Sir, – Sinéad O’Sullivan’s article “Traffic would be flowing if a €15,000 idea could fix it,” (Opinion, January 26th) was a breath of fresh air regarding our chronic traffic. I’m fully in agreement with her idea for a police presence at bus lanes to enforce the rules. After all, bus lanes carry the bulk of commuters.
Moreover, if the Garda cannot operate the rules, why not give Transport for Ireland inspectors (who one never sees) the power to issue fines for their illegal use or, alternatively, install one camera to each main bus corridor to catch offenders whereby a ticket is automatically issued, followed by impounding the car if the fine is not paid. I can guarantee that within a matter of days bus corridors would be free of offenders. – Yours, etc,
EAMONN COX,
Merrion Road,
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Dublin 4.
Sir, – Following the example of Sinéad O’Sullivan (“Traffic would be flowing if a €15,000 idea could fix it,” January 26th) I offer the following suggestion, specifically for the National Transport Authority (NTA) and also free of charge.
The present system of showing a scheduled time for every individual bus stop on a route is farcical. Such a system is only suitable for railways and for tramways with a reserved track not shared with other road traffic. It is not suitable for buses which must share road space with other vehicles, especially in the context of almost zero enforcement of bus priority measures.
Anyone who has ever driven a bus knows it is impossible to adhere to a schedule based on timing every individual bus stop. The result is bus companies incur financial penalties imposed by the NTA for late running, based on scheduled individual stop times, usually due to circumstances beyond their control – traffic congestion, road works, accidents, heavy loading at some stops, etc.
Conversely, when traffic is free-flowing, buses are sometimes required to wait at some stops to avoid running early, a source of frustration for drivers, passengers and service controllers.
The old system of showing times for the principal intermediate stages on a route was well understood by the public. It allowed drivers a recovery margin to make up lost time on quieter sections of a route and this system should be revived. The Real Time Passenger Information system could still show expected arrival times at a stop based on the automatic vehicle location system. – Yours, etc,
CYRIL McINTYRE,
Celbridge,
Co Kildare.
Sir, – Sinéad O’Sullivan (“Traffic would be flowing if a €15,000 idea could fix it,” January 26th) is right to argue that Dublin’s bus problems are not an “ideas deficit” but a failure of sequencing and enforcement. From the passenger’s perspective, however, one dysfunction continues to undermine all reform efforts: the persistence of ghost buses.
Despite repeated assurances, ghost buses are alive and well. In recent weeks, my children have encountered them during normal working hours, at weekends, and in the evenings outside peak hours. Buses simply vanish from screens and apps, with no explanation and no alternative offered; a daily reminder that the system cannot be relied upon.
This matters when considering congestion pricing. The argument that traffic volumes alone are responsible for unreliability does not fully convince when services fail even in uncongested periods. What passengers experience is not merely slowness, but fragility. A single disruption can cascade into cancellations with no backup.
One unfashionable solution may be redundancy. Building slack into the system, spare vehicles, drivers and realistic recovery time, will offend those who run public transport solely through an economic efficiency lens. Yet, without redundancy, reliability remains aspirational.
Reliability is not a luxury add-on; it is the precondition for behaviour change. Once people can trust that a bus will arrive when promised, they will plan their lives around it. Only then do pricing mechanisms, enforcement and prioritisation achieve legitimacy.
As the author notes, when public transport works, people use it. But for many passengers, the ghost bus remains the symbol of a system that still does not. – Yours, etc,
MICHAEL O’MEARA,
Fenor,
Co Waterford.
