accountability is almost entirely lacking.

Recommendations

Major reform is recommended to develop Dublin Transport Strategy over the coming decades -

1.A Dublin Transport Authority should be immediately put in place to oversee –

•Traffic management

•The regulation of public transport (bus and rail)

•The development of better utilisation policies

•Infrastructural development and

•Enforcement

2.It would be wrong to delay the needed Dublin Transport Authority while the complex issue of integrating long-term land use planning within the agency is being resolved

3.The Authority should be an executive agency with a small Board drawn from individuals with relevant experience. It should not have a Board drawn from representative groups

4.The Authority should be accountable to Council of Dublin Public Representatives, which in time could become a directly elected Body with certain reserved functions

5.Under the Authority, the remit of the Director of Traffic should be extended to the Greater Dublin Area

6.Under the Authority, a Dublin Traffic Corps should be established with the responsibility for enforcement

7.The Authority should rapidly develop uniformed citywide policies that can help secure better utilisation of available road space

8.Tolling traffic entering the city is inappropriate at this stage while the public transport alternatives are so poorly developed. However, the power to implement congestion charges should be given to the Authority

9.Congestion charges should be part of a policy for the better regulation of utilities opening the roads, for managing commercial delivery times and for managing the timing of port traffic, in order to reduce peak hour disruption

10.Bus priority, while clearly justified, cannot be blindly applied at all times and in all cases. Criteria must be developed under which buses would demonstrate their worth in public policy terms by their performance. These criteria would be used to determine the hours of operation of bus lanes

11.On lower usage Quality Bus Corridors, hackneys and car pools that contain at least 4 people in the car should be allowed to use the bus lane.

12.Tax relief from income tax and PRSI which currently is available for public transport fares under employer organised schemes should apply to all commuters

13.The Dublin Transport Authority should fund the cost of Real Time Information, Park & Ride facilities, and integrated ticketing. All bus stops should be their property

14.Travel on buses between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. should be free of charge.

15.An interim Public Transport Regulator should be immediately appointed, who would open up at least 20% of the existing Dublin Bus routes for competitive tender on a gross cost contract basis

16.Information on the passenger usage and route frequency of every service in the network should be immediately published

17.At the time of taxi licensing, specific hours of availability should be clearly stipulated in the licence to enable better daylong availability to taxis

18.Every public agency operating within the transport system in Dublin should have clear performance indicators, which would be regularly monitored. Agencies should account directly to a council of elected Dublin public representatives.

1. Background

The character of Dublin City has had a huge bearing on its transport patterns. Dublin is a low density City, which has sprawled out over a very wide area. Its system of development planning has been quite haphazard. Little effort has been made over the years to integrate a Transport Strategy with the patterns of commercial and residential development. We have had developer-led patterns of development which have favoured new greenfield development rather than consolidation or rejuvenation of brown field sites.

This pattern has made it very difficult to provide high quality public transport. It has promoted long routes with low patronage, which militates against reliable high frequency services. The public transport system has been largely bus based. It has continued to be provided on a monopoly basis by a State owned company. Until recently, competition was not even permitted for taxi services.

The coherence of transport policy in Dublin has been hindered by a framework that has dispersed responsibility among a large number of independent players. At Cabinet level, four Ministers (Justice, Environment, Public Enterprise and Tourism) are directly involved in policy making. There are four separate local Dublin authorities responsible for traffic management and roads, and beyond them the three neighbouring authorities of Meath, Kildare, and Wicklow. The Garda have a key role not only in enforcement, but in traffic management, as well as in the licensing of taxis and hackneys.

Even in public transport that is delivered by a monopoly parent company there is little integration. Bus and rail do not have common stations. There are few feeder services. Integrated fares do not operate. Fares and routes are set by the Minister for Public Enterprise. Subventions are set by the CIÉ Board with no transparent connection with social objectives. Quick response to changing needs have not been promoted.

Not surprisingly, coherence of transport policy has been the major casualty. In the 1980s, a Dublin Transport Authority was established, to be promptly abolished by the new succeeding Government. In 1994 the Dublin Transport Initiative began the development of a strategy to try to put some coherence into planning and policy development. The Dublin Transport Office has created a more formal structure for this work with a Steering Committee comprising of representatives of the Department, the local authorities and the Garda. It has been an uphill task.

2. Recent Trends

2.1 Traffic Trends

In the decade from 1991 to 2001, the number of Dublin registered private cars in use grew by 58% from 243,000 to 385,000. In the past five years alone new car sales almost trebled and the total number of vehicles in Dublin has grown by over 30% and will shortly reach ½ million. In the adjoining counties of Meath, Kildare and Wicklow, the growth in car ownership has been even faster averaging almost 45% in the last five years. Even with this rapid growth, car ownership in Ireland is still about 10% short of the European average.

Total morning travel is estimated by the DTO to have growth by 66% between 1991-99, rising from 279,000 to 462,000 trips. Just over 60% of theses were in the peak hour. Traffic growth has been accelerating and in the period 1995-2001 total journeys look likely to have grown by over 40%.

By contrast the growth in use of public transport services has been relatively slow. Despite the boom between 1995 and 2001, the average daily passengers using public transport services only grew by 11%. Peak hour passengers probably grew by 12-13%.

Table 1 - New Vehicle Registration (000)

* 8 months grossed up

Table 2 - Total vehicles in use (000)

Table 3 - % share of morning peak journeys

2.2 Vehicle Speeds and Modal Splits

The last major study of transport modes in 1997 showed that the modal split of morning peak hour vehicle journeys in the city was 72% by car, more than 2½ times the 28% share taking public transport. In the six years 1991-97 the public transport share had fallen from 36%. To judge from the growth in car ownership and total journeys at a rate at least three times faster than the growth in bus and rail passengers, it is to be expected that public transport has lost a further three to five points in market share to the car user since 1997. Indeed this trend is borne out by data from the Household Budget Survey 1996-2000 quoted by the ERSI. Well over three quarters of commuters are now turning their backs on public transport despite a strong public policy effort to promote it.

The 1997 study also provided analysis of vehicle speeds on thirteen different corridors covering 166 kilometres. In 1997, the average vehicle speed in the morning peak was 14 kilometres per hour. This covered a range between the fastest and the slowest of 11-20 kilometres per hour. Dublin City Council monitors average commuter time on 20 routes. This data suggests that car journey time has fallen by a further 3km per hour since 1997 to about 11km per hour in 2001. The average speed was 18km per hour in 1991.

Average commuting journeys are over 30 minutes at present. The extra commuting time for the average commuter since 1991 is 12-15 minutes morning and evening. With just over 200,000 peak hour car commuters, this suggests a loss of 87,000 man-hours per day due to added congestion. Over a year this is 21million man-hours. In money terms this time loss is worth €300 million if valued at the average wage. Congestion costs, of course, affect far more than peak hour commuters. It is now almost day long and imposes huge costs on businesses, on Dublin buses and on the entire community. Total congestion costs in the city are currently estimated by the DTO to be in the order of €2,000 million per year.

