Dublin Bus is running out of space to park its growing fleet of vehicles.
The chairman of the CIÉ group of public transport companies, Aidan Murphy, has told Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan that Dublin Bus depots are now at full capacity to maintain and park vehicles used under its public service contract.
The State-owned bus operator may also have to find an alternative site for its current bus garage on Conyngham Road near Heuston Station as the existing 1.2 hectare site is under consideration for redevelopment for housing.
Mr Murphy said in a report to the Minister that “a replacement for the Conyngham Road depot is currently being progressed with CIÉ Group partially in response to Land Development Authority (LDA) and Government Housing for All ambitions”.
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A spokesman for the CIÉ Group said talks with the LDA were continuing.
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Mr Murphy said in his report that, as part of the BusConnects programme, “the need for additional depots and garaging space is crucial to manage the expected change in service profiles”.
BusConnects is the plan in place by the Government and the National Transport Authority to greatly improve services, in part by redesigning the network and the introduction of new routes and “spines” running across Dublin.
“The need for a new depot, or depots, is influenced by the demand for new services, the agreement of spines and major thoroughfares and the sustainability objectives of the BusConnects programme.
“New depots allow for network planning that includes an evaluation of the best approach to relocating the public service obligation (PSO) fleet with a view to reducing non-revenue-earning kilometres on routes. "
Mr Murphy said “non-revenue-earning kilometres” were those travelled by a bus from a depot to the start of a route as it was not carrying fare-paying customers.
“This will reduce costs and carbon emissions while enhancing efficiency of service delivery.”
“The introduction of a flexible approach to garaging facilities will provide the most efficient use of resources over the medium term while allowing for an expansion of the fleet, consistent with the BusConnects programme of work and Dublin Bus’s garaging strategy.”
Dublin Bus did not comment on the comments made by the CIÉ Group chairman in his report to Mr Ryan.
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Mr Murphy said there had been a significant increase in the number of vehicles operated by Dublin Bus in recent times.
He said that following the introduction of phase five of the BusConnects network redesign after November 2023, Dublin Bus “had been the main beneficiary of substantial public bus transport growth”.
He said the company’s fleet had seen an increase of more than 150 buses as well as a significant number of additional drivers.
“The launch of future phases is dependent on key resources of drivers, mechanics, depot space and fleet,” he said.
He added a Dublin Bus project team were tracking and managing “key dependencies” such as staff numbers – mechanics and drivers – and available depot space as well as “requirement for business-as-usual capacity increases and timetable fixes and completion of necessary on-street infrastructure, signalling and routing issues”.
“The National Transport Authority is delivering a number of projects to provide both temporary and strategic depot capacity.”
He said the first of these to come into operation would be the provision of interim parking arrangements at a new facility on Jamestown Road in Dublin.
The report said the full Jamestown depot was planned to come into operation in the second quarter of next year.
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