On February 20th, the chair of the Climate Change Advisory Council wrote to Minister for Transport, Darragh O’Brien, recommending urgent action to address congestion. The letter did not pull its punches. Irish cities, it stated, “are choking with congestion; our transport emissions are not reducing fast enough to meet our legally-binding targets and the people of Ireland are growing increasingly frustrated with the ever-growing congestion and inadequate public transport options available to them”.

The letter made the case for more funding for public transport (including the Dart+ South West and Luas Finglas), a renewed focus on transport-oriented development and interestingly, more park-and-ride (P&R) services at city-entry points.

The idea behind P&R is straightforward: divert car drivers on to public transport at strategic interchanges between roads and public transport at the edges of our cities, using a combination of carrots and sticks. “Carrots” could be reliable and frequent electric shuttle buses, or free or low-cost parking combined with a public transport ticket. “Sticks” might be congestion charges and of course, congestion.

The National Transport Authority (NTA) is funding 11 P&R sites for the Greater Dublin Area and a further 10 or 11 sites to serve regional cities, though in Dublin at least, the plans are at various stages in the approval process.

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Like most sensible policies, they should have been built years ago, when the M50 itself was conceived. But P&R still seems like a 20th-century solution to a 21st-century problem. Our transport system will never work efficiently designed around cars. For one thing, car parking is a very wasteful use of valuable land beside transport hubs (which should be developed more densely to cater to a greater number of people). One car-parking space could serve between eight and 12 bicycles.

Behavioural research shows that once drivers are behind the wheel, they are psychologically less likely to change modes unless the sticks are really punitive – such as, for example, very high congestion charges. Are Irish politicians willing to introduce congestion charges? Not judging by the political deference to private motorists in road-safety policy.

There is plenty of evidence from the Luas P&R sites, as well as railway parking at Irish rail stations, to show that P&R can work. But it requires seamless integration with reliable and frequent public transport services that, in turn, are not delayed by congestion. This will be particularly important as NTA sites are more likely to connect with buses than rail. Buses need to be given priority over cars to guarantee fast journey times.

Seamlessness also requires joined-up services in the form of digital apps that provide end-to-end mobility-as-a-service functions. Instead of designing transport solutions based on privately-owned vehicles, we need transport options that are consumed as a service. There is a solid foundation for this: there isn’t enough public funding, land or road space, or carbon budget to accommodate everyone driving their own private chariot.

Most transport planners believe the future of mobility is in multi-modal trips since realistically, only a fraction of journeys by public transport can be completed using one mode. Instead, we need to integrate our transport services − yes, all of them – including buses, trains, taxis, bikes and rentals into a single digital interface for planning, timetabling and payment. We also need to be able to choose different modes at the same location. This is the concept of the mobility “hub” currently being trialled at several locations around the country.

None of this is rocket science and yet we are embarrassingly slow at implementing even these modest proposals. Many cities have a single app that allows you to plan and pay for your entire trip. (The London underground works with a mobile phone and doesn’t even require an app.) However, the Dublin area alone requires at least two apps, plus an additional app to top up a Leap card. Contactless payments seem aeons away. These are all “frictions” that act as invisible barriers to people using public transport.

We are so far behind the rest of Europe in our mobility culture and service delivery that we need radical, not incremental, changes. So when building these car parks, they must not add to the car-centric transport system we already have.

The NTA should ensure P&R sites are designed with reliable public transport services operating as frequently as every 10 minutes. They should include charging stations, ample bike storage and e-bike rental. We need cycleways to train stations and facilities to carry up to eight bikes per train. P&R must not become a Trojan horse for more car infrastructure or continued poor land-use planning outside of cities.

Let’s start with those apps.

© The Irish Times