A Cork City Council spokesperson has defended its response times in repairing traffic lights, pointing out that throughout 2022, 98.3% of the city’s traffic lights were fully functional, something they described as “a remarkable achievement”.

The council’s statement came after The Echo reported that a set of city-centre traffic lights had remained out of order for 93 days last year, and seven sets of lights experienced more than 10 faults in the year.

Traffic lights at the junction of Lancaster Quay and Mardyke Street were out of order and remained unrepaired for three months in 2022, according to data obtained from Cork City Council. The council experienced 745 traffic light outages across the city in the past year, with the average repair time taking 2.93 days. Some 63 traffic light outages took more than seven days to repair, and 14 sets of lights were out of order for over 30 days.

Responding to the report, a council spokesperson said it has a “very robust and responsive” system in place for the maintenance of traffic signals.

“This is evidenced by the fact that in 2022 the uptime for the signalised junctions in the city was 98.3% across the entire city for the year,” they said. “Given the complex nature if such sites, this is a remarkable achievement by the city council. Our maintenance data shows the 66% of all faults are fixed the same day that they are reported and 81% within 2 days.”

The spokesperson said that when complex issues arise, repairs can take longer to resolve.

“This is particularly the case when specialist equipment is required in order to deliver the repair, especially given the present international supply chain issues, or the repair requires significant works to complete, [for example] laying a significant length of new ducting to provide a replacement electrical supply to a site to replace a degraded one,” they said.

Speaking to The Echo about the data, Cork TD Thomas Gould said he had recently met with Cork City Council and raised with them the need to start a log of all traffic light systems and their parts. 

“Keeping on top of the lifespan of these parts and making sure sufficient replacements are in stock could dramatically reduce the wait times and make things much easier for those working on the ground,” Mr Gould said.