Yes. It would certainly require greater width. If one considers the width of two trams, particularly in a guided system, because they cannot move to the right or to the left, the space available for those two trams would not accommodate two buses. If a tram was travelling in either direction and a bus came along the route sharing that space, it would need to share the space of both the inbound and the outbound tram at the same time, unless it was engineered and designed to the considerably wider space. This could require taking footpaths and property in certain areas, to ensure greater space availability to accommodate bus and Luas.
One consideration that RPA pays in dealing with this matter is that passenger numbers on Luas in peak and off-peak periods are exceptionally high. We have done much focus group and market research with Luas passengers to find out the features about Luas that have succeeded in getting people out of their cars and onto light rail, on a scale that many European cities are looking at as an example of how this can be done. A very important feature in the attractiveness of light rail is to ensure journey time. That is not to say that people require a particular number of minutes, but that they know that if they leave home at a certain time, they will reach the city centre at a particular time. In looking at the design of future lines we want to ensure that we preserve the feature of assuring people about journey time. In any discussions we have on shared running, between light rail and bus, that would be a very important consideration.
In continuing to attract people out of their cars and onto public transport, it is important to deliver that feature of reliability and journey time. Where trams get stuck in traffic, as I have seen in some other cities with light rail, they do not attract people out of their cars. That is an important consideration. We are looking at specific city centre areas, those mentioned, and we are willing to look at other areas, where we can design the system so it can accommodate bus and light rail.
The next item mentioned in the committee's invitation was the likely disruption associated with the construction of metro north. The RPA has been careful not to underestimate the construction disruption and not to tell people that this will not be a disruptive process only to find later that it will be, as it will be a major infrastructure project.
As part of the route selection and our preparation of the construction methodology and of traffic management arrangements, every effort has been made and will continue to be made to minimise the disruption that will arise from construction. In his letter inviting us to meet the committee, the Chairman referred to the "big dig". We are not using the phrase "big dig" as it reminds people of the big dig in Massachusetts, which was a cut and cover tunnel where the full length of the tunnel in the city centre area was entirely excavated. That is not the case in Dublin where we will have a bored tunnel. However, station locations such as St. Stephen's Green, O'Connell Bridge, Parnell Square and the Mater Hospital will be major construction sites to provide for the putting in place of large underground railway stations.
We are working carefully with Dublin City Council, Dublin Bus and many other interests to ascertain how we can minimise the impact of disruption during construction. We are engaging with business interests in the city centre and are pleased about the strong support we have received from them. There is unanimity among business representative organisations that metro north is critically required. They want us to ensure that every effort is made to minimise disruption and we are committed to doing that.
We discussed with them the issue that sometimes there is a trade off between minimising, to the maximum extent possible, the space available for construction — however, that prolongs the construction phase — and the length of time construction takes. The design of these systems is an integrative process. We come up with a station design and examine the traffic management, which suggests that changes are required and we then change the construction design. That work is continuing and will continue in our negotiations with the PPP contractors.
An important feature of the arrangements we are putting in place to try to preserve, to the maximum extent possible, routes within the city centre, particularly for public transport, especially bus transport as the bus will continue to be a workhorse of public transport for the foreseeable future, is an agreement that an additional bridge will be put in place in Marlborough Street. Therefore, if capacity is removed in the O'Connell Street area, additional capacity will be made available in the Marlborough Street area. We continue to work with the various stakeholders to make sure that we come up with a solution that is reasonable under the circumstances and does not prolong the construction period too long.
In that context, it should also help that not only will an additional bridge be put in place in the Marlborough Street area but that by then the Macken Street Bridge will be constructed and some of the other road projects, including the widening of the M50, will be complete. That should help to deal with the level of congestion in the city centre.
The Chairman sought our views on bus rapid transit which is a recent entry in the lexicon of public transport. It means a range of systems in various cities. It can be a system such as we have in Dublin, namely, an investment in a quality bus network and other features such as that, or it can be a guided system that has many of the features of light rail. Clearly, the RPA is fully supportive of any additional measures that can be put in place to improve the quantum of public transport. At our stops we provide for a good interchange with park and ride facilities and bus interchange. We are working closely with the DTO on work the committee heard about from its representatives in recent weeks, and we are also working with Dublin Bus and others to establish how we can facilitate the increase in capacity and usage of buses, particularly in the city centre where they are most required.
Sometimes people go a step beyond that and indicate that perhaps a bus rapid transit system can be seen as a substitute for rail-based systems, and in some places that may well be the case. In our view and from a transport planning point of view, it is driven very much by the requirement of capacity and the requirement to get people to leave their cars at home and use public transport. The success of the Curitiba system in Brazil, which is regarded as one of the more successful bus rapid transit systems, has been mentioned recently in the media in Ireland. With regard to the relevance of the Curitiba system to Dublin, I have read that it is the intention of the municipal authorities in Curitiba to replace bus rapid transit with light rail because of the need for greater capacity. That is the point — it is capacity that is required. The appropriate mode of transport should be based on the type of capacity in public transport that is required and what offers an attractive alternative, particularly for people now using cars. If we wish to attract people out of their cars, we must ensure we are providing reliability, journey time and many of the other features that have made the Luas a success.
BRT should be considered in the context of whether it provides adequate capacity and an attractive alternative to get people out of their cars. Where BRT has been successful has been in cities where, quite frankly, income levels are considerably lower, so it is providing a transportation system for people who are walking and using public transport. I doubt it would be quite as successful in a city such as Dublin.
We are available to answer the committee's questions on these and any other matters included in our work.
