There has been a major programme of upgrading of the bus fleets in Dublin and the provincial cities which has helped to enhance the quality of such services. In the case of Dublin, 484 buses have been purchased in recent years, of which 241 are replacement and 243 are additional. In the provincial cities, the entire regular urban bus fleet of Bus Éireann in Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford is now low floor. In respect of 2003, I am awaiting proposals from Dublin Bus for additional fleet capacity.
One of my priorities for the public transport sector is to continue to improve the position of buses as regards traffic priority. For Dublin, the Dublin Transportation Office, DTO, receives a grant from my Department for traffic management and bus priority measures throughout the greater Dublin area, GDA. It is now the responsibility of the Office of the Director of Traffic in Dublin City Council to implement bus priority measures based on a programme of work and project specification agreed with the DTO.
To date, nine QBCs have been implemented in the Dublin area, amounting to approximately 100 km of bus priority. Extensions to existing QBCs and additional QBCs and bus priority measures are planned for the coming years.