Dublin City Council also collects annual data on journey times for both buses and cars on the main routes into the city where there are Quality Bus Corridors. Unfortunately it does not provide information on the impact of QBCs on the number of car journeys or the overall person trips on the corridor after the QBC. This material is only available since 1999. It shows considerably higher average vehicle speeds than the 1997 Survey. This is possibly due to the survey time 7 a.m. – 10 a.m., which spans by a wide margin the most congested times. This data provides some quite surprising results –

•The travel speeds for both buses and cars in the morning peak are faster than the earlier evidence

•Car speeds in both the morning peak inbound and the evening peak outbound appear to be improving (suggesting that the arrival of bus lanes, while it may ration the number of cars, actually increases their speed once they enter the corridor)

•Bus speeds (which in this exercise exclude dwell times at the bus stops) are still slower than speeds for the average car (suggesting that even bus priority will struggle to attract people to abandon their cars)

•Bus speeds are only marginally improving on these corridors despite the continuing efforts on many of them to improve bus priority.

Dublin City Council also conducts inner cordon counts each year in November. In the period 1996 to 2000, this data displays erratic patterns. There doesn’t appear to be any major growth either in persons entering the city centre or vehicles entering the city centre. A number of features do, however, stand out –

•While bus numbers are rising decisively, they are actually losing share of total persons entering the city

•The average occupancy of cars entering the city is low averaging just over 1.25 persons per car, and shows no sign of increasing

•The number of motor cyclists entering the city is rising but pedal cyclists are at best static

•Walking is steadily in the increase

•Commercial vehicles are fairly stable with 3000 entering the inner cordon during the morning peak, twice the number of buses.

Table 4 - Bus and car speeds on QBCs

Source: Dublin City Council (8 QBCs)

Note: For buses, it excludes dwell time at bus stops.

Table 5 – Inner-cordon counts

Dublin City Council uses passenger car unit (PCU) conversions when converting these vehicle numbers to traffic volume measures

Bus = 2 PCUs

Car = 1 PCU

Commercial vehicle = 2 PCUs

Pedal cycle = 1/3 PCU

Motor cycle= ½ PCU

Note to table:

Neither bus nor rail passenger data have been supplied to Dublin City Council since 1999. In 1999, the absolute number of passengers in both bus and rail were down on 1996, despite a growth in bus numbers of 20%. The shares of persons entering the cordon for bus was down to 23.9 and for rail down to 10.8, a loss of 2.6 points.

3 Policies and Performance

3.1 Public Transport

In Dublin, the bus is still the dominant mode of public transport. Bus services carry half a million passengers per day compared to under 120,000 on DART or suburban rail. The system is over 80% bus based.

Table 6 – Daily passenger usage of Public Transport in Dublin

Source: Dáil Parliamentary Question (December 2001)

Dublin Bus

The performance of Dublin Bus in the past six years 1995-2001 has been far from impressive –

•Total passenger use has only grown by just over 5%

•By contrast, the total size of its fleet grew by 25% and the passenger capacity of its fleet by 30%

•The average daily passenger use of each seat fell from 7.7 passenger per seat to just 6.2 – a 20% fall in utilisation rates

•Stagnant revenue and rising costs has had a severe impact on its financial performance. The public subvention to Dublin Bus grew substantially from under €5 million in 1995 to €52 million in 2001

•The subvention per passenger carried increased ten fold from 2.6 cents to 26 cents. It is equivalent to 34% of the current average passenger fare of 62 cents. This is much higher than the subvention rate of Bus Éireann.

The performance in the last six years is in sharp contrast with the performance during the early 1990s. In that period, the subvention was sharply cut from €19million to €5 million while passenger numbers grew at double the rate.

To be fair to Dublin Bus, it has been dogged by conflicting public objectives –

•Historically it has had to fund its bus fleet replacement from revenue sources

•It has been dependent on Government decisions on fare increases, which have not reflected rising costs

•The decision of Government to fund an expanded fleet to support the provision of Quality Bus Corridors has created an even greater peak hour spike in its passenger patterns which undermines financial performance.

It is easy to understand the frustration Dublin Bus executives when they ask what is the government mandate for Dublin Bus. Clearly, a very different strategy would be followed if the company were seeking to maximise the stock market value of the company, compared to a strategy of seeking to maximise the level of public transport usage in the city. It has suffered from this lack of a clear mandate from government.

That having been said, Dublin Bus cannot be exonerated from the poor performance in recent years. It has struggled to respond to the public’s needs. It has not demonstrated great flexibility or innovation. It continues to conceal public information on the performance of individual routes. It has undoubtedly suffered severely from congestion and the longer journey times that have affected the whole city. However, it has failed to capitalise on the additional bus priority measures afforded to it. It is particularly disappointing to find that the number of passengers using bus services in the morning peak has been virtually unchanged since 1998.

Table 7 - Subvention to Dublin Bus

* Services were disrupted in 2000 due to industrial disputes

Table 8 – Comparison of Passenger Subventions (2001)

Suburban Rail

Suburban rail (where available) has been much more attractive to the average commuter than bus. It has been able to attract a substantially higher share of commuters on its corridor than the bus. However, it too has been affected by the low-density patterns of Dublin development. Recent performance has been patchy –

•Total passenger growth in the past five years is impressive at over 42%. This reflects the opening up of new suburban lines

•Overall the network is limited. Even with its impressive growth it still accounts for less than 20% of public transport passengers

•Utilisation of capacity is even lower than for the bus with only 3.7 passengers per seat per day, down from 4.6 in 1995

•Subvention levels on the DART are much higher than on Dublin Bus at 70 cent per passenger (1999), which represents over 52% of the fare collected. However, in contrast to Dublin Bus, subvention rates on the DART halved between 1995 and 1999

Table 9 - Occupation rates of seat capacity

Bus Priority

A major feature of traffic management policy in recent years has been the installation of bus priority measures. Dublin Bus has provided information on the performance of seven of their Quality Bus Corridors. The frequency of buses along these corridors ranged from a bus every one minute to a bus every four minutes. A number of features stand out –

•The corridors attracted significantly more passengers overall up by 48% at peak hour

•In all but one of the corridors the increase in capacity provided by Dublin Bus far exceeded the increase in passenger carryings. Overall Dublin Bus increased its capacity on the seven corridors by 83% far in excess of the increase in passengers even at peak hour

•The Stillorgan Corridor stands out as the one with the single greatest impact, increasing passengers carryings by 180% albeit from a very low base

•The peak hour utilisation of the capacity is quite high. With the exception of North Clondalkin and the Malahide Road, 80% or more of the seating and standing room is occupied during peak hour.

