According to the Global Mail when complete the development will resemble:

…a reproduction of the sort of historic, chic downtown neighbourhoods you find in the far more central parts of London or Paris, not in this distant expanse of former dockyards and bloodless public-housing project. At its core are straight, car-free streets lined with simple townhouses and ground-floor-access flats in five-storey rows. In the alleyways behind – an imitation of the classic London backstreet, the mews – will be little two- and three-storey homes, all with direct access to the street.

An interesting concept I think, lets hope they don’t approach the built environment with the same mad dash for the sameness of IKEA furniture and they create something awesome to behold! If you take a gander at the promotional website and image below, it looks pretty sweet. It would also appear that there will be very little car access to the site too which is pretty sweet. (Click the image to explore the masterplan for the development)

Visualize traffic impacts – thanks to the germans

The other article is this incredibly cool visualization tool for ArcGIS to allow planners like us to visually see the impacts the increasing in traffic a new development may have! Pop on over to Fast.co Design to marvel at it!

No more guessing about what the impact of improvements to cities might be. Now urban planners have software to fully visualize what will happen when projects become reality.

Keep in touch

That’s it for today! Don’t forget you can get your daily dose of me through my twitter @Rusty1052 and your daily Irish Planning News courtesy the paper.li aggregator.

Not down with any of these new things? Or maybe you would like to offer me a job or use my services? Well sure just drop me an email at colinb@dt106ers.com. Will be great to hear from you! (Whoever you maybe).

Peace out planners!

Related posts:

1. The great experiment by our planners to copy the European tradition of having middle income families live in apartments has largely failed
2. Council to ‘freeze’ zoned land in Ennis
3. Thousands of historic land files to be shredded

This tweet below is from @PPS_Placemaking retweeted by @doccer

“We did not build this park because we were wealthy, we became wealthy because we built parks like this.” @CLMarohn youtu.be/6XRjatW_N9M

— PPS (@PPS_Placemaking) February 22, 2012

I believe Dublin is making some form of an effort, to at least make a plan to better utilise our public spaces within the city, so long as they actually follow through on a thorough implementation of the public realm strategy. Unfortunately more often than not many of the more recent housing developments in suburban areas have been lackluster in that many housing estates, just have flat piece of green with some shoddy planting (maybe even none at all). The kind of crap below, what is the function of that space other than, we didn’t build any houses on it? One plus is it doesn’t have a fence around it.

Right I shall shut up now, enjoy the video below it’s well worth the 15 mins.

If you liked that their are plenty more interesting topics discussed over at Strong Towns Blog, do check it out.

Keep in touch

Get your daily dose of me through my twitter @Rusty1052, your daily Irish Planning News courtesy the paper.li aggregator.

Not down with any of these new things? Or maybe you would like to offer me a job or use my services? Well sure just drop me an email at colinb@dt106ers.com. Will be great to hear from you! (Whoever you maybe).

Peace out planners!

Related posts:

1. Movie Thursday – Networked Society and Fancy buying a village, FR?
2. [Movie Thursday] Brendan Finn on BRT

Any who that aside it was announced that the National Transport Authority had made one of their datasets available fo public consumption. This particular dataset is that of all the transport stops in the country, and for those transport planners/traffic engineers among us will know theses are the same nodes used in the Greater Dublin Area Saturn Model for travel and transport. [Update] As per Peter’s comment below: “The transit access nodes used in the NTA Saturn Model are not the bus stops in NaPTAN, but rather access to public transport is generalised to road junction nodes.”

So basically to break it down the data is a rather large xml file which contains all the points (the individual stops and stop areas) and a .mbd file containing what i presume is service information. Unfortunately I can’t open that one as I don’t have microsoft access on the mac. So if someone can open it I would love to hear what is in the file.

Right long long story short I parsed the xml file into a csv file and uploaded it to the great fusion tables and below is the result. There are a few problems with the data in that if you zoom out you will see stops are mapped all over the world! This I reckon is a result of a portion of the co-ordinates not being projected in WSG84 as they are probably in Irish Grid form.

