Traffic congestion and lack of drivers 'key challenges' for Cork bus services

Bus Éireann has said that the “key challenges” faced by the service in Cork are increased traffic congestion and poor driver recruitment.

It comes as calls were made last week by a Cork TD to Tánaiste Micheál Martin asking him to ensure that people are not left stranded waiting for buses across Cork city.

Figures provided by the National Transport Authority (NTA) show that some 52 complaints were made to the authority in the first three months of the year regarding Cork services.

Speaking in the Dáil last week, Sinn Féin Cork South-Central TD Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire said that patrons of the service have been left waiting up to 60 minutes for a bus that is meant to be operating on a 20-minute interval frequency.

Disappeared

“There is hardly a week goes by that our office isn’t contacted by several people, due to buses which have disappeared,” he said. 

“The buses never show up, or they are late. I want to be clear that this is not the responsibility of the drivers, what is happening is, there is a shortage of drivers in Cork city.

“A lot of routes are particularly affected,” he said, highlighting the 214, 203, 220, and 208 in particular.

“The bus service had been improving for several years, but in the last 12 months, things have gone backwards,” he added.

Complaints

Information provided by the NTA further revealed that almost 250 complaints were made about Cork’s bus services during a 15-month period, from January of last year to March of this year, 70 of which focused on reliability, highlighting concerns about late buses or no-show services.

A spokesperson for Bus Éireann said: “Bus Éireann carries out over 295,000 passenger journeys per week in Cork city.

“The key challenges in Cork include traffic congestion and driver recruitment. Traffic congestion is an operational challenge we are increasingly encountering and there is very limited bus prioritisation outside of Dublin.

“We are already seeing service delivery improvements in Cork as a result of recent enhancements. Enhancements to Route 202 [have] delivered a significant improvement in punctuality, up 20% to nearly 80%.

“We have also introduced a number of other improvements to routes which are delivering strong benefits to customers.”