Bearing in mind the overall static level of the peak hour carryings of Dublin Bus, the verdict on the Quality Bus Corridor initiative is disappointing. The corridors are carrying more passengers, but at the expense of losses of passengers elsewhere in the system. Even with extra buses the system has forced Dublin Bus to squeeze services elsewhere. The situation off peak is little better. There has been barely any discernible growth in bus use off peak. Off peak passengers demand is only half that at peak hour. The larger fleet has brought higher costs but no increase in passengers. Gearing up the fleet and the operations to service the corridors has undoubtedly been financially damaging to Dublin bus.

Table 10 - Impact of QBC on bus frequency and passengers

Source: Dublin Bus

Peak Hour is 7a.m. – 9.14a.m.

3.2 - International Comparisons of City Bus Services

Subvention Levels

The Department of Public Enterprise commissioned a study on comparative subvention levels for public transport systems in European cities from the Economic Department of UCD. They studied 122 cities across Europe in 1997. They found the following patterns in subvention levels -

•The countries with low subsidisation of public transport (under 10% of total costs) included England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland and Norway

•The countries with high subsidisation (60% or over) included Austria, Belgium, The Netherlands, and Italy. The other European countries had a broadly similar pattern of subvention at around 45%

•Looking across the cities, they found that the subsidisation rate did not show any consistent pattern related to the size of the city, but they did suggest that subsidisation for bus services tended to be higher where there were multiple public transport modes operating in the city

•It is very rare that an urban transport system depended on central government for its subvention, as is the case with Dublin Bus.

The consultants recommended that the issue of dependence on central government should be examined as an important one for public transport policy. The consultants also recommended in a significant passage that far greater information should be available on how the current subvention is allocated both between the three CIÉ companies and within Dublin Bus itself.

The Department of Public Enterprise does not obtain access to detailed costings, route ridership and service characteristic of Dublin Buses routes or access to information about the pattern of subvention level between routes. The Department takes the view that it sets an overall level for the subvention to the CIÉ Group of companies based on submissions on costs, anticipated needs and planned expansions in the public transport system. It is up to the CIÉ Board to decide how to allocate this between Dublin Bus, Bus Éireann and Iarnód Éireann. This is manifestly wrong. Public subsidies should be solely related to identified public benefits on particular routes. Instead the subsidy is being decided residually to cover whatever losses occur given the existing routes and fare structures. This system promotes dead weight subventions with no public benefits. On the contrary, it will often be declining passenger use that forces the taxpayer to pay more subventions. This is entirely perverse.

The consultants also presented detailed information about a selected eighteen European cities, which bore some similarities to Dublin in terms of population size and the size of the bus fleets. This data allows some comparison of bus patronage and of the utilisation of bus fleets across these European cities. These patterns reveal

•Contrary to what may be might have been expected, high rates of subvention of bus services show no high correlation with high patronage levels of bus services among the population at large, nor with lower occupancy levels of bus fleets, nor the overall length routes to be traversed

•The ownership of the bus fleet seems much more closely related to subvention patterns than any other indicator. The low subsidisation cities in the U.K typically have privately owned or mixed ownership bus fleets, whereas the high subsidisation cities are predominantly publicly owned fleets.

In many ways, Dublin stands out as an exception to the general pattern –

•Despite being entirely in public ownership, it had a low rate of public subvention at that time. Indeed it was one of the few transport services that depended entirely on its own resources at that time to fund its bus fleet

•Dublin Bus scored well on all indicators showing higher levels of bus patronage and better bus occupancy than was generally the case. No doubt this partly reflects the very poorly developed suburban rail options in Dublin, but it nonetheless contradicts any view that Dublin has a particularly inefficient bus service.

Since that study, the subvention level has gone from 4% of total costs to 25%. It is now moving closer to European patterns.

Table 11 – Key indicators of Bus performance on other European Cities

Source: Study by Economic Department, UCD, for Department of Public Enterprise

Alternative Competitive Models

The Public Transport Forum, a body comprising government, CIÉ and CIÉ unions, commissioned research into public transport models in nine separate cities. It ranged from those dominated by public authority provision like Toronto to those like Manchester which were predominately free markets.

The consultants indicated that a key lesson from the case studies was that the existence of a powerful Public Transport Authority is highly beneficial. The scope of such authority can range from –

•Setting framework conditions i.e. setting fares, funding minimum service levels, managing tenders for competitive services, coordination of routes, information service to

•More detailed control such as ownership of public transport vehicles.

The consultants strongly recommend the establishment of such a body in Dublin with its functions largely those of setting the framework for public transport.

The study indicates that the experience with monopoly public transport run by a public authority without competition differs dramatically across cities. In some like Toronto and Zurich it is seen to work well. In others it is seen to lead to high costs, poor cost recovery and a lack of customer orientation with little incentives to develop services. It notes that efficiency gains resulting from the introduction of competition are typically around 20%.

The consultants recommend introducing competition on the Dublin network. Competition can range from tendering out management of the entire network, to tendering out areas or tendering out individual routes or groups of routes. For Dublin, they favour a system where tenders for groups of routes would be made. They favour a system of gross cost contracts for these tenders with additional incentives for quality benchmarks and output incentives. Such a system means that the fare box remains the property of the licensing authority. Net cost contract by contrast involve tendering on the basis of the minimum subsidy demanded to operate the service. One of the main advantages of this model of competition is that it allows the Transport Authority to progressively develop the integration of the transport support system both in terms of route options, fare systems, and across modes.

The consultants also suggest that a Public Transport Authority in Dublin could take responsibility for determining service levels and fares on the suburban rail system (which now is in the hands of Iarnród Éireann). It could continue to allow Iarnród Éireann to provide these services under contract but in time tendering out the right to operate specific groups of rail services also.

The consultants draw attention to the problems for both those employed in transport companies and customers of an over rapid transition to a new system. They recommend careful management of a phased change under well-developed expertise in the Transport Authority.

3.3 Integration in Policy

One of the most consistent themes of criticism of Dublin transport policy is the very poor level of integration and the poor record on implementation –

•There is criticism of the structures of the Dublin Transport Office. Its steering group is to dominated by local authority officials. It has failed to develop effective implementation procedures on key elements of its strategy. The implementation of Quality Bus Corridors, of environmental traffic cells, of adjustments to rail platforms are all cited as examples where progress has fallen far behind schedule

•Discontinuity between the traffic management policies of the local authorities is another source of complaint. In practical terms, this is manifested in failure to integrate the sequencing of traffic signals, the lack of a systematic out of hours service covering the entire city, inconsistencies in skip regulations, vehicle removal, etc.

