DO NOT TRAVEL AT PEAK TIMES!

Transport chief calls for staggered times in schools and work to avoid rush-hour chaos

RUSH hour may soon be a thing of the past as transport chiefs warn that travel times to school and work will have to be staggered. National Transport Authority chief Anne Graham has told the Dáil Covid-19 Committee that longer opening hours for business and schools are the best way to fight the virus.

And that’s not all. She suggested working from home, remote learning, online shopping and online appointments, where possible, must become part of the new normal – exposing enormous challenge as we get back up and running.

While transport unions backed her comments, the business lobby

group, ISME, has warned that businesses will not change their opening hours unless it makes ‘economic sense’.

And as we prepare for more travel in phase two of the roadmap for reopening society, Ms Graham warned that there was already a large percentage of non-essential travel on public transport. Demand had climbed in recent weeks from 50,000 weekly passengers in mid-April to approximately 700,000 in mid-May as restrictions were eased.

She said that staggered start times and longer opening hours would ease congestion outside of the peak hours of 7am to 9am, and 2pm to 6pm, and the use of public transport at peak times should be discouraged, except in the case of essential travel.

‘Public transport capacity with social distancing will be significantly challenged without a number of other supporting measures,’ she told the TDs.

Ms Graham added that prior to the crisis, the NTA had been recording a significant growth in public transport usage in Ireland’s cities, towns and rural areas.

She said this use had risen by 24% over the past four years, leading to ‘very high levels of demand on our network at peak times’. General secretary of transport union the NBRU, Dermot O’Leary echoed her call yesterday, saying that people can no longer be ‘crammed in like sardines’ on public transport.

He said that staggered work and school start times is the only way to manage numbers onboard when demand increases. He told the Irish Daily Mail: ‘We should be looking at the opening times of schools, and staggering them, along with retail and workplaces, so we can give people more flexibility in when they travel, and elongate the peak hours.’ He also warned that extra gardaí may be needed at busy train stations and bus stops to manage numbers as demand for socially distanced public transport grows. However business lobby group ISME has warned that new rosters could not be Challenges: NTA’s Anne Graham imposed on staff who would have to voluntarily agree to work earlier or later in the day.

A spokesman told the Mail: ‘There’s no point opening a newsagents at 6am just to reduce the number of staff in the place. It has to be customer driven and if it’s not, it won’t work. It also does require people to be agreeable to changes in their rosters… but we are already advising people about the flexibility in changing work hours in that fashion.’

During the lockdown, daily demand for public transport dropped to between 10% and 20% of what it was prior to mid-March, Ms Graham said.

But she added that the impact of social distancing had been to reduce the passenger carrying capacity of each vehicle to around 20% of its former level in the case of buses, and even less in the case of trains.

There needed to be a radical shift in the use of walking and cycling over the next few months in our towns and cities.

She concluded: ‘The Authority is of the view that passenger demand will return for public transport as confidence in the safety of public transport grows post Covid-19.’

‘People can’t be crammed in’