BUS ÉIREANN is hoping to offer commuters free rides on a new Luas-style bus system that will be tested in Cork within months.
The company confirmed yesterday that its consultants have selected three potential routes that would be suitable for its new Bus Rapid Transit system.
Canadian transport experts MRC Hazel McClean consultants said the street car — a tram on rubber wheels — would be best suited to run on the following routes:
* From Ballincollig to the city, via the town’s bypass, serving Cork Institute of Technology, Cork University Hospital, and University College Cork;
* From Carrigaline to the city via the N28;
* From Mahon Point, to the city, via Páirc Uí Chaoimh, through the Docklands, crossing over two planned bridges at Water Street or Tivoli, and serving Kent Railway Station and the Parnell Place bus station.
The company hopes to introduce the BRT on one of these routes on a short trial basis in the coming months, with passengers probably being allowed to travel for free.
Company spokesperson Erica Roseingrave said the trials will be next stage of a major feasibility study being conducted by MRC ahead of the BRT’s planned introduction.
The system is also being introduced in Galway and Limerick but it will be tested in Cork first given the city’s success in developing green bus routes.
MRC experts and Bus Éireann management met with senior gardaí and city and county officials last week for a briefing on the feasibility study.
They also met with senior Department of Transport officials before the weekend to help secure funding under Transport 21.
However, it is understood the department is ready to release funding as soon as the study is complete.
The BRT needs little infrastructural work and could be rolling on the city’s streets within months of funding being released, Ms Roseingrave said.
“The reason we are examining this system is because it has the ability to deliver a fast and frequent service at a fraction of the cost of delivering and maintaining a full-scale tram system,” she said.
Running on dedicated green bus routes, the BRT would operate every eight minutes throughout the day.
Each 18 metre articulated vehicle can carry 149 passengers — three times the average bus load.
High-quality stops with shelters, ticket kiosks and real-time passenger information systems, which uses global positioning system technology to transmit the vehicle’s estimated time of arrival to waiting passengers, will be constructed.
The trams are biofuel compatible, wheelchair friendly and offer an extremely smooth journey thanks to deep rubber wheels.
The system is already in operation in Las Vegas, York and Leeds in England, in Brisbane, Australia, and in Eindhoven, Holland.
The system could be in Cork within three years.
Irish Examiner
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