•Another problem is the lack of adequate policy to control the road opening activities of the well over 80 utilities with the rights to open roads and considerably disrupt traffic movements

•There has been excessive focus on designing engineering blueprints for the future development of the public transport infrastructure at the expense of developing practical policies to manage the long period before this infrastructure will be in place. Particular gaps in policy include –

-the lack of a policy for the marshalling and delivery of commercial goods and the movement of heavy goods vehicles

-the dispersed responsibility for ‘Park & Ride’ spread between public transport providers and local authorities, neither of which have the capacity to fund or implement them

-the lack of any policy to promote competition in public transport provision

-the lack of any coordination in taxi service

-the failure to implement much discussed ideas for integrated ticketing or for real time information

-the lack of a policy to promote cycling.

Investment in transport “hardware” will fail to deliver improvement if it is not matched with the adequate “software” of good practical transport policies.

The policy positions of different elements of the Dublin transport mix are often at cross purposes. The Dublin Transport Office has a very clear high level aim of developing an alternative to the car. Their vision is to create a mesh of public transport services that permit a ‘Walk & Ride’ as the primary form of travel. Not only does this presuppose substantial investment in public transport but also a new attitude to subvention of public transport, a new approach to the density of housing developments, a low priority to car movements. It is not clear that this policy has widespread support either from the public or from key agencies who have to be on board if it is to be delivered.

Clearly the Department of Finance has a very different attitude to subventions to public transport and promotes the rationing of investment in transport facilities. Local authorities have a much more pragmatic approach to the facilitation of traffic and commerce. Councils respond to community priorities regarding densities and patterns of development. In many ways the DTO has a highly political agenda but without the structures for political legitimacy and policy integration or powers to deliver the vision.

3.4 Traffic Management

There is still no integration of traffic management under a single Executive in Dublin. Each of the local authorities has discretion. However, in practice Dublin City’s Director of Traffic has a lead role. It is intended that he would take formal charge under recent government proposals.

Parking

The object of traffic management is to promote efficient utilisation of available road space and ensure that the business of the city is not hampered by excessive congestion. In recent years, some elements of road pricing have begun to emerge in Dublin’s traffic management policy. Within the canals virtually all of the free daylong parking has now been eliminated. Tiered parking charges are now in place, higher closer to the centre of the city. This system encourages rotation of available spaces. These provisions have been enforced by clamping, tow away and stiff fines. It has undoubtedly produced a high level of compliance.

The elimination of daylong parking has been successful. Parking charges have gradually increased over time. Sample surveys of motorist would suggest that parking behaviour is pretty unresponsive to price increases. A survey for the City Council suggests that 75% would not change their parking behaviour in response to a 50% increase in charge, and even 100% increase in charge would leave 66% with unchanged behaviour.

Since 1998, Dublin City Council has increased its parking charges by approximately 30%. Its income levels from parking charges and parking penalties has grown dramatically over that time as free spaces have been progressively eliminated. In 1997 total revenue was just €3.56 million, by 2001 this had grown to €21.6 million with over €3.8 million of it coming from clamping and towing revenue.

Free off-street parking in spaces owned by employers has so far not become the focus of public policy. The Director of Traffic estimates that there are 50,000 free employee off-street parking places within the canals. In other countries, such spaces have become subject to taxation or employers have been required to make employees an alternative cash offer in return for giving up the space.

With very low price elasticity of demand for parking, it is clearly possible for Dublin City Council to generate substantial revenue in this way. This revenue is currently earmarked for traffic management and traffic calming projects. Not surprisingly, there has been a burgeoning level of traffic calming schemes throughout the city. Much of this seems to grow in an ad-hoc way. There is a need to undertake a strategic view of the extent of traffic calming in the city and compare its welfare benefits to other measures that could be taken such as keeping basic surfaces in good condition.

Road Openings

One of the frustrations of traffic management policy is the lack of effective control over road openings. The local authority does have the power to stipulate the times at which road openings are carried out. It can set requirements in relation to reinstatement. However, the utilities have an absolute legal right to undertake the openings. The local authorities do not have the power to impose economic charges.

The Director of Traffic has made the case to government for power to charge for the use of under street capacity where services are laid, and also charge for the impact of road openings on congestion and additionally to charge where a surface has recently been reconstructed. The Director of Traffic also seeks power to impose extensive moritoria on new telecoms works on particular routes and an explicit statutory power to require additional ducting to be put in by utilities, which could facilitate the avoidance of similar excavation by other providers. Clearly this is an area where the proper balance has to be struck between the needs of road users and the economic benefits of improved telecoms infrastructures.

Taxi Service

The deregulation of taxis was finally imposed by the Courts when it ruled that the restrictions were unlawful. The quantitive restrictions in taxi plates, which were only introduced in the 1970s had by the late 1990s, created huge scarcity value in the plates. The idea that new licences would match growing public demand clearly was not implemented. Huge problems were manifested in queuing and long waiting time. Deregulation has resulted in the doubling of the number of plates in use. Many of these new operators are not new entrants, but have switched from “cosying” (i.e. driving a certain shift for a plate owner) or from a hackney plate.

Taxi travel is very concentrated at night time at the weekends. Taxis play a comparatively small role in daytime traffic despite the access to bus lanes.

Dublin City Council has surveyed passengers since deregulation. It suggests that users have only modest improvements in waiting times or availability. Almost 505 say the services have improved but 45% see no difference. Overall usage does not seem to have increased significantly.

Table 12 - Patterns of Taxi use

3.5 Road Pricing and Fare Strategy

Economic theory offers some guidance on the issue of road pricing and fare strategy. The aim should be that fares, and the total cost facing the private motorist are set in such a way that the social benefit of the last passenger (or car) joining the system should be exactly matched by social cost created by that passenger (car) involved. The implication of this is –

•Private motorists should face an additional charge to represent the additional pollution caused and the additional congestion caused over and above his or her private motoring costs

•Bus passengers by contrast should enjoy a subsidy reflecting the saving in pollution and congestion costs modified by the probability that the extra passenger has been generated by a decision to leave their car at home

•The congestion and pollution costs are much higher at peak hour suggesting lower bus fares at peak hour and higher road pricing at peak

•A contrary force tending to push up bus fares at peak hour is the much higher marginal cost of additional passenger at peak hour since it necessitates expanding the bus fleet which will be largely idle during the rest of the day

•Since the marginal costs of additional passengers off peak is very low, fares off peak should also be very low.

These economic principles seem to have little bearing on the strategy for setting fares and road pricing in Dublin.

Empirical research shows that demand in neither the public transport nor the car travel segment are particularly responsive to price. As a result pricing strategies have a very large impact on the profit and loss of public transport companies and on the revenues of those collecting tolls, but have much smaller impact on congestion or modal splits.

