Promoting and Highlighting Public Bus Transport
TFI Local Link Laois Offaly under the remit and funding of the National Transport Authority (NTA) provide public bus transport across Laois and Offaly in rural areas connecting towns and villages to their nearby centres. Under the guidance of the National Transport Authority since 2014 TFI Local Link Laois Offaly have grown to provide over 30 different routes across the County with over a 100 trips a week provided (service route map attached). All TFI Local Link services are subcontracted to local operators and in turn generates employment and contributes to the local economy connecting our rural communities. The majority of TFI Local Link services are referred to as DRT, Demand Responsive Transport, where the impending passenger book seats on the particular service in their area for pick up and return to their door. In the recent past TFI Local Link has now undertaken bigger routes like the 834 service connecting the major towns along the Roscrea to Portlaoise corridor on a seven-day service with 9 trips per day on a Monday to Saturday and 6 services on a Sunday. In the next few years under the Connecting Ireland programme, it is envisaged to develop more of these high frequency services across the rural hinterland to provide better flexibility and encourage the reduction in single car usage and increase usage of public transport locally.
Barriers that need to be addressed in the immediate future is infrastructure on the ground, the improvement of bus stops and addition of new stops in particular in Portlaoise and Portarlington due to the increased sprawl of the town on all access routes. The visual aides to facilitate the information flow of all local public transport services in the County needs to be addressed and in collaboration with TFI, Transport for Ireland, identified and mounted where possible. The changing work environment over the past 12 months has seen the dramatic change to working from home and will be a part of our future working lives going forward. The location of a number of digital hubs now in the County will give access and opportunity for the long commute to be shortened with fibre broadband and service utilities available locally. TFI Local Link Laois Offaly is mindful of this and as part of our Connecting Ireland plans will be looking at connectivity to these hubs from rural areas where possible on regular daily services.
In line with our own four-year strategy and the Government’s climate change plans the encouragement of sustainable transport modes is one of our targets and TFI Local Link Laois Offaly will have the first electric bus in operation for the National network of TFI Local Link in April, 2021. Already identified in the Laois Draft County Plan the introduction of compressed gas powering stations and the roll out of more electric charging points will enable more operators to look at these options but must be acknowledged this will be a slow turning curve due to excessive costs of such vehicles in the current small market. Incentives and grants should be rolled out to help achieve more sustainable vehicles on the ground.
Tourism hot spots around the County would also be pinch points for future services to connect with nurturing our natural amenities and also reduce the dependency on providing large costly parking facilities that is not possible in most locations. Providing a regular service to drop and collect will see the areas benefit more greatly.