NTA NaPTAN Data Mapped

Just for a small bit of brevity if you’re wondering what the hell a Stop Type of BCT means check out this handy reference from the Department for Transport, UK.

NaPTAN Stop Types

Source: http://www.dft.gov.uk/naptan/stopTypes.htm

As always!

Comments are welcome, you can follow me on the tweet machine @Rusty1052. Only want the blog? Subscribe to the RSS Feed with your favorite reader!

Do you like what you have just read? Maybe you are interested in being a guest writer too. Email me at colinb@dt106ers.com

Related posts:

1. Open Data – Ever wondered where all the applications are?
2. Census 2011 by the county and Fusion Tables, mapping the data.
3. News Roundup – Technology, Technology and DATA

Background

My dissertation in college focused on this idea of the network effect in public transport with study on the north eastern area of Dublin (Santry across to Howth), while also critiquing the differences in spatial land use policy and transport policy. That is a post for another day though.

There is no map of Dublin that shows the Dublin Bus, Luas and Rail networks on one sheet of paper. The closest representation is by Aris but also includes other possible modifications.

What really spawned this map was that I have been working on a geographically accurate map of all Dublin’s Transport in a similar style to the maps produced of Paris. But this map would also show the frequency of routes simply by varying the thickness of the lines. It is showing the frequency part that is the major challenge using illustrator as any minor changes are much more difficult than using a grid like with the map below.

Also as has been pointed out by a number of tweets such as this one:

@rusty1052 But Rusty, about 13% of the region’s population live north of the airport and another 8% live in Dublin 15

— Fingal Data Hub (@Fingal_Data_Hub) December4, 2011

As such there is also a slightly loaded message behind this map in that it can’t address a large proportion of the Dublin population lives in both Swords and the Dublin 15 area, where rapid services are very limited. It is also a shame that no orbital services like the 17A lack frequencies to allow seamless transfers. Instead most transfers have to made within the city centre.

Finally the current cash fare system penalizes people who need to make transfers to complete a trip by charging full fares twice. Hopefully the National Transport Authority will soon fix this as they are they have the power to set fares as part of the Public Transport Licensing process.

Objectives

• Only services which operate at 15 minute of less frequency Monday – Friday off-peak will be represented on the map.
• To show all transport modes, Bus, Light Rail (Luas) and Heavy Rail (DART & Commuter)
• To illustrate the frequent network of transport routes that are available in Dublin.
• To show the places which are possible to transfer as part of your journey.
• To create the first multi-modal map of Dublin.

Map v 1.5 [UPDATE 2.o]

Why version 1.5? The map is still in development and I have not implemented the full array of suggestion that people were so kind to make in the comments on the last post.

The Future

I hope to refine the map into a usable product with the ultimate goal of pitching it to the National Transport Authority for use in Dublin.

I’m considering the addition of some combined routes, including the number 41′s which operate to Swords and beyond, which when combined roughly have an off-peak frequency of 15 mins. The 25′s and 26 to Lucan are similar in that combined they will be of sufficient frequency. Another feature which no one noticed was that Docklands Rail station is also missing and it will be added in a future release.

As I mentioned earlier I have been working on a complete Dublin Transport map which shows all services in the Dublin Region. This is a huge job! Unfortunately that is on the back burner as I have lost my enthusiasm it due to the difficulties of representing each and every route in the inner city. It is a nightmare as almost every Dublin Bus service stops on either D’Olier Street or Westmoreland Street. This map will take many months to complete to the same standard as the Frequent Map above. If someone has a GIS solution that they could put forward as alternative solution to hand drawing the map I would be over the moon! Here is a preview of that map in its current work in progress state:

http://zoom.it/hXh4

Draft Geographic Dublin Area Transport Map

As always!

Comments are welcome, you can follow me on the tweet machine @Rusty1052. Only want the blog? Subscribe to the RSS Feed with your favorite reader!

Do you like what you have just read? Maybe you are interested in being a guest writer too. Email me at colinb@dt106ers.com

Related posts:

1. Dublin Frequent Transport Map complete and up for sale!
2. [UPDATED] Sunday Rant: Dublin Bus putting up prices again!
3. Leapcard has still got some living up to do!