Recent moves in the UK indicate that road pricing is going to become more central to their transport strategies. The Lord Mayor of London proposes introducing a Central London Congestion charging scheme (£5 sterling per private vehicle per day between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.). This is aimed at partly reducing congestion but also is quite clearly aimed at generating revenue to fund other elements of the transport plan, such as freezing public transport fares for three years.

The UK Government’s Commission for Integrated Transport is considering even more radical proposals. It believes that existing motor taxation policies, which include excises on fuels and excises on cars, are a very blunt instrument of policy with few attractions from an equity or efficiency point of view. Drawing a parallel with the accepted practices that people pay more to make a telephone call at busy times of the day or to use electricity at peak hour, it suggests switching the motor tax burden dramatically towards congestion charges instead of the standard forms of motor taxation. It proposes to do this on a cost neutral basis from the point of view of the motorists. It boasts that its plan would cut congestion by 44% (as measured by time spent on particular journeys). Overall traffic levels would only be marginally affected (down by about 5%). A major qualification in their work is that they believe that his should only be introduced

(a)when a substantial investment in public transport has already been made and

(b)when a satisfactory technology is in place which can levy the charges by global tracking rather than tolls.

This study calculates costs of congestion across the whole national network. It reckons that congestion costs nationally are about 18p sterling per vehicle mile compared to air pollution of about 3p, accident costs of 2p, noise costs and climate costs of about 1p each. Obviously in cities, the congestion and air pollution costs would be dramatically higher than these averages.

The charges envisaged range from peak hour charges of 5p sterling per car mile in towns, 15p in major cities, 45p in London, and 10p on highly used motorways.

This system would dramatically shift the motor tax burden from rural dwellers with high mileage on lowly congested roads to urban dwellers with small mileage on highly congested roads.

An alternative to public subsidy and levy strategies to influence the distribution of travel between public transport and the private car is to ration road space. This clearly has been the preferred strategy to date in Dublin with a very widespread network of bus priority measures, and more to come with the arrival of Luas.

So far no move has been made to introduce congestion charges in Ireland. Currently, tolls are only imposed for new infrastructures and in particular, the East Link and the West Link bridges in Dublin. They are imposed for revenue raising purposes rather than as a tool of traffic management. The ERSI have recently proposed that tolls should be considered for entry to the city to ease congestion. It urges that this would encourage more efficient use of available space. It also hopes that they would encourage relocation of businesses and reduce the pattern of long commuting to places of work excessively centralised in the city centre.

Oscar Faber carried out a study of road pricing in Dublin and looked specifically at the possibility of polls at the city cordons. Based on a review of international as well as a study of Irish conditions, the consultants suggested that for low charges (€1.27) the impact on peak hour travel would be small (an elasticity of -0.1). Only at higher charges (€3.75) do the consultants predict a significant response (elasticity -0.5). Clearly this implies that cordon charges unless raised to very substantial levels would be mainly a revenue-raising instrument with little impact on congestion, at least in the short run.

In recent times there has been some pressure to remove charges at peak hour from the West Link bridge in order to facilitate traffic movement. The motive is to reduce congestion associated with queuing. This does highlight a side effect of tolling which has to be considered. Smart technology is needed if tolling is not to have perverse impacts on congestion.

3.6 Competition in Public Transport

The Minister for Public Enterprise has signalled her preference for competition in Dublin Bus services. Proposals were made to have a regulator of public transport competition and to privatise Dublin Bus. Detailed proposals for the Public Transport Regulator in Dublin were published in September 2000. Eighteen months later this proposal is still under consideration by the Public Transport Partnership Forum and there appears to be no urgency in proceeding with the proposal.

The Department has the power to issue licences directly to the public transport competitors to Dublin Bus. However, in practice this has been used very sparingly. The policy position of the Department appears to be that it will not permit any direct competition by way of passenger pick up on portions of a proposed route which is already serviced by Dublin Bus. This naturally makes it extremely difficult for public transport competitors to enter the market.

To date there are 22 annual passenger licences that have been issued in Dublin under guidelines that were introduced in July 1999. Thirteen of these licences are to provide Dublin Airport services (four are not yet operational) of the remainder seven are providing local shuttle services with varying levels of frequency. Only two are providing commuter services. These are services from significant towns in the hinterland counties into Dublin city.

Besides these, there are also a certain number of private transport operators operating on the basis of running a private club. These are providing commuter services but with extremely limited capacity to pick up passengers other than at their out of town termini.

3.7 Integrated Ticketing

Integrated ticketing has also been a proposal that has done the rounds without a great deal of urgency. CIÉ did a study on integrated ticketing which was published in October 1997. The following year the Department set up a Committee on integrated ticketing which also brought the Dublin Transport Office into the picture, but significantly no private sector operators. This committee reported in November 2000. It proposed a Contactless Smart Card ticketing system, which would give a rebate for second and subsequent legs of a journey with 50p per leg.

It estimated that the capital cost of the scheme would be €31.75 million but it would also need a €12.7 million initial marketing budget. The main advantage foreseen for it would be to switch the proportion of passengers from 20% prepaid to 80% prepaid. The revenue impact of the combined proposals would be quite significant representing a €6.35 million loss because of the rebates and a further €8.9 million loss because of the higher take up of prepaid concession rate fares. The combined loss would be almost 15% of revenue. By contrast, the projected gain in passengers was relatively small at just 2%. The committee recommended that the revenue loss be met by a subsidy.

It was recognised that an independent agency would be needed to act as a clearinghouse between operators to share out fare revenue. It was also recognised that the information on route profitability, patronage, passenger movements and revenue cost ratios on individual services would be extremely valuable and should be available to the Regulator for planning the network. However, no decisive decisions were made regarding the nature of this agency. Clearly such an agency would have to be independent of all operators.

The target of this committee was that the system would be implemented on Dublin Bus in 2002. However, following the publication of this report, the issue was handed over to the Light Rail Procurement Office, which took on to develop the system to commencement. So far it has only produced a project plan.

3.8 Park & Ride, Real Time Information

Park & Ride has also been a casualty of inconsistency of policy. Park & Ride is hard to make commercially successful. The obligation to develop Park & Ride falls on public transport companies and local authorities, but they don’t have access to the resources to fund it. There is no Park & Ride for bus services other than in a very limited way at Christmas. A limited Park & Ride service accompanies many suburban railway stations and no doubt is a contributory factor in the great greater attractiveness of rail. A tax concession to encourage the development of Park & Ride was put in place in 1999. However, no project has yet been developed under this scheme. It is believed that one is at a planning stage. No direct support has been given by government to either the local authorities or the transport companies that have been given the responsibility.

