€1.2bn for roads is State's largest ever annual budget

Bank holiday weekend traffic delays due to road works may have been a nuisance - but they are also a sign that more road improvements are currently under way that at any time in the history of the State.

That is the opinion of the National Roads Authority (NRA) which used the weekend to launch a series of booklets outlining its vision for the Republic's road network.

Included were details of the money currently being spent - at €1.21 billion this year it is the largest annual roads allocation ever - and why the NRA believes that new motorways were a better option than improving the existing routes between cities.

Also included are the authority's plans for Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) - a 21st century monitoring system which oversees and can alter conditions resulting from crashes, the weather and traffic flow.

ITS is intended to make it easier for passengers to switch from private car to public transport by signalling directions to drivers at designated interchanges like those approaching a city. It can also adapt traffic lights to traffic flows, send information on directions and route conditions to in-car computers, as well as sending information to drivers by car radio or the more familiar electronic overhead signs.

Weather conditions such as ice monitoring by roadside equipment can be sent both to drivers and local authorities.

Aspects of ITS are already in place, including such items as automatic vehicle counters which provide information of the volume of traffic by hour and class - whether it is a car, lorry or motorbike etc. Fibre optic cables along the route of Dublin's M50 already provide essential information on traffic to a central "Scats" unit based in central Dublin.

The booklet series also covers the compulsory purchase orders affecting landowners and details their rights of objection and arbitration.

Another booklet provides information on how roads are planned, covering public consultation and how to make individual views known.

In a booklet entitled National Roads Needs Study 1998, the authority tackles criticism that the massive motorway programme announced in 1999 did not feature in the needs study of one year earlier.

The NRA maintains the existing network of inter-urban routes could not have been up- graded to an acceptable level of service. This was because it would be necessary to acquire adjoining land and demolish property including numerous private houses for the length of the roads.

Access from remaining individual properties - including fields for agricultural machinery - could no longer be allowed and alternative access provided. It also argues that in many cases homes would be closer to the roads with resulting noise pollution and safety considerations while community separation would be greater as there would be no access permitted across the expanded road.

Expanding the existing network would have resulted in a network of by-passes for small towns and villages resulting in "a rosary bead" network which would be expensive and inefficient, it was claimed.

NRA chairman Mr Peter Malone said the booklets would answer a range of frequently-asked questions.