Buses in Dublin to get green light priority at junctions

Dublin’s traffic controllers will be able to give green light priority to buses at junctions on all Dublin bus corridors from 2016.

The Centralised Bus Priority Project, which has been used on a trial basis on four bus routes in the city, allows a traffic engineer to hold a green light in favour of a bus approaching a junction.

The system, which has been used on Malahide Road, Rock Road, Ballymun and Swords bus corridors, has resulted in journey time savings of up to four minutes and an improvement in journey times travelling through junctions of up to 41 per cent, Dublin Bus said.

The system uses Automated Vehicle Location (AVL) technology that was installed on buses in recent years to enable the use of “real-time” information screens at bus stops. The on-board technology sends constant updates back to the control centre about the location of the bus and whether it is meeting its scheduled stop times and the duration of its overall journey.

If a controller spots particular areas of congestion or sees a bus is failing to meet the time indicated on the real-time screens at approaching stops, the lights can be held at green at certain junctions.

The company said the system, which will be extended to all Dublin bus corridors by the end of the year, will provide reduced and more consistent journey times, greater reliability, reduced waiting times at stops, and prevent “ bunching” of buses.

"Customers want improved journey times so it's great to see that the pilot traffic light priority project has resulted in reducing these by up to four minutes," Dublin Bus head of operations Donal Keating said.

“Every journey matters to us and we are committed to bringing in new technologies. The extension of the project to all bus corridors in 2016, which works alongside the Automated Vehicle Location across our fleet of 950 buses, and 96 per cent accurate Real Time Passenger Information (RTPI) technologies, show we continue to head in the right direction.”