I have included here some notes on transportation system which were basically quasi-political critical notes, but they have a strong techno-economic aspect.

Wave Energy

Ing Klaus P Priebe / Transferstelle / Universitat Dortmund
Postfach 500500 / 4600 Dortmund 50
20/4/92

re:wave-power

Dear Ing Priebe / Thank you for your material re the Dornier wave energy device. Now that I see the source I can see that it is to be taken seriously, as I have encountered the Dornier people in the context of an EC-funded project, and have spend time on their ground. One thinks of them as aircraft people, but there is a marine tradition, and they were early into flying-boats, which their site on Lake Constance made feasible.

I note that the patent dates from 1979. Why the lag? Is it due to the slump in the renewable energy market, and they simply did not pursue it? Why now?

I note that in the associated literature the inventor is aware of the Salter 'duck' approach, and also the Masuda turbine; there is also a Wells turbine, originating in Belfast, which I believe has been taken up in Norway.

I see that he is invoking the art of the boat-builder rather than that of the marine civil engineer, but that there would seem to be considerable design and development work to be done before a system could be developed which would stand up to an Atlantic storm. So it is, I suggest, misleading to give low cost figures, though the cost may in the end be low, once the development costs are written off, provided that with good design maintenance costs can be kept down.

In this situation, I don't see myself acting for a prospective purchaser, as there is likely to remain a credibility barrier, at least until a pilot-project has been demonstrated in Irish waters, and survived a winter undamaged.

I could, however, act for a developer or a vendor, as their contact-person and information source in Ireland. The minimum initial mobilisation fee would be £4000IR, corresponding to 2 week's work, possibly spread out over about 2 months, in which I would make a preliminary survey to the developer's terms of reference and report back, giving the continuation options.

The energy estimate in your paper I find obscure: kW per sq metre per second would appear to be dimensionally unsound. The usual measure is kW per metre length, parallel to the coastline; one thinks of an energy flux across a linear boundary, integrating the vertical movement over time. The mean figure off the west of Ireland is about 10kW/m, and it ranges from about 5 in summer to about 25 in winter (according to Mollison in Edinburgh).

Thus a 20km system would provide about 100 to 500 MW, which is as much as the grid could absorb from a variable source. A connector to the UK and European grids would increase this limit substantially.

If we are talking of piloting it at about (say) a megawatt, and if it is to be economic in terms of capital cost, we are talking of a pilot investment of the order of £1M (say DM3M), just to prove feasibility, before the Irish electricity people would even begin to consider it.

There appears to be some negative experience regarding German investment in renewable energy technology (wind), where the system seems to have been successfully demonstrated but was not taken up. Perhaps there was politics involved. I would need to go into this in my preliminary report. I would need to find out why the system was not bought after what appeared to be a successful pilot demonstration, and establish that the negative factors would not be present for wave power as proposed.

There may also be some need for modelling a specified design in a simulated environment, and I am in touch with people who would be in a position to do this. I would estimate for this aspect in my preliminary report.

It is for these reasons that I have indicated 2 weeks instead of 1 for the preliminary report.

Yours sincerely / Dr Roy H W Johnston

Public Transport in Dublin

15/2/93

Dear Mr Ryan

Arising from a short essay which I submitted in the Irish Planning Institute competition some time ago, and which won some recognition, I have been engaging in an ongoing exchange of letters with Mr Montgomery, of Dublin Bus, mostly on the question of the revision of the route structure.

I have since encountered Marian Wilson, who has been doing the market research on the route restructuring; I gather she holds the file relating to my correspondence. She gave a seminar in the TCD Statistics Dept recently, in which she outlined some of the methodology.

I am advised that the issues I have raised should really be taken up with you as the Dublin Transport Initiative, and I am now initiating this process. You may like to ask her for the file of my correspondence; alternatively I can provide you with it.

This is a response to some of the points raised in her seminar, which I undertook to develop.

The principal one relates to the 'interchange penalty' I in her cost expression

GC = F + etc ... + I.

She assumes this is a constant, or at most related to the distance you have to walk between route-stops. This, I suggest, is a disastrous oversimplification, which has the capability of destroying all her other good work, and 'snatching defeat from the jaws of victory'.

I lived in Paris for 2 years, and got to know and love the metro. There is a lore there which says, if possible, you select a route with avoids a change at Chatelet. The reason is that this offers you 3 alternatives; in most other places there is one, or sometimes 2. You not only have a long walk, but you have the problem of locating the other route you want, and finding your way to it, pointing in the right direction.

