Dublin Bus believes motorists switching to buses

The number of private cars entering Dublin city during rush hour decreased significantly between 1997 and 2002, suggesting commuters are switching to buses, the strategic planning manager at Dublin Bus has claimed.

According to data from Dublin City Council, buses accounted for 23 per cent of all vehicles crossing the canals in November 2002, up from 19 per cent in 1997. Over the same period, car crossings decreased by 12 per cent.

Behind these figures is the success of the Quality Bus Corridors (QBC), according to Mr Derry O'Leary, strategic planning manager with the State-owned bus operator.

He told delegates at the Institution of Engineers Conference in Belfast yesterday passengers were switching from cars to buses simply because buses on these routes were faster, he said.

"The QBC monitoring exercise undertaken last year shows that the average bus journey time on the QBC was 26 minutes versus over 37 minutes for cars during the morning peak."

Using the Stillorgan QBC as an example, Mr Derry O'Leary said buses increased their passenger share from 34.5 per cent in 2001 to 44.4 per cent between 2001 and 2002. The number of people travelling in cars declined from 40.5 per cent to 32.4 per cent over the same period.

"The dominant issue is the relative speed of buses. Research undertaken suggests that 65 per cent of new passengers on this route previously travelled by car," he said.

There are nine QBCs in Dublin and the Minister for Transport, Mr Brennan, recently announced plans for nine more by 2005 at a cost of €18 million.

To encourage car users to switch to these buses Mr O'Leary suggested "workplace taxes to limit car commuting". Research carried out by the company showed cost and availability of parking was important when commuters decided which mode of transport they were going to use.

Meanwhile, a lecturer in UCD told the conference that car owners are paying more than double the cost of providing road infrastructure in the State.

Mr David Timoney, a lecturer in mechanical engineering, challenged the assumption that "public transport is inherently good and that the use of the private car is inherently bad". He said the assumption ignored the true energy cost and financial issues associated with other forms of transport.

For example, if car use was compared with walking the assumption was the latter was pollution-free. This ignored the energy required to produce additional food consumed by pedestrians.

If this extra energy use was included, the true energy used by pedestrians was 2,960 kilojoules per km which is equivalent to the energy requirement for a car with average occupancy of 2,931kj per km, Mr Timoney said.

He said buses were efficient only if full. "If a relatively small number of people wish to complete the same journey at the same time, the private car has very significant energy advantages," compared with a bus.

"Under utilised public transport capacity leads to greater energy consumption, pollution and road damage per unit of transport service delivered.And unlike car users, bus passengers do not pay for the full environmental impact of their transport.

The Luas system was dismissed by Mr Timoney as "an extremely expensive and probably dangerous form of white elephant" which was destroying some already heavily utilised Dublin road space.

Mr Timoney also cautioned on some of the difficulties associated with "renewable fuels". A recent study of ethanol in the US showed that to produce 1.7 billion gallons of the fuel, some 2.2 billion gallons of oil equivalents were consumed.