The Dublin Transport Office has been decidedly cool on the idea of Park & Ride. It complains of its expense to build (€12,000 per space in surface park or over double for multi-storey parking) and to operate, and points to the need for minimum bus service frequency to make it a success. Besides, it does not fit in with its philosophy of Walk & Ride and it believes it would generate local traffic movements, which would have their own problems. This very purist attitude has come under considerable attack from those who see it as offering some relief.

There is an unanswerable case for a pilot Park & Ride on some of the well-serviced Quality Bus Corridors at points well out side the city centre with some feeder services to and from adjoining residential areas or adjoining commercial areas. The State should bear the cost of such a development. Currently the use of a typical Quality Bus Corridor is just over 3,500 in the morning peak. If 1,000 Park & Ride places were available this could make a very significant impact. The cost of €10m development per QBC is not out of proportion when you bear in mind the cost of putting in a QBC (€5m each) and the cost of the twenty extra buses typically involved in developing the QBC service, not to mention the haemorrhaging losses in Dublin Bus.

Real Time Information has been another issue with plenty of advocates, but no one in a position to implement it. Dublin Bus has introduced one pilot on the Lucan Corridor. It has considerable capital and operating costs. Dublin Bus itself does not see a major return from the investment. Without a champion with access to resources, the gestation of eight years for this first pilot would seem set to continue.

3.9 Route Strategy

The absence of a Public Transport Regulator has left the design of route strategy entirely to Dublin Bus. It has not been innovative in route development. It does not aggressively pursue opportunities in newly developing areas. It was remarkably slow to develop night-time services. Route offerings tend to change only very slowly. As a publicly owned company, it can come under very considerable political pressures to maintain services even when they cease to be commercially viable.

It is difficult to see any justification on commercial grounds why Dublin Bus, a monopoly operator, does not publish any information on passenger patronage, or financial losses on individual routes. This makes it impossible to properly access whether its existing route structure is either serving commercial needs or social needs of the City. It also makes it impossible to access whether the loss making routes have social benefits to justify the losses.

3.10 Fare Strategy

Dublin Bus does not set its own fares. These are set by the Department of Public Enterprise. Naturally they have become a significant political issue. There was only one fare increase for Dublin Bus in the past seven years. On 1 January 2000, a fare increase of 9% on adult short journeys, 5% on other adult dares and 15% on child fares was granted. This yielded the company an average increase of just over 10% in fares. This was about equivalent to the Consumer Price increase over the seven years.

There is little evidence of passenger growth in response to the long period when fares were falling relative to other prices. Dublin Bus estimates that the price elasticity of demand is low at –0.33. This implies that a 10% decline in the relative prices of a bus journey will only encourage an additional 3% growth in passenger numbers. Clearly a commercial operator would push for much higher fares in the face of mounting costs and substantial losses.

There seems to be no real strategy from the Department of Public Enterprise on fare levels or fare structures. It has been content to meet residual losses that CIÉ presents.

Dublin Bus operates quite a wide range of concessionary fares. However, they are not particularly successful in attracting patrons. Overall only 15% bus patrons use any form of prepaid ticket. In recent times, Dublin Bus has more aggressively marketed these options.

3.11 Public Investment Planning

While the Dublin Transport system has been poor in developing policies that could ease problems in the short term it has been much stronger in its long term planning. It is planning for growth over a 17-year period in the number of morning journeys from 462,000 to 744,000, an increase of just over 60%. The proportion in the morning peak is expected to grow to reach 66% in 2016. However, of even greater significance are its plans for a modal shift in the make up of this traffic through the introduction of Luas and the Metro system. It plans that the proportion travelling by car would halve from 72% to just 37%. Public transport would grow with the main beneficiary being rail, rising from 10% to almost 50%. Bus would see its share drop from 19% to just 14%. This decline in bus share would nonetheless represent an increase in passenger numbers of over 25%.

Table 13 - Planned expansion of Public Transport capacity in Dublin

Source: Dublin Transport Office

Table 14 - Impact of DTO plans on travel patterns

4. Future Policy

4.1 Policy Framework

Major reform is needed in order to develop Dublin Transport strategy successfully over the coming decades. Four ingredients are clearly necessary –

•Coherent objectives

•Clear mandates for executive agencies

•Effective implementation mechanisms

•Democratic accountability.

Objectives

It is essential that objectives command public acceptance and are consistent with one another. To be publicly acceptable, they must have a clear utilitarian basis rather than the doctrinaire pursuit of some ideal. For example achieving a change in the modal split between public and private transport should not be a core objective. It may of course be an outcome of the pursuit of coherent objectives but the choice of a particular mode cannot be an end in itself. Objectives must also be consistent. For example you cannot have the objective of developing a metro based mass transit system and also pursue dispersed low density housing strategies.

The overall objective can be quite bland such as “to maximise the social value of travel within the constraints of available resources.”

Other sub-objectives can emerge from this –

•To achieve the efficient use of available road space

•To make priority in the use of road space proportionate to the social importance to the journey compared to the space occupied

•To deliver high quality public transport at a competitive cost

•To achieve coherence between land use, and the planning of road construction and public transport development

•To support a living City with a competitive business environment

•To minimise accident or injury

•To manage traffic in such a way that it is consistent with the safe enjoyment of neighbourhoods.

The choice of general objectives such as these immediately puts focus on certain types of policy. For example –

•Priority for public transport which carries far more passengers per square metre of road space occupied is logical, but not at all times and in all cases

•Travel practices or behaviour which have low external costs must be rewarded, and those with high external costs discouraged

•Subventions, where made, must be for clearly defined Public benefits and access to such subventions should be through a competitive process

•Competitive mechanisms will be needed to encourage quality and efficiency

•An assessment of transport adequacy will be a key element of the planning permission process, requiring simultaneous investment in transport as housing or commercial development goes in.

Clear Mandates

The strategy that emerges from the objectives set should help develop clear mandates for key agents. These mandates should in turn be clearly linked to demonstrable performance targets, which can be measured.

As we have seen, these mandates are sorely lacking in the Dublin setting. The emergence of a Public Transport Regulator has been shunted into a siding. The public transport companies do not have a clear framework of public policy within which to operate. Traffic management is disjointed. Infrastructural projects have not been effectively driven forward. Many policy initiatives have foundered for lack of a champion with the mandate and the capacity to deliver.

Once clear mandates have been established, there is some hope of monitoring effective implementation. Without them it is very difficult to draw conclusions on the efficiency or effectiveness of particular agencies.

Accountability

Democratic accountability is an important ingredient, which has been sorely lacking in the present structures. Decisions like the initial choice of the route of Luas or Metro services have little public participation, which only comes at a later stage when the implementation commences. Many important decisions are taken by agencies that have no specific Dublin mandate. Key agencies have, at best, token public representation. Most have none. Few agencies have demonstrable performance targets and fewer still are in any way held accountable. Important information is obscured or even kept secret. This accountability is vital not only for keeping executives up to their task but it is also vital in order to provide a political and public legitimacy for the overall strategy being pursued.