Compare this with Dublin Bus's 'express corridor' concept, which channels (how many? 12? 15?) routes into what on her map was shown as a featureless square, presumably the neighbourhood of O'Connell Bridge.

Finding the right route in this maze, for random-access to a non-central destination, is a task likely to deter anyone who normally drives a private vehicle from attempting to use the public system. Such people should be your primary target. I am one of them.

The key feature of any new route-structure is that it must be mappable, like the Paris Metro. With very little adjustment, the Dublin Bus radial express corridor system could be made mappable, along the lines of my IPI essay mapping.

The key concept is to spread out the central interchange area to be a mesh of simple interchanges, all of which would be within the centre-city area, but transparently.

What you need to do is take her east-west-ish radials, and terminate them at Connolly, Tara St and Pearse, interfacing with the DART. This should be totally feasible.

Then you take her north-south-ish radials, and join them up, making them into N-S cross-city routes, interfacing with the E-W routes in a set of nodes where there would be usually one interchange option, and making full use of the many Liffey bridges.

As far as possible, you make the crossing-points relate to recognisable locations with 'urban village' potential: an accumulation of shops, a school, a college, a cultural centre, whatever. This would encourage the growth of business at the nodes, and enhance the quality of urban life, which is at its best when most basic services exist within walking distance in a precinct.

This aspect is where you need a long-term urban planning perspective; otherwise the short-term servicing of existing perceived needs, distorted as they are by the failure of the urban transport system to deliver flexible mobility, will tend to dominate the thinking, and the system will stay centralist.

The other aspect of which I am critical is that in her O-D analysis she seems to stick to existing bus passengers, who of course are constrained by the already existing routes. If someone lives in Cabra and gets a chance of a job in Kilmainham, he or she has to move house or get personal transport. The O-D analysis should include everybody, including motorists and cyclists. The new route structure should be planned aggressively to get the motorists to change mode, and offer the option to the cyclists, who pending the introduction of a Copenhagen system are currently at serious risk.

In my scheme of things, I extend the mappable mesh principle to take into the express system all recognisable urban villages, and to develop around some of them mini-radial systems depending on the Imp or the local-link vehicles. Prime candidates for this treatment are places like Blackrock and Dun Laoire; places like Belfield and DCU would also be candidates.

The needs would emerge out of the study of the express route-map of the city considered in mesh mode, and the identification of the key 'villages', once the ideological fixation on concentrating in the centre had been laid to rest.

Candidate 'villages' which relate to Dart stations, apart from Blackrock and Dun Laoire, are Lansdowne, Sydney Parade and Booterstown, all of which have combinations of residential, office and shopping development. East-west bus routes from these centres exist in the first 2 cases, somewhat imperfectly and by accident, based on the old route structure, and the interchange potential with the Dart seems to be in demand.

I should say that my motivation in this is to enable me to get rid of my private vehicle, on which I find the insurance crippling, and become totally dependent on the public system for all travel around Dublin.

Also I have long experience in system analysis and system engineering, and have a feel for robust satisficing solutions to complex problems, rather than a narrow 'optimisation' approach. Experience has shown that the 'optimising' approach is often far from robust, and is unduly sensitive to assumptions, which can often be wrong (like the role of 'I' in the cost expression).

I give credit to Dublin Bus for recognising the key role of frequency and reliability, and for having the imagination to introduce the Imp as a pilot. One or two more good lateral leaps and we will have a good system.

(I will refrain now from bringing up the issue of the centre doors, but this must in the end be faced, as it relates to the reliability of the scheduling, via the well-known statistical phenomenon of 'bunching'. I will go into this in depth if necessary.)

If you are interested, I am prepared to come in to discuss this further.

Yours sincerely / Dr Roy H W Johnston

I continued this contact, with an encounter, and the following letter:

Peter Ryan / Dublin Transport Initiative
Steer Davies Gleeve / 20/23 Merchant's Quay / Dublin 8

8/3/93

Dear Mr Ryan / Further to your letter of Feb 18, and our brief encounter at the Pearse St public consultation: I undertook to come back with a critique of your mapping of the express routes.

Firstly, let me re-iterate that my reference to the Paris Metro was not from the simplistic angle that 'we need a Paris Metro' as the solution to the problem. The point I want to make is the importance of the transparency of the mapping, from the angle of selling the service, primarily to people who need random access to any destination in the city, and who need to be weaned from private vehicle use.

(This, by the way, is my position; I have set the target of getting rid of my own private vehicle, if I can be convinced that the upgraded city service will deliver random-access mobility to the places I want to go to.)

