Calcutta and Dublin trail SFA traffic study

Dublin's  growing traffic problem has left it second only to Calcutta in the length of time it takes to make a simple business trip, a new survey shows.

The Speed of Business survey, carried out by the Small Firms Association (SFA), found it took an average of 57 minutes for 5kg of goods to travel 5km in Dublin.

The journey took more than three times as long as in New York - 17.5 minutes - and more than four times as long as in London, where the average journey time was 13 minutes.

Only Calcutta, where the journey took 4½ hours, ranked below Dublin in an international league table. Bombay also outperformed Dublin with an average journey time of 37 minutes.

"These international comparisons and domestic analysis show that gridlock is now a very significant problem," the SFA said.

"It impacts on business by increasing travel-to-work times, exacerbating the bottlenecks in the movement of goods and eroding the competitive edge of business."

The top city on the international list was Singapore where the journey took nine minutes. In Amsterdam, Paris and Helsinki, the journey took a quarter of an hour or less. Apart from Dublin the only European city where the journey took longer than half an hour was Frankfurt, at 53 minutes, just ahead of the Irish capital.

For its research, the SFA carried out a series of deliveries over four months at various times and on different weekdays. The deliveries took place, in all directions, in central Dublin.

It found the worst time to travel was at 7.40 a.m. when the journey averaged 1 hour and 20 minutes while the quickest journeys were those undertaken at 4.15 p.m. when they averaged 35 minutes.

The survey, which appears just as Dublin Corporation adopts new traffic measures to alleviate congestion in the capital, also found that traffic now ranks sixth on the list of problems experienced by small firms. More than half of all businesses surveyed cited it as a problem while 7per cent regarded it as the biggest issue facing them.

The survey also found insurance and labour costs were the two most significant issues affecting small businesses. More than a fifth of firms cited insurance costs as their biggest headache while 92 per cent described it as a problem.

Meanwhile, over three-quarters of the 1,000 firms surveyed complained about high labour costs with 15 per cent ranking them as their number one problem.

"The ability of the Irish economy to create jobs is declining rapidly and there will be a very significant downturn in employment creation in 2002," the SFA said. It noted small firms would create 36,238 jobs this year, down 21 per cent on last year and 44 per cent on 2000.

Other issues facing the sector included late payments from debtors, inflation and skills shortages. The influx of new rules and regulations from Europe, crime, bureaucracy and regulatory requirements also featured on the top dozen problems faced by small businesses, along with the slow pace of infrastructural development and the impact of Britain remaining outside the euro zone.