As the Deputy may be aware, as Minister for Transport, I have responsibility for policy and overall funding in relation to public transport. The National Transport Authority (NTA) has responsibility for the planning and development of public transport infrastructure, including the development of related technology systems.
As you may be aware, in December 2023 the NTA awarded a contract to implement and support a National Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) system for all Public Service Obligation (PSO) buses to Trapeze, a specialist transport systems company. This upgrade will improve the quality of bus service operations and the timeliness and the quality of real-time bus service information. It will enable the NTA to consolidate several existing and disparate bus AVL systems into one central system to be used by all PSO bus operators in Ireland, and which has expansion capacity to meet the growing demand for public transport in Ireland.
The project is well underway and a critical enabler for this project, preparatory works on the bus fleet nationwide to re-wire the buses so that they are ready for installation of the new AVL equipment, has advanced. To date more than 700 buses have been retrofitted with the new wiring arrangements to allow easy fitment of the new kit.
The next phase is to commence the system testing of the solution. End-to-end testing of the hardware and software solution to be deployed is a critical activity that must be successfully completed with all defects resolved in order for NTA to be confident that the solution is fully functional and robust before it can be installed on bus.
Subject to the systems successfully passing the detailed testing phases, a pilot implementation will commence late this year and assuming no relevant issues are found, full rollout will commence in 2026 and will complete early 2027. In total approximately 1,800 buses nationwide will have the new system installed on them.
Noting the NTA's responsibility in the matter, I have referred the Deputy's question to the NTA for a direct reply. Please contact my private office if you do not receive a reply within 10 days.