Consider therefore your map, as published, showing the DART, the LRT and the 'bus corridors':

1. It shows all crossings of the Liffey to be at O'Connell Bridge, perpetuating the over-concentration in that one channel and the neglect of the development potential of the various up-river foci. By concentrating all the interchanges in the one area, it increases the complexity of the interchange problem, and makes the central interchange into a barrier.

2. It picks a curious selection of villages for recognition: Churchtown, but not Rathfarnham or Dundrum; Ranelagh but not Rathmines; where are Inchicore, Phibsboro etc?

3. It fails to take up the focus-generation potential of even the existing cross-radial routes, like the 17 and 18, let alone possible new ones taking advantage of the DART-interface potential.

4. It fails to draw attention to the linkage-potential of the DART, with the new stations strategically placed to interface with cross-link routes (Fairview via Collins Avenue, Barrow St along the Canal).

How I suggest it should be shown is with all existing and projected cross-links in position, with the crossing-points as far as possible at named village-like foci. You then service the cross-link with a vehicle at the threshold viable frequency (ie the frequency below which a service is not credible, 15 minutes or whatever), and select the size of the vehicle to match the capacity. This could be done by trial and error.

My guess is that the 17 should be an Imp, the 18 could be a single-decker (at a better frequency, let it be said, than the existing 18, which I have found unacceptable; it should interface at Lansdowne Road rather than Sandymount; DART interfacing of the 18 is underdeveloped; the maximum passenger movement is at both ends of the Pembroke Road stretch, suggesting potential foci at Lansdowne and Baggot St).

The Barrow-St Canal E-W route would probably support a double-decker, as would a Pearse SCR route, taking advantage of the fact that the road to Kelly's Corner is no longer blocked by a railway bridge (has anyone noticed?) and that Merrion Square is a high activity area.

An inner ring, joining the mainline stations, would probably support an underground (cf the Rabbitte proposal) which would interface usefully with all the radials. I think this needs to be looked at seriously. The first venture into underground in London was the Inner Circle, which did just this. The more to the core of the inner city you go, the more you are likely to be need to put the main flows underground.

The precise routing of the inner ring should depend on the identification of the relevant inner-city foci, and this is where the interface with the long-term urban planning people comes in. Foci would develop where the inner ring crosses with the radials. Candidate foci are the High St Thomas St area (with the NCAD), and the Arbour Hill area, if the Barracks can be dedicated to a good public use (eg DIT, as projected); Phibsboro is another.

NB Arbour Hill is now the National Museum

There is a strong focus of development at Glasnevin, with Eolas and the DCU; this should be a crossing-point with a route linking with the Dart at the new Fairview station. Current interface traffic at Sydney Parade with the 3 going to Belfield is substantial. DCU and Belfield should be accessible with at most one transparent change from any point in the greater city area. May I refer you to my IPI paper: have you seen it?

Also, may I ask, who is finally responsible for the overall route structure, and the mapping thereof? Is it you, or is it Dublin Bus? It should be you, as the DART and mainline interfaces need to be made explicit, and the LRT when it comes on-line. We do not want a 'competing systems' syndrome to develop, with information about each sector published without reference to the other. We need integrated mapping, of Paris Metro quality. When I see this, and judge what I see to be serviceable, I will take my decision to stop paying motor vehicle insurance and commit myself to the public system.

Finally, may I suggest that there are better ways of consulting the public than meetings like the one I attended in Pearse St. If you were to circulate a well-structured questionnaire, together with a number of alternative draft (Paris-quality) mappings, exhibiting an integrated approach to the whole city, and without the centre-obsession exhibited in the one I have seen, it would be feasible for people in touch with local organisations to get you structured quantitative feedback, via residents associations etc. You would get at the vehicle owners this way, and tap into the sector which like myself is fed up with the increasing cost of insurance, thefts, vandalism etc and wants out of the vehicle rat-race.

Yours sincerely / Roy H W Johnston

I followed this up with a critique of an article by Bob Montgomery, the then Chief Executive of Dublin Bus, which appeared in the Engineers Journal:

TECHNE ASSOCIATES / Techno-Economic, Socio-Technical, Socio-Linguistic and Environmental Consultancy

PO Box 1881 / Rathmines / Dublin 6

Hugh Kane / Editor, Engineers' Journal / 22 Clyde Rd / Dublin 4
3/01/94

Dear Hugh / I have read the Montgomery article in the Dec/Jan, and I have some critical points to make. These are issues which I have been discussing with him in correspondence for over a year, and while he has been responding courteously, he does not seem to have taken any notice of them. I consider that they are substantive; they are key points in an essay I submitted to the Irish Planning Institute about 2 years ago, on the future of Dublin, for which I won a prize. I feel they deserve to be aired again publicly in this context, and perhaps in the end they will break through into Dublin transportation planning practice.