4.2 Institutional Arrangements

At national level there is a case for considering the integration of responsibility for roads, for traffic enforcement and for public transport into the same Department. The Department of Public Enterprise should urgently assess this option and present their findings to the Department of the Taoiseach before a new Government is formed.

There is an unanswerable case for a Dublin Transport Authority to oversee the coherence of strategy. This Authority should have responsibility immediately –

•For traffic management

•For the regulation of public transport

•For infrastructural development and

•For enforcement.

There is a case for integrating long-term land use also within this agency as the Government has proposed. However, there has been insufficient assessment of how this could be done. It would be wholly wrong to delay the needed leadership of the DTA, which this complex political issue is being resolved.

Currently the different local authorities have their own development plans and the setting of these plans is reserved functions of elected councillors. To put such functions into a Dublin Transport Authority, which will essentially be an executive agency, would create an enormous democratic deficit. The public will continue to demand a democratic say in such decisions. This is not to say that local authorities can ignore strategic planning guidelines or transport infrastructural requirements that emerge from the DTA’s strategy. However, it does question the attempt in the short term to integrate this element fully into the DTA structure.

The DTA should primarily be an efficient executive agency. It should have a small executive board drawn from individuals with relevant experience. Such a board would drive and guide the executives of the agency. This is a tried and tested model in Irish governance. It is preferred to an Authority with a governing Council drawn from representative groups, local authority management and elected councillors as recommended by Government. These representative boards are seldom effective executive agencies.

It is also wrong to suggest making the DTA accountable to the national Parliament. Instead it should be democratically accountable to a council of Dublin public representatives. This could initially be drawn from the four existing Dublin local authorities and Dublin Oireachtas Members. However, in the long-term, there is a case for making this Council elective. Its powers would be of scrutiny to the DTA itself and all other bodies playing a role in the system. If it becomes directly elected, it would have the legitimacy to take on the integration of land use planning. There is a strong case for effective consultation and coordination committees under the DTA, which would bring in transport providers and local authority management, and the travelling public.

The establishment of a single Dublin Transport Authority with clear responsibilities can assist significantly with the integration of policy. A natural follow on would be –

•The extension of the remit of the Director of Traffic to the greater Dublin area, becoming one of the key executive officers of the DTA

•The establishment of a Dublin Traffic Corps under the DTA with responsibility for enforcement

•The establishment of a single Quality Bus Corridor design team under the DTA

•The development of uniform city wide policies on issues like traffic light coordination, uses of skips, policies for delivery times, policies on HGVs, criteria for traffic cells, etc.

Apart from the new institutional arrangements for public accountability, there is an urgent need to develop key performance indicators for different elements of the traffic strategy in Dublin. It is vital that the public can see demonstrable performance targets being tested throughout the system. This applies not just to public transport operators but also to the effectiveness of administered public policies, whether it be bus priority mechanisms, parking policies or traffic management exercises.

4.3 Infrastructural Development

Few will argue with the desirability of the various components planned by the DTO strategy between now and 2016. On their own assessment this is a €18,000 million investment plan. The key issue is the way in which individual elements are prioritised for implementation and delivered efficiently and effectively with minimum disruption costs. It is in implementation where the greatest public frustration arises. It is not clear that the DTO have a clear handle on an implementation strategy based on a critical path analysis. Long delays have been apparent even in elements of the strategy, which offer the opportunity for early benefits.

Policies such as bus competition, the installation of Quality Bus Corridors, the extension of railway platforms to accommodate additional carriages, the development of quality road signage, Park & Ride, integrated ticketing and Real Time Information cycling policy – all of these and many others have received low priority compared to infrastructural elements of the strategy. Tough and demanding schedules need to be set for infrastructural projects and ways found to shorten the lengthy gestation periods. However the new DTA must also be given the necessary authority and resources to get on with the development of these other utilisation policies.

4.4 Funding and Congestion Charging

The funding of this major infrastructural investment has not to date been closely analysed. It will be possible to attract Public Private Partnership to the extent that user charges can be imposed on the beneficiaries of the infrastructure. Development charges on new housing are new commercial developments are a possibility but this would put more pressure on the affordability of housing which is already extremely costly in Dublin.

The DTA will have to rely mainly on Exchequer funding for both capital and revenue. It should receive the revenue from parking charges, tolls, and any congestion charges that may be developed in the future.

From an economic point of view there are very cogent arguments for introducing charges on congested stretches of road. It forces individuals to carry the external costs, which they impose by adding to congestion. However, all the evidence suggests that the responsiveness of travel behaviour to charges within a modest range are very low, at least in the short term. This indicates that road pricing measures will predominately be revenue raising instruments rather than an effective way of modifying public behaviour. Given the poor state of public transport options in Dublin, peak hour entry tolls would be unacceptable on both equity and efficiency grounds. However, the power to implement congestion charges is clearly one that should be given to the DTA in the longer term. It should be a reserved function requiring political approval.

There is immediate potential for congestion charges on the huge number of telecom and other utilities that now are opening roads, with no regard to the inconvenience that they impose. The charge for the disruption costs would be higher during peak hours. It would add to the infrastructural costs of telecom investment, but would still represent a proper allocation of the true costs. If the government felt it wanted to make a separate contribution to rolling out telecom investment that would be a matter for the State. The Government’s Communications Regulation Bill, 2002, which has just been published, has failed to take on board the case made by the Dublin Director of Traffic for greater control over road openings or to give authority for such charges. The Minister should introduce Committee Stage amendments to give the power to regulate and make economic charges.

4.5 Utilisation of Road Space

Bus Priority

Given the limitations of road pricing policies, other measures are clearly necessary to improve the utilisation of road space. Bus priority is clearly justified by the more efficient capacity of buses to move people in and out of the city. However, it cannot be blindly applied at all times and in all cases. No doubt bus operators would prefer QBCs to go right up to stop lights and operate for 24 hours a day. However, other road users have to be brought into the consideration. There is a need to develop clear well understood criteria under which buses would demonstrably show their justification in public policy in terms by their performance in carrying passenger at certain hours.

Such criteria should be actively used to determine the hours of operation of bus lanes. In doing so, however, it is important to bear in mind that the capacity of a bus to deliver its schedule depends both on the in journey and the out journey, thus it is not feasible to expect buses to operate efficiently if they only have inbound priority during the morning peak.

On lower usage QBCs, hackneys and car pools that contain at least 4 people in the car should be allowed use the bus lane. Clearly there are enforcement problems around such arrangements, but if exemplary penalties are set it should become relatively self-policing. Car pools could also be encouraged by preference in access to parking places, both in private parking facilities and in parking facilities in a place of work.

Commercial Traffic

There is an economic efficiency argument for avoiding commercial deliveries during the peak-hours for commuter traffic. The city needs a policy on delivery practices. The ideal would be to introduce certain off-peak windows during which deliveries would occur. However, regulation should have some flexibility. The payment of charges should be an alternative for businesses that felt it essential to have deliveries occurring at peak-hour.

A similar policy is needed is needed on port traffic. Currently over 85% of departures from Dublin Port occur between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m., 40 % occur during the morning or evening peak (7 a.m. – 10 a.m., 4 p.m. – 7 p.m.). In all there are well over 6,000 heavy goods vehicles movements at the port every day. Even the deflection of a portion of these vehicles from peak-hour times would make a very significant contribution. It must of course be realised that to move heavy goods vehicles to off-peak hours will require not only extended working hours in Dublin Port, but also adaptation on the part of those receiving supplies to facilitate the off-peak delivery. Some extra costs are certainly involved. An active policy to promote a change in entry and exit patterns to Dublin Port should be immediately introduced. Premium peak-hour charges at the port entrance should be one instrument within this policy.

Table 15 - Time of Heavy Goods Vehicles using Dublin Port (2001)

Note: Outbound covers 100% of existing traffic whereas for inbound traffic only one of the two entry points was monitored.

Commuters

In Dublin, public policy has consciously avoided introducing any regulations to promote flexible working hours. The belief is that congestion costs will themselves adequately promote such schemes. This may well be the case. However, there is certainly a good argument for requiring employers to develop commuter travelling policies. This would embrace a much wider range of measures than simply flexi time. Already relief from income tax and from PRSI is available where employers substitute an annual public transport pass (costing in Dublin €558 – €698 depending on mode) for salary. This should be promoted by employers. It should be available to all taxpayers.

The current practice of providing free off street parking at the place of employment can promote sub optimal choices from a transport strategy point of view. A charge on employers for these spaces in city centre areas should be considered by Dublin City Council. This would create an incentive for employers to buy back parking rights that they had granted. This in turn could create quite substantial lump sum attraction for commuters to change their travel options. Employers should also be looking at the taking out of hackney licences, which would permit them to have available to their employees a transport service for moving around during work hours or if they have to work overtime. This would reduce the necessity for people to have their cars with them at work. Model employer travel policies should be developed by the Dublin Transport Authority for promotion among places of work.

Bottlenecks

Small investments could conceivably make a substantial contribution to better utilisation of road space. Such investments should include –

•The provision of improved signage throughout Dublin

•The identification of locations where underpasses or small scale tunnels for use by cars could make a significant contribution to easing congestion

•The potential for tidal flow lanes whereby a two-lane road could be turned into a three-lane road with tow lanes going inbound in the morning and two lanes going outbound in the evening should be considered. Such arrangements could facilitate giving bus priority or car pool priority on roads that would not otherwise be able to accommodate it.

The DTA should immediately evaluate the potential of such measures.

4.6 Public Transport

Facilitating Use

While few will object to the ambitious plans for public transport in Dublin City involving a metro and a light rail network it is important to realise that such a policy presupposes a dramatic increase in the density of housing development compared to that which prevails at the present time. The timing of this investment will undoubtedly be heavily influenced by the progress towards densification secured under the development planning process. In the meantime public transport in Dublin will depend heavily on either bus or Luas, which are sharing road space with other traffic. The performance to date of the bus network to attract passengers even after substantial bus priority has been granted is extremely disappointing. There is an urgent need to bolster this bus priority with other measures that will make buses more attractive. The State through the DTA should be willing to shoulder the cost for Real Time Information at bus stops and Park & Ride facilities at termini in order to increase the capacity of bus priority to attract passengers and justify their existence. Integrated ticketing should proceed with the DTA managing the necessary data collection and clearing house functions.

Free Off Peak

The arrival of bus priority has substantially accentuated the peak load feature of the bus fleet. Even though passenger traffic is commonly regarded as not being price sensitive, there is a strong case for considering the introduction of free off-peak travel. Firstly, it is likely that there will be quite substantial elasticity among passengers who have the option to switch their time of travel to avail of this concession. It will also substantially change the mindset of people, when they can be confident that they can, during off-peak hours, step on any bus without a charge. It will encourage people who bring their car to work simply for flexibility to consider public transport.

The cost of such a concession between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. would probably be €25million but it would promote utilisation of the fleet when seats are largely empty. The impact on congestion would justify the subvention.

Bus Competition

It is long past time to get off the fence on the issue of bus competition. An interim regulator should be immediately appointed who would open up at least 20% of the existing Dublin Bus routes for competitive tender. The contract made with successful tenderers should be based on a gross cost contract, but with a bonus earned for passenger development beyond a certain target.

One of the first powers for the interim Regulator would be the power to obtain and publish information on the passenger route frequency of every service in the network. The suggestion of commercial confidentiality of passenger information has no foundation once gross cost contract are being used, since the fare revenue goes to the DTA.

The DTA should take the responsibility for setting fares and routes, removing this function from the Department of Public Enterprise. All bus stops and taxi ranks should become the property of Dublin Transport Authority and be usable by all those holding legitimate licences. If necessary, property rights in such facilities owned by Dublin Bus should be bought back.

Taxis

The deregulation of taxis has certainly resulted in a substantial increase in the number of taxi plates. However, this has not been a converted into a proportionate increase in the quantity or quality of service available to the public. There is a need to introduce additional measures to promote the use of taxis. At the time of licensing, certain minimum hours of availability should be clearly set out in the licence. This would be designed to get a proper spread of availability throughout the day and the availability to meet peak taxi demand at the weekends. Multiple pick up of passengers by taxis should be immediately allowed. Additional facilities at taxi ranks need to be provided.

A medium term objective for the service must be to introduce a central taxi monitoring and booking system with a single taxi contact phone number and an electronic identification of the nearest available taxi. This will help promote efficiency of utilisation to the benefit of both the public and the taxi driver.

4.7 Performance Monitoring

The key to public confidence in Dublin traffic strategy is constant performance monitoring and accountability –

•Any bus company holding a licence must show evidence of its route performance and quality of service

•Any bus priority must show demonstrable service thresholds that justify the priority

•Any utility opening public roads must show its record of efficiency and reinstatement

•Any driver with a taxi licence must demonstrate their availability at the times specified in their licence

•All employers above a certain size should have a travel policy and publish details of its operation

•The DTA should have a clear implementation schedule on its programme and publish details of any slippage.

Wherever possible, contacts should build in bonuses for excellence in performance. Public accountability can best be developed by giving the task of monitoring and scrutiny to elected local politicians.

Appendix

Comments from interested parties on draft report