Not sure if you remember but last year a Aris Venetikidis completed a future fantasy (with a lot of fact) complete transport map for Dublin as part of his design masters at NCAD, you can view his work on his website ventikidis.com. It was fantastic to finally see someone produce something well thought out and could actually work, except for there was one problem it didn’t reflect what is on the ground now!

We all know Dublin’s public transport network is not the best but hey it works (most of the time). So I figured we don’t have a map showing the most frequent routes in the city, so why not make one? Here is what I have come up with, it include Dublin Bus, Luas and Irish Rail/DART:

The Map

(Click for Full Image)
Please I would love to hear feedback from you regarding the above map, any and all feedback is welcome via twitter email or the comments below!

So what is Rapid Transit?

There is a pretty standard definition the world offer that most will agree on and that is:

A Rapid Transit Route is one in which a service operates at frequency of 15 minutes or less

You might be wondering why there are some routes missing off the above map. Well I shall explain, I conducted an extensive audit of all the Dublin Bus timetables for all bus routes. I got an average peak frequency for the buses and then found there average off-peak frequency for Monday – Friday buses only. All routes shown above operate Monday – Sunday however Saturday and Sunday frequencies can vary substantially from weekday frequency. So you can view the spreadsheet below which is the data I was working from:

As always!

Comments are welcome, you can follow me on the tweet machine @Rusty1052. Only want the blog? Subscribe to the RSS Feed with your favorite reader!

Do you like what you have just read? Maybe you are interested in being a guest writer too. Email me at colinb@dt106ers.com

Related posts:

1. Dublin Frequent Transport Map complete and up for sale!
2. [UPDATE] Dublin Transport Map v1.5
3. Dublin Bus releases Network Direct – Phase1

In 2006, Dutch cycling organisation Fietsberaad commissioned a report into cycling in European cities. The dutch knew their cities have high levels of cycling (for instance almost 40% of all trips undertaken in Groningen are by bike) but wanted to understand how they had got here and if the process could be reproduced in other cities.

The starting place for the report was of course census results. These results gave two bits of interesting, if not expected, results:

1. Most european cities had high levels of cycling in the 1920-1950s, low levels during the 1960-1970s and since the mid seventies were experiencing a renaissance in numbers. This was true for cities with high levels ( eg Copenhagen) and low levels (eg Manchester) of cycling.
2. Socio-economic and spatial-economic factors influenced cycling levels. So some socio-economic groups showed a higher tendency towards cycling that others (middle class people cycled more than people on unemployment benefit). Furthermore, spatial-economic factors such as city relief, transport costs and car parking availability were also important.

Keen to further understand the success of cycling in major cities, the report continued on to examine transport and planning policy in key cities. The authors wanted to understand how cities dealt with their specific influencing factors (as derived from analysing census results) and to encourage a modal shift towards cycling.The findings give an good example of why cycling flourishes in some cities. Let’s take a look at some re-occurring themes.

A man with a Plan

A mayor, a councillor, or a transport chief with a long term vision of the city. These visionary were able to look at the city transport or layout and assemble a strategy for the future with cycling at the foreground. These men often faced hugh obstacles in pushing through their plans. Businesses and car drivers would often deride the plans to curtail the primacy of the car. However the visionaries stuck firm to their plans and drove through their policies. Or else they put their plans into practice secretly; the transport chief for Copenhagen took a few parking spaces out of the center of Copenhagen every year. Over the course of a decade, whole streets were opened up for cycling lanes where once cars were parked.

NIMBYism

Picture the scene: you live in the city center, you have kids, you enjoy the lifestyle, you read in the paper one day that the road outside your door is going to be upgraded from a two lane street to a 8 lane motorway. What do you do? Yes, you guessed it, you object. Dutch cities faced this problem in the 1970′s as they moved from manufacturing, industrial cities, to service-orientated cities. As the factories pulled out, large spaces opened up in the city centers. Council transport departments saw an opportunity to upgrade the road network and improve traffic by building more, or bigger roads. Dutch residents had a different vision. They wanted peaceful, relaxed cities where kids would be safe to play and the air would be clean to breath. Over the course of years, planners began to recognise what sort of cities the residents wanted. A city without cars was productive to a city with bicycles.

If you build it, they will come

If cycling lanes in Ireland had a theme song, it would probably be the Talking Heads hit “Road to Nowhere”. So many irish towns and cities have cycling lanes that are literally baffling. Dutch transport planners knew that cycling infrastructure had to be top class to entice people to cycle. A strip of paint on a busy open road was always seen as a last resort.

Instead quality cycle lanes,often segregated from the road were built. Furthermore, other key infrastructure, such as covered parking bays was also closely looked at. The responsible authorities listened to cyclists and made changes were possible. Uninterrupted cycle lanes were introduced and fly-overs built to avoid dangerous junctions. The concept of ‘kaizen’ (continuous improvement) was also introduced. This resulted in a constant appraisal of the infrastructure and improvements where necessary. Dedicated teams maintained cycle paths and looked for ways to improve the experience of cycling in the city.

Sex sells

Or so say the advertisers. How can we translate this to cycling policy? Easy, tell people of the bene?ts. Make it look cool. Make it look necessary. Advertising can also kills falsehoods, for instance that cycling is dangerous, or that it always rains. Dutch policy makers were keen to explore this angle and ensure that their investments were not in vain.

Lesson to be learned

Cycling policy in Ireland lags far behind our european neighbors. While it is full of good intentions, it fails in practice. Cycling levels are among the lowest in Europe. Cycling paths are poor at best, and often added in as an afterthought. Their is hope however. Portland, Oregon experienced a 65% increase in cycling levels between 1990 to 2010. The Irish will cycle again one day if we can get the right people together with the right ideas.

As always!

Comments are welcome, you can follow me on the tweet machine @Rusty1052. Only want the blog? Subscribe to the RSS Feed with your favorite reader!

Do you like what you have just read? Maybe you are interested in being a guest writer too. Email me at colinb@dt106ers.com

Related posts:

1. The Pedal Project: Three Cycling Cities – From Dublin to London to Amsterdam
2. [Guest Post] The need for transportation planning and urban development to be closely aligned
3. Survey by TomTom says Dublin traffic among worst in Europe

Ireland being an island nation with its major ports on the east and south coasts of the country relies heavily on road transport for the distribution of imported goods nationally. There is a minor reliance on rail transport for distribution of goods as it is considered to be more efficient to use the road network to deliver small and bulk freight. One way of addressing the issue is to look at the subject of transportation and land use and how we can reduce journey times between towns and cities throughout the country.

Background

The Von Thünen Model for use of land

It was revealed by JH Von Thünen in his 1826 paper “The Isolated State” that from an agricultural perspective, transport and the location of goods could be more efficiently dealt with by locating fresh produce growing appropriately to optimal transport corridors which would deliver the goods more efficiently and cost effectively. We can use

this example to demonstrate the sustainability of land use when transport is considered in an urban context. Von Thünen’s theory stated that the products with the highest production costs would be located closest to the market place. For example, grain production would be located closer than livestock production to the market place.

Although Von Thünen was demonstrating the efficiency of the transportation of agricultural produce, the theory can be explored to look at how this concept can be applied to the transport of people from residential areas to retail and commercial areas. In other words, how we deal with people movement as well as the movement of goods.

Alonso’s Bid Rent Curve

The National Spatial Strategy (NSS)promotes the strategic and sequential release of land whilst concentrating development in areas where “it is possible” to integrate employment, retail & commercial as well as public transport. The NSS also advocates consolidation of existing areas and regeneration of brown field sites ahead of green field sites. This is clearly a ‘work with what we have’ approach as it uses the networks already existing, or at the very least, networks that could be conveniently reintroduced.

Building on Von Thünen’s model, Alonso came up with a more modern approach through his Bid Rent Curve or what is sometimes known as the Central Business District Theory (CBD). This theory related to the location of business to the critical masses. The logic of the CBD theory was that the greater access to population for business, the more profitable it could be in commercial terms.