In what follows I make the points in summary, so that for rapid publication you can edit them into a letter for the next issue. If you want me to develop them into an article in greater depth for a subsequent issue, I can do so. Here goes:

I welcome the declaration of intent to improve, and the initial positive achievements of, Dublin Bus, as outlined in the article by Robert Montgomery. I as an aspirant user am prepared to commit myself to the extent of giving up private vehicle ownership, once the quality level is over a threshold, some aspects of which appear to be in the plan. May I list some of the obstacles which remain.

1. The new express route system appears to be based on the assumption that potential users want to get from the suburbs to O'Connell Bridge. There is no recognition that Dublin is in fact multi-centred, with many dispersed foci, like Glasnevin (Eolas), Thomas St (NCAD plus traditional shopping facilities), Kilmainham, Belfield, the Four Courts, Phibsboro, Rathmines, Merrion Square etc etc; I would need a map to display them.

2. If each of the foci, or urban villages, were to be a node on a mesh-like route-structure, and if the mesh were to include the Dart stations (each of which has in fact itself become an 'urban village' focus), then the route structure would be transparently mappable, as is the Paris metro or the London underground. The 'map' of the present route system, as displayed on the bus-stops at present, is totally opaque.

3. Random access from any point in the city to any other point is only feasible for a map-reading user if it is possible to locate clear interchange-points. The present 'map', and the map of the projected express system as published in the Engineers' Journal article, has a highly confused and concentrated multiplicity of interchange-points in the so-called 'centre'. This is an absolute barrier to random access by the occasional user. I am thinking of the habitual DART-user, or indeed express-route-user, who has occasion (say) to go to Glasnevin during the working day. On that day, faced with the present opaque mapping of the system, he would probably feel the need to bring in his car. If there were an integrated mesh mapping system, on the Paris underground principle, including the DART, there would be no problem.

4. I welcome the recognition of the importance of frequency and regularity. The mesh principle can enhance this factor with the use of small vehicles as high-frequency inter-connectors between nodes on the high-density radials. The Imp and Local-Link type buses are a step in this direction, but their full potential as cross-linkers of the radials has not been taken up, and does not appear to be planned for. East-west routes from the DART stations, using small vehicles at a frequency similar to the DART, would convert the outer reaches of the express radials into an effective mesh. These would generate business if the routes were planned to link the 'urban villages'. There is a nod in this direction with the linking of Belfield to Sydney Parade; this generates considerable business. There are analogous implications for places like Dundrum and Stillorgan.

5. Market research is said to indicate that people want a 'direct route'. This would appear to be the thinking behind the single-centre system. I suggest that people would trade their alleged preference for a direct route to the centre for random access to any 'village' in a wide central mesh area, with at most one transparently mapped change. They would however need to be offered the alternative in the market research.

6. Dun Laoire deserves a small local radial system in its own right. People on the fringe of Dun Laoire are at present at the mercy of the 'frequency instability' consequent on long routes originating in Dublin. I regularly see 3 #7s in a bunch in Sallynoggin, followed by a half-hour gap.

7. I welcome the (still alas only projected) use of the centre doors. This is an old chestnut. I have been observing it closely, and asking questions on the spot, receiving usually irrelevant arguments and sometimes abuse. At present the use of the front door as exit most of the time prevents passengers from entering, especially those having pre-paid tickets. This slows everything down.

There are several solutions possible. One is to make the centre door respond to a button actuated by an exiting passenger, as in the DART. Another is to have a single driver button actuate the two doors. Both are simple technical fixes. At present it depends on the driver, who is subject to whim. The driver would appear to be nervous about the centre door being used by rowdys for entry, unseen; also to be concerned whether people pay. These considerations appear to dominate the door-opening policy.

They would be reduced or removed if the driver were no longer to be primarily responsible for fares, and given a financial interest in the overall performance of the route. Pre-paid tickets should be the norm, and they should be available at ALL newsagents, not just selected ones, as is the practice with phone-cards. Paying the driver should carry something like a 100% loading, or a £1 minimum, along the lines practiced abroad. This would still be worth while for the occasional user, as an alternative to a taxi.

Overall, there needs to be more interaction between the transportation planning and the totality of urban planning; they are sub-systems of a single system which deserves integral treatment. New 'urban village' complexes, with housing, offices and shopping, are popping up everywhere, but the bus route system remains basically structured as it was laid down by the trams in the 1900s. Where this reflected the mesh system (as with the 18 route) the nodes prospered. Can our route planners not learn from history, and from experience abroad?

I don't know if the foregoing is a letter or an article; there it is anyway; if you want it as an article I can give you a draft mesh map to illustrate it.

Yours sincerely / Roy H W Johnston PhD FInstP CIEI

Aer Lingus and Shannon

TECHNE ASSOCIATES / Techno-Economic, Socio-Technical, Socio-Linguistic and Environmental Consultancy

PO Box 1881 / Rathmines / Dublin 6

Paul Sweeney / SIPTU / Palmerston Park

16/10/93

DearPaul

I am writing to you at the suggestion of my sister Dr Carmody, who is influential in the Labour Party interest in the Nenagh area; she is very upset about the implications of the Aer Lingus disaster, particularly as regards the Shannon scene and its local implications.

I have written along similar lines to Bill Attley, to Dick Spring, to Tom Dunne in Shannon, and to Oisin O Siochru in Aer Lingus. What follows is adapted from what I have written previously. I am preparing a shorter version for the Irish Times itself, in public response to your article of Oct 22.

I had happened to mention to her that arising from the current Aer Lingus crisis I felt I needed to put some thoughts on paper. I personally feel I owe Aer Lingus a lot, as I worked with them in the 60s and contributed to their then very successful economic planning with state-of-the-art computing expertise, in which at the time Aer Lingus was a world leader.

These ideas follow from a long-term commitment to a basic political philosophy of regional development, in the context of which I always had a high regard for Shannon as a valid pilot-model.

The key idea is the existence of a possible 'competitive edge' for Shannon, and for Aer Lingus, for a particular sector of the European transatlantic market.

This 'competitive edge' is made up of 2 parts:

(a) it should be just possible to turn around a Jumbo 3 times per day on the Shannon New York run, making possible a high utilisation of the equipment, with 3 daily round trips serviced by 2 aircraft, thus perhaps enabling a lower fare to be charged. In this context, Shannon is uncongested, and it should be possible to provide a reliable schedule.

(b) many provincial cities in Europe are connected to the transatlantic routes only via a local air-trip to a highly congested major terminus, subject to unscheduled delays; in some cases it is necessary even to change airports in the capital (eg Paris).

It therefore seems to me that it should be worth while researching the concept of integrating the 3 transatlantic round trips per day with commuter-type feeders to Shannon from selected European regional capitals, like Rennes, Brest, Cardiff, Manchester, Edinburgh: any major city without existing direct transatlantic links.

Such a service might easily compete with what they have at present via their nearest megalopolitan airport. You would need say 9 feeders, 3 per round trip, from frustrated European regional centres of the size of Dublin, where there is now a 'dogs leg' with central congestion.

Is anyone at Government level going into this? An enquiry to the travel agents in Lyons or Rennes or Glasgow or Cardiff might give an estimate of the volume of business traffic subject to Heath Row or de Gaulle frustration.

It seems to me that it should be possible to fund a feasibility study, possibly with the ESRI or elsewhere, and come up with a creative solution which would give Shannon a positive future while not imposing the stopover on the Dublin traffic.

In other words, if there is to be a stop at Shannon, it should be in the context of a situation in which it is less trouble than other stopovers which are imposed on travellers from and to developing regions by their local metropolitan centralist systems.

Thus there is the makings of a 'win-win' solution, with Dublin getting its direct flights, and Shannon keeping its role as a hub, though on a healthier basis, looking to a wide market rather than depending on an administrative imposition in a small one.

If there were to be such a feasibility study, I would not be able to give much time to it, but I might be able to give some, at the level of input to a steering committee or whatever, if you considered it appropriate.

Yours sincerely / Roy H W Johnston

Note on Railways in the West

Roy Johnston, May 7 1994

The occasion was when I lent my Toyota van to Richard Douthwaite for use in the Euro-election campaign, where he was standing for the Greens.

Let us however consider the railway, which is increasingly being recognised in Europe as being the best method of travel between urban centres. If the West is to develop, it is in the urban centres that most of the development will take place, and each will have its 'commuter belt' meriting a local radial public transport system. In this context, we have in the West a matrix of viable towns with growth potential, no one being dominant, to the extent that Dublin is of the State as a whole. We have Limerick, Ennