Cork TD told €1.5m paid to contractor behind transport app

The National Transport Authority has paid more than €1.5m to the contractor who manages the TFI Live app since 2022.

Hugh Creegan, deputy chief executive of the National Transport Authority, said that the TFI Live app is one component in the overall scope of services in a contract that NTA has with the supplier.

The service also includes a cloud-based server system; operational support and maintenance, ICT security services, hosting costs, data management, and ‘at-stop’ publicity materials.

As a result, the portion of these costs attributable to the TFI Live app alone is not separately identifiable. Furthermore, as the app serves all operators across the country, it is not possible to identify the portion of the costs applicable solely to Cork city.

Over €1.5m has been spent since the start of 2022 on this contract as a whole, with €1.2m of this being in 2024 and €242,557 in 2025.

The data was provided to Sinn Féin TD Thomas Gould, who had asked how much the NTA had spent on the real time app for Cork city buses in the last five years.

Mr Gould told The Echo: “It is absolutely ridiculous. People are left, sometimes for up to an hour, at bus stops with the app telling them the bus will be there in 1 minute. 

"When I use Google Maps on my phone, it tells me exactly how long it will take me to get somewhere — it accounts for traffic, road works, delays. Why can’t this app that has cost more than a million euro in the last five years do the same?” 

Further information on the bus service was provided to Mr Gould recently by minister for transport Darragh O’Brien.

Mr O’Brien told him that there are currently 558 drivers assigned to bus routes in Cork city, approximately 15 drivers above the level required to operate the existing network, but that the company is still recruiting as more drivers will be required for BusConnects Cork.

“A surplus in drivers ensures resilience in the system, including covering leave, retirements and normal turnover, and does not represent spare capacity for expansion.

“Delivering a network of the scale planned for the area will require a significantly larger driver workforce than is currently in place.”

Mr Gould said that the fact that the buses still were not reliable despite having enough drivers was very concerning.

“It’s really clear now that, while driver shortages contributed to the crisis, it was not the only problem,” he said.