Global Factors

At present we are experiencing political unrest in middle?eastern countries such as Libya, Iraq and Bahrain as well as Tunisia and Egypt. The impact such unrest is having on Europe is fundamental as the political stability of countries such as Iraq, Libya and Bahrain have a direct influence on the price of oil. At time of writing, the cost of crude oil has reached $110 a barrel (22 March). The affect of political unrest on the production of oil is a major factor in the cost but so is the transportation of oil as freight.

It is estimated that 3 million barrels of oil travel daily via the Suez Canal, which is controlled by Egypt. Primarily this freight is bound for the USA and to a lesser extent, the Western European market (Vanderbruck, 2011).

Not only does this raise the issue of how strategic transportation of oil coming from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait is to Europe and the United States of America, it also raises the issue of what those western continents must do to address the heavy reliance on fossil fuels produced in the middle? east. This puts an onus on the Western economies to address how we deal with the supply of a product vital to the sustainability of all the countries that have become major end?users.

The subject of oil and the reliance of Ireland on it during recessionary times, poses a serious question in terms of transport and land use. Urban transport in Ireland up to now has not been problem because we have always had an abundance of reasonably affordable oil to power our public and private transport. However, with unrest in the middle?east and no indigenous supply of our own during the worst economic downturn in the history of the state, Ireland is vulnerable and must look to reduce our heavy reliance on imported fuels. We can do so by looking at how and where we

locate our central business districts and residential areas. This also leads back to the NSS and the policy of consolidating built up areas.

Political Factors

In 2009 the then Irish government made up of Fianna Fail/Green Party brought forward a policy document called Smarter Travel – A Sustainable Transport Future. This document outlines the difficulties faced by Ireland during the current economic recession in terms of transport provision and presents a plan to address the needs amid current economic constraints.

In his foreword of the document, Minister Noel Dempsey acknowledges that current transport trends are unsustainable and pursuing outdated policies will have an adverse impact on the economy and society in general. The document also acknowledges the importance of aligning transport and spatial planning to prevent urban sprawl. The culmination of the policy is that smarter travel is encouraged as an alternative to private car use. The policy offers a commitment to radically changing and improving the public transport system to encourage people to live in closer proximity to places of employment. It is a very strong policy document but is unlikely to be adhered to by the new Fine Gael/Labour government.

The current Programme for Government 2011 – 2016 is weak in terms of direction for promotion of sustainable land use and how it will be addressed but there is mention of giving more control to local communities in terms of transport and traffic that could be a positive step toward bringing the powers of delivering public transport and roads into the local governance sphere rather than the current centralised model currently in place whereby national government delivers on public transport and other community infrastructure such as schools and health care facilities. If such a policy is implemented by the current Minister for Local Government, we may see a new joined up approach to transport planning and spatial planning which will benefit the quality of life for citizens.

Density

As mentioned earlier, the NSS promotes consolidation of the Greater Dublin Area (GDA) to ensure economic competitiveness as well as ensuring a cohesive approach in terms of development. Crucial to future consolidation is the densities of residential developments. It is essential to encourage higher densities to manage the supply of local services in a more efficient way. When we allow urban sprawl to occur, we stretch the provision of services such utility provision and public transport. For

example, if the Rural Housing Policy of Fingal County Council was abolished and it becomes easier for people to build one?off housing units on agricultural sites, we will create urban sprawl but more detrimentally we will create a situation whereby sewage treatment cannot be provided, public transport does not serve areas where population growth is taking place because of the sporadic development.

However, if we designate land around Balbriggan train station where people can live in close proximity to a transport hub, this will create a more sustainable lifestyle for the residents who can avail of transport provision close to where they live. The latter scenario is what is being promoted and supported by the NSS and RPGs in an effort to bring land use and transport together, thus encouraging people to live and work in areas accessible by transport.

Urban Transport

Currently planning authorities are working from policies within the RPGS which promote development along key transport corridors. According to the RPGs, two types of Green Belt have been established, large outer greenbelts to earmark areas where the minimum level of development should take place and smaller connector green belts where space between urban areas and rural areas can be preserved. Consolidation of development has been an objective of planning guidelines since the publication of the SPGs in 1999. Policies delivering consolidation of development are pursued in order to concentrate development around transport corridors with the objective of minimising urban trips using private transport. Concentrating development around transport nodes ensures an efficient use of public transport as an alternative to private transport.

Conclusion

Taking into consideration global factors such as the cost of imported fossil fuels which will influence travel patterns of both private and business users, it is vitally important for planners to bring together transport planning and urban development through consolidation. The economic factors such as availability of disposable income and access to cheap finance which was abundant during the “Celtic Tiger” years but now dramatically lower mean that policies within the National Spatial Strategy and the Regional Planning Guidelines are essential to address the quality of life for people who may not be in a financial position to obtain private transport. In addition, bringing together transport planning and urban development ensures a more cost effective way to deliver public transport projects to support the existing communities and those emerging.

It is clear that with policies such as the NSS in place to consolidate our developed areas we are moving in the right direction. However, the question must be asked as to whether we have the political will to concentrate development in appropriate areas designated for that purpose. The matter of ‘Ghost Estates’ along with the overhang of land zoned for development in a number of local authorities throughout Ireland would tell us that there must be a change in the political culture ahead of any sustainable approach to a more cohesive relationship between transport and land use. Until the mindset of our public representatives is set to deliver on sustainable development, we will continue to see sporadic land zoning occurring with urban sprawl being the result. It will take a number of decades for infrastructure to catch up and until then populations of those areas will be subjected to a low quality of life where inadequate physical and social infrastructure are the norm.

As always!

Comments are welcome, you can follow me on the tweet machine @Rusty1052. Only want the blog? Subscribe to the RSS Feed with your favorite reader!

Related posts:

1. [Guest Post] Cycling policy in europe, what the Dutch found
2. Planning board shoots down €50m development
3. Spatial Planning, Transport Planning, the Rational Planning Model. What are they….?

Dardistown Metro North Depot

Having finally got off my ass to resume blogging the Metro North project is cropping up more and more in the news! I see that a lobby group has be officially launched (I reckon relaunched but anyway!) the ‘Yes to Metro North‘ Facebook community. It is being described by the North Dublin TD, Clare Daly as:

‘This is the only shovel-ready transport project, with planning completed, millions already spent on it and the only project with funding in place.’

Which I can say is probably true, however it’s not ‘shovel ready’ as the relocation of the depot still has to go through probable oral hearing with a decision not likely until October where the project will receive build permission as part of the conditions attached to the railway order. Documents relating to the Depot relocation to Dardistown are available at www.dublinmetronorthdepot.ie

I am inclined to agree with the cooments attributed to the unnamed former Fingal County Council planner in a recent Fingal Independent article.

….a former Fingal County Council planner has warned there is ‘no way’ Metro will be built, given the lack of funds and skewed projected population figures.

Now I wouldn’t go as far as saying its never going to be built as we must remember Railway Orders made under the Transport (Railway Infrastructure) Act 2001 remain in force forever effectively. Unlike Planning Permissions which have an effective life if extended of 10 year, Railway Orders have no defined lifespan. So lets not get too freaked out just yet it can still be built, maybe not in the next 10 years though!

Comments by the Minister that the old plan of linking the Airport with the Northern Line at Clongriffen are laudable, like come on if that was to happen it would have been built already! The whole Metro concept of linking the airport to the city centre while also serving communities is the whole point of it not just a rail link to the airport.

We seem to be going one step forward in terms of aspiration and two steps backwards in terms of clarity of what it is we want. Is the policy to put a rail link to the airport or is it to provide a rail link to the airport to Ballymun. The investment plan Transport 21 seems to have been quietly cancelled, which could be the final death nail for the Metro for the time being.

Pragmatism!

'Bus with High Level of Service' - Gothenburg, Sweden

We are looking to 20 year solutions, why i ask? There needs to be a radical shake up of transport policy for Dublin, something which 2030 vision is not going to deliver since it is a rehash of all the transport 21 projects. More pragmatic solutions need to be proposed! Something like a BRT based line that would run along the Ballymun road as an interim stop measure or stepping stone until the Metro can be built.

Undoubtedly I will rant more about alternative solutions in the coming weeks!

Related posts:

1. RPA to submit railway order for Metro West to the Bord!
2. What’s the story like? 1/2012
3. Metro, Dart link included in €39bn revised capital plan

New Prepaid Ticket Fares 2011

Dublin Bus wishes to advise customers that the price of some discounted prepaid fares will be increased from Sunday 1st may 2011. Please see table below for new prepaid fares. Prepaid Ticket Old Price New Price 1-Day Adult Rambler   €6.00  to‚ €6.20 3-Day Adult Rambler €13.30 to‚ €13.50 5 Day Adult Rambler €21.00 to‚ €22.00 Rambler 30 Day Adult €105.00 to, €110.00 Rambler 5 Day Student €15.70 to €16.50 Rambler 30…

Having quickly scanned through it i clicked the link to find out how much more I would be paying for my 30 day student bus ticket next week to get this:

What you get when you click the above link in the quote

That’s right the news item does not exist anymore! Needless to say I’m not very happy at all, under one weeks notice that fares are going up!? A small piece of research on the NTA website revealed that under their performance obligations of the contract with the NTA:

Fares InformationUp-to-date fares information for all fare categories and all services to be available on the BÁC website.  Fare changes to be announced on the website as early as possible and not less than 5 working days in advance of the change taking place.

Quarterly Report

Availability of information and minimum 5 working days notice re changes

Also on further inspection of the contract they signed in 2009, only cash fare increases require the prior written approval of the National Transport Authority and not the prepaid tickets! Sorry for all the quotes but this is ludicrous:

Section 14.2: Pending the development and implementation of a fare scheme under section 59 of the Act of 2008, any increase in controlled fares  in respect of the Services shall be subject to the prior written approval of the Authority.  This requirement  for the prior written approval of the Authority shall not apply to discounted fares, prepaid fares, concessionary fares or multi-journey fares.

So essentially the NTA can’t force them to make fares cheaper? Someone please correct me if I’m wrong. It is beyond me how fares can increase pretty much every 6 months, that is if my memory serves me correctly. It’s not like services have magically got a million times better! Now they have improved but still there is no integrated multi modal fare ticket, have they even thought of making a zonal fare system which will allow people to transfer with out being penalized?

[UPDATE]

Dublin bus released there fare prices today on the website, but get this it’s not on the homepage, you have to go to the news page to find it! The spreadsheet below was made using the prices on the various prepaid ticket pages as on the 24th April, is it they had already updated some of the prices or are just lying about the prices on the updated price list. For instance the Monthly Adult Travelwide is quoted as €100.00 on the prepaid paid page yet the press release says its old price(the current one) is €98.00. Poor form guys. Below are the updated prices. You can view the press realease here: New Prepaid Ticket Fares 2011

Related posts:

1. [UPDATE] Dublin Transport Map v1.5
2. Lenihan says house prices now at bottom
3. Dublin City Council erecting Real Time Passenger (RTP) information signs

Each Tuesday over the next ten weeks, tune in to Streetfilms as we’ll be posting a new chapter about smart and proven strategies to reduce traffic and improve street safety for all users.

Source: Moving Beyond the Automobile

The series will tackle a number of topics which  may be of interest to you including Congestion Pricing, Carpark Pricing and Transit orientated Development. However what got me most was they have produced a vid on Bus Rapid Transit. Big THANKS to the guys for this as it is providing the perfect intro to my thesis on a BRT orbital Network for Dublin! Check out the video below!

Moving Beyond the Automobile: Bus Rapid Transit from Streetfilms on Vimeo.

Have good week and keep it real folks! Dont forget to subscribe to the Feedburner in your Reader of choice!

Related posts:

1. Haughey suggests moving oil storage tanks out of Dublin Port
2. Dublin Rapid Transit Map – Feedback please!