Public transport an environmental issue

[Christel]

Bus Eireann and formerly Dublin Bus reduce routes and busses, instead of looking into developing a proper public transport system that is attractive to people and would save CO2 emissions. Have they ever done research and attempted to provide all of us with decent public transport? By this I don't mean a one day a week service in a rural area, or a service between cities that I have to access by driving 20 km by car, nor a service like rural lift that brings the elderly to hospital or shops, and isn't connected to other routes, because they don't exist. I mean a system that would make us free to be able to not own a car. That could equally be used by tourists to get around.

What could/should the government do?

[Sailor]

Bus Eireann and formerly Dublin Bus reduce routes and busses, instead of looking into developing a proper public transport system that is attractive to people and would save CO2 emissions. Have they ever done research and attempted to provide all of us with decent public transport? By this I don't mean a one day a week service in a rural area, or a service between cities that I have to access by driving 20 km by car, nor a service like rural lift that brings the elderly to hospital or shops, and isn't connected to other routes, because they don't exist. I mean a system that would make us free to be able to not own a car. That could equally be used by tourists to get around.

What could/should the government do?

I wonder to what extent the provision of a good public transport service is hampered by our addiction to the house on the half-acre in the middle of nowhere. Only private transport can address the problems this causes

[DS-09]

Bus Eireann and formerly Dublin Bus reduce routes and busses, instead of looking into developing a proper public transport system that is attractive to people and would save CO2 emissions. Have they ever done research and attempted to provide all of us with decent public transport? By this I don't mean a one day a week service in a rural area, or a service between cities that I have to access by driving 20 km by car, nor a service like rural lift that brings the elderly to hospital or shops, and isn't connected to other routes, because they don't exist. I mean a system that would make us free to be able to not own a car. That could equally be used by tourists to get around.

What could/should the government do?

There are new routes been aded under Transport 21 apparently. Public transport should be improving hereafter.

Welcome to Transport 21

[DCon]

There are new routes been aded under Transport 21 apparently. Public transport should be improving hereafter.

Welcome to Transport 21

Welcome to the Transport 21 website. Transport 21 is the largest investment ever in Ireland’s transport system. From 2006 to 2015, €34 billion is being invested to deliver a world-class transport system.

Are we borrowing this money?

[Christel]

There are new routes been aded under Transport 21 apparently. Public transport should be improving hereafter.

Welcome to Transport 21

"On 28 September 2006, the Minister for Transport announced, that the Government will be investing up to €50 million in Bus Éireann, for the purchase of 160 new buses to enhance existing non-commercial services and provide additional city and commuter services throughout the country.

Funding of €23 million has also been approved for the purchase in 2008 by Bus Éireann of 79 replacement buses. This will bring the total number of new buses to 239.

174 of the new buses have entered service nationwide, including in the cities of Cork, Galway, Waterford and Limerick, at the end of 2008. All 239 new buses are now delivered with the remaining 65 due to enter service in early 2009.

The introduction of these new buses has enabled the expansion of existing services and the introduction of new routes."

Are these the ones being cut now?

[Christel]

I wonder to what extent the provision of a good public transport service is hampered by our addiction to the house on the half-acre in the middle of nowhere. Only private transport can address the problems this causes

There's hardly any public transport connection between towns and villages of a county. What is there is mainly city to city transfer, which is not much used given all new roads that make travelling over a large distance by car probably more attractive to many than bus.
But the lack of regional public transport, does this not hamper social and economic connectivity of the county community? Regional identity? Tourism?
Apart from the purely environmental factor.

[ForestGhetto]

Public transport works when people live close to each other and need to travel to common destinations for work or social purposes. The destination must be in walkable distance of the bus stop or railway station. It also helps if there is a low level of car ownership or if car usage is expensive or if there is a high level of congestion. Without most of these factors in place, public transport does not attract many takers and you end up with empty trains and buses.

An empty train or bus is not environmentally friendly - it's a tokenistic waste of money and fuel.

80% of households in Ireland have a car. The cost of the car, the tax, the insurance and the annual service are not related to the mileage. So when you drive a km it typically costs you just 5c. In rural areas, there is little congestion, parking is free or cheap and many people live and work outside of towns and villages. So once you have a car, driving is the most convenient and the cheapest option - even if there were a bus between every village in the country.

For better or worse, we have built half a million houses over the last 10 years either in open countryside or in estates outside of walking distance of town centres. Our national identity is about driving to work and to school, to the retail park.

Public transport cannot serve a dispersed pattern of living so there is no point in providing it.

There are examples of tourist rail routes around the world- these exist in areas of outstanding natural beauty and reuse existing rail lines.

[Christel]

Public transport works when people live close to each other and need to travel to common destinations for work or social purposes. The destination must be in walkable distance of the bus stop or railway station. It also helps if there is a low level of car ownership or if car usage is expensive or if there is a high level of congestion. Without most of these factors in place, public transport does not attract many takers and you end up with empty trains and buses.

An empty train or bus is not environmentally friendly - it's a tokenistic waste of money and fuel.

Agreed to the last sentence. Re the first paragraph, the question comes to mind: what is first, the hen or the egg.

80% of households in Ireland have a car. The cost of the car, the tax, the insurance and the annual service are not related to the mileage. So when you drive a km it typically costs you just 5c. In rural areas, there is little congestion, parking is free or cheap and many people live and work outside of towns and villages. So once you have a car, driving is the most convenient and the cheapest option - even if there were a bus between every village in the country.

Do I understand right that you don't include cost of car, tax, insurance and maintenance in your 5p/km?

For better or worse, we have built half a million houses over the last 10 years either in open countryside or in estates outside of walking distance of town centres. Our national identity is about driving to work and to school, to the retail park.

So much about national identity.

Public transport cannot serve a dispersed pattern of living so there is no point in providing it.

I'd like to see at least a report where this has been properly examined and evaluated. I'm not prepared to just believe this. Were solutions for areas with low population in other EU countries that are served with public transport, ever looked at? How systems work there, what incentives there are to make use attractive to people, how routes are planned and established, various ystems are integrated and work together, how fares are calculated, how employers probably contribute etc.?

I'm sure subsidies will in many cases be necessary, but if you think about how much flights from rural airports are subsidised, and how do people using these get there?

[ForestGhetto]

Do I understand right that you don't include cost of car, tax, insurance and maintenance in your 5p/km?

Yes. You pay these costs once a year. When you choose whether to drive for a journey, you only have to consider the fuel costs. If there's fuel in the car already then even this cost is hidden.

So much about national identity.

it's a pity

I'd like to see at least a report where this has been properly examined and evaluated. I'm not prepared to just believe this. Were solutions for areas with low population in other EU countries that are served with public transport, ever looked at? How systems work there, what incentives there are to make use attractive to people, how routes are planned and established, various ystems are integrated and work together, how fares are calculated, how employers probably contribute etc.?

Public transport works better in other eu countries and i'm sure we've lots to learn. Ireland's land use patterns make it uniquely impossible to provide rural public transport. You must have heard the phrase 'car dependent'? That's the kind of housing we have planned and authorised and built for the last 40 years.

I'm sure subsidies will in many cases be necessary, but if you think about how much flights from rural airports are subsidised, and how do people using these get there?

nobody expects public transport to be profitable, but it must attract passengers.

The number of passengers a public transport service will attract is predictable and is calculated from the distance between the two places, the population density at both journey ends, car ownership rates, the marginal cost of driving, the price of parking, the public transport fare, the quality and frequency of the proposed service. The details are in any transport theory text book

If the predicted number of passengers is tiny then there will be better ways to spend the money. Alternatively you can change the above factors so that more passengers are attracted.

[Christel]

The number of passengers a public transport service will attract is predictable and is calculated from the distance between the two places, the population density at both journey ends, car ownership rates, the marginal cost of driving, the price of parking, the public transport fare, the quality and frequency of the proposed service. The details are in any transport theory text book

Is such a textbook available online? I'd like to read it.

" The number of passengers a public transport service will attract is predictable and is calculated from the distance between the two places"

I was actually looking at possible loop routes in my county that could be established, where the distance between just two places would not be all that counts. If such loops were cleverly located... And cleverly integrated with other routes.

But to tell just two examples of existing services that do not work:

I had an appointment in Sligo hospital a while ago at 4 pm. Was looking for bus to there from a point appr. 12 km from here, to where my husband drove me. That worked. But I couldn't go back by bus, because there was none going back later on, so my husband had to drive the 50km to collect me. Ticket price was same for one way as it would have been for return.

A few years ago, and I'm sure it's still the same, I went to Co. Cork for a meeting. Had to be driven to Carrick on Shannon by car, from there by train to Dublin, from there by train to Killarney, from there by private bus to destination. Two days later back the same way, except that no train was going back from Dublin that night, so I had to be collected from there by car. I was constipated for a week after that.