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IN RECENT MONTHS, a series of public transport plans have been published with the future of others looking less certain.
Dublin’s long-promised Metro North project was given preliminary Cabinet approval, while the imminent increase in taxi fares was being touted as a way of boosting an increasingly pressurised sector.
Also in the capital, there was confirmation that a late-night Luas service was not being considered, whereas in Galway there were tentative moves towards the western city having its own light rail system.
Each of these developments come at a time of generationally high inflation, with sustainable transport solutions being seen as especially important amid rising fuel costs.
Speaking on a recent episode of The Journal’s The Explainer podcast, Brian Caulfield of TCD’s School of Engineering raised one solution that has proven successful in Belfast that may have an application in cities south of the border.
“It’s about looking at bus systems in a different way. Belfast have a system called the Glider, the Glider is amazing,” Caulfield told The Explainer.
It looks and feels like a light rail tram and I think something like that could be really beneficial for these the regional cities and perhaps Cork. When you put the Glider in you get the demand, you get the density, then you upgrade to a light rail. But the key thing is the density that’s required in the first place.
The Glider service has also been raised by a number of The Journal readers who got in touch to suggest that it may be able to supplement services in Dublin or to replace services in other parts of the country.
So what is this system?
The Glider is the brand name for what is correctly titled as the Belfast Rapid Transit (BRT) system and has been in operation since September 2018.
Each ‘Glider’ is an articulated bus, or ‘bendy bus’, that is 18 metres long and can carry up to 105 people.
The Glider is a rapid transit system that operates a high-frequenccy service east-west across the city and into the Titanic Quarter.
A public consultation process is currently ongoing as part of plans to expand the service to other parts of the city.
Crucially to the system, the Glider operates by way of an off-board ticketing, so that users do not buy tickets or have them validated upon boarding, as is the case on a conventional bus.
Instead, tickets are purchased using machines at the stops, with Smartcards validated here too, similar to the system that is in place for the Luas in Dublin.
This feature, as well as the number of stops on the route, are what has led to the system being suggested as an alternative to light-rail.
Translink, which operates the Glider, told The Journal that the system “includes many of the features of a tram” but also has the “added benefit” of being able to be diverted in case of an issue.
It is of course a cheaper alternative, with the £95 million cost in 2018 being significantly less than the build cost of a light rail system.
As Caulfield argues, the Glider may prove the viability of a light rail system without having to first lay down expensive track.
Branding
The Glider has also been described as a triumph of branding over infrastructure, with some commenting that it achieves much the same as a frequent bus route but is marketed like a tram.
While this ignores the differences between the system and a traditional bus and even if there is some truth to the branding argument, Glider has certainly been effective in carrying more passengers.
In its first year of operation before Covid (September 2018 – September 2019), over 2 million additional Glider passenger journeys were made in comparison to previous bus journeys taken along the same route – an increase of over 30%.
Operator Translink says this translates to around 1.67 million fewer car journeys, based on each Glider carrying the equivalent of 87 cars on average.
National Transport Authority
So has the Glider been considered as a potential option for transport strategies elsewhere on the island?
In response to queries from The Journal, the National Transport Authority (NTA) said the option of a similar transit system was considered for Dublin before the BusConnects network was preferred.
The NTA also points out that the Glider system has a maximum capacity of 1,050 passengers per hour whereas some bus corridors in Dublin can carry up to 2,500 during peak hours.
“A Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) for Dublin was studied in detail a number of years ago called the Swiftway,” a spokesperson for the NTA said.
The conclusion of that analysis at that time was that a similar level of service in terms of capacity could be delivered by providing greater levels of bus priority throughout the network as opposed to the focus on a limited number of corridors. Additionally, conventional bus systems have a greater number of stops than BRT and therefore serve people more directly.
The NTA also said that the “street network in inner Dublin was unable to accommodate” articulated vehicles of that length.
“For these reasons, BusConnects emerged as the most amenable way forward for high-capacity public transport in Dublin, in combination with Luas and Metro on the highest demand corridors such as Swords,” the spokesperson said.
The BusConnects system is already being developed for Cork and the NTA’s overall transport strategy provides for its potential use in all cities “with service levels and capacity increasing in line with demand”.
The NTA told The Journal that plan for Cork “similarly provides for enhanced bus services followed by light rail”.
And what of other cities?
The NTA said that light rail is only currently proposed for Dublin and Cork but is not being ruled out elsewhere:
Light Rail is currently proposed for Dublin and Cork, as the assessments undertaken in the other cities to date have not shown sufficient forecast demand in future years due primarily to the scale and the low density dispersed patterns of existing and planned land use development in those cities. More recently newer concepts such as very light rail are emerging and the NTA continues to monitor the suitability of these for use in the regional cities.
“The NTA is open to the idea of service provision moving along the spectrum outlined above towards higher capacity bus systems in Limerick, Galway and Waterford, in the event that population growth and land use planning policy lead to sufficient demand being forecast on certain corridors. Whether that leads to light rail at some point will depend on the growth forecasts.”
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31% of the board are women but 25% of the work force are female. Surely that signifies over representation?? What about the gender gap in prisons?
@mick wall: c’mon Mick the gender pay gap & equality program only applies to certain industries and functions with in society. The nice and comfy ones.
Prisons, construction & refuse plants etc are not in scope, ya can have them all to yourselves.. it’s the Monday to Friday C-suite jobs only please.
@Greg Daniel: agree. the gender pay gap is a myth. Why would an employer hire a man if they could hire a woman to do the same job for less money. The social welfare queue should exclusively compromise of men if it is the case
@mick wall: Since the role of choice for many/most women is home maker and nurturer, and since that role doesn’t appeal or is impossible for many/most men, it would be logical to assume that there are/will be more men in the workforce. Maybe the 50%/50% An Post management team has chosen not to see this fact of modern life because it would suggest that it already favours the appointment of women over men in management positions. They should fix that first.
Dangerous game, the best person male or female should get the job end of story this gender qoata stuff need’s to stop.
@Ciaran O ‘Reilly: The Employment Equality Acts prohibit discrimination in relation to employment on the basis of gender (and other issues). Taking a person’s gender into consideration when making an appointment is illegal.
@Earth Traveller: so how can we explain the 50/50 ratio ratio between women and men in management?
@Eric Vdc: because maybe that’s how ” the best person for the job” worked out
TheJournal really needs to wake up a bit. This article is phrased as if everybody accepts there is a gender pay gap – completely forgetting that some readers may be intelligent.
@Use Your Head: I think we all agree that every job/role should be paid a rate regardless of the plumbing of the person doing it. That doesn’t mean there will be some roles where the majority of people in them will be either men or women, they’re still going to be paid the same for the hours they work however.
There is no gender *pay* gap, there’s a gender *earnings* gap. It’s illegal to pay someone less because of their gender.
@jacquoranda: Being illegal doesn’t mean it doesnt happen
But will they……wait for it…… deliver on time!
@Keelan O’neill: Nope! Spent €10 last week, to send an important letter by Express, cos the regular post can’t be trusted. And now they’ve lost the letter! Been on to customer service twice, and still awaiting the promised callback.
So this is really just about management positions.
@Dave Thomas: Precisely. Gender equality in the boardroom is an absolute must, and they’re almost there. However when it comes to horsing a heavy bag of post around on a wet and cold Winters day it’s still viewed as a man’s job. Regardless of who does it, they’re both going to be paid the same for the same hours worked. That’s equality. Having the best person do a job instead of insisting half must be women (it never seems to be men) is not equality.
If someone you love is being operated upon, would you prefer to be told the surgeon is the best in their profession or totally equal in every way possible.
Facebook gender list, California’s gender list, the BBC’s gender list?, or are we talking just about two genders here. If it’s cheaper to have women in the workforce then surely the workforce would compromise of just women.
Work as hard and u will get paid as much there is no such thing as a gender pay gap or “we need more women in this career” if women wanted them jobs they would apply, if women worked as hard as men do they would get the job and the same pay but the fact is they just dont do the hours men do but want the same pay
What are they going to do make the women work the same hours as the men? That is the leading cause of the gender pay gap, working less paid hour than men.
Hmmm giving a person a job based on what genitals they have rather than who’s best for the job – just to hit some ridiculous quota is not only sexist but asking for trouble. Imagine if it was the opposite way around and creches had to by law have a 50 / 50 mix
Most would close down through lack of staff
Why stop at gender. An Post should weigh, measure the height of and objectively judge the attractiveness of all their employees and correlate this with earnings.
Are the people who come up with this dumb enough to assume that males and females are attracted to exactly the same types of jobs/roles and therefore expect 50/50 outcomes? Equality of opportunity is what is needed and everyone would support, but equality of outcome is incredibly discriminatory as you obviously have to discriminate to get a 50/50 outcome, by definition.
More of this silly nonsense. If they really want so-called gender equality they will have to introduce a law compelling women to stay in the workforce after they have children and deny them the right to choose to stay at home. Choice is the root cause of all this alleged gender inequality.
I’ve never seen a woman deliver mail.
This is such a disgraceful issue, women are just as good if not better than their male counterparts in every industry!
Pay them the same wage ffs!
@Bumder: They getting equal pay for equal work. Pay discrimination based on sex has been illegal since 1974. The discrepancy in earnings is due to the choices women make, not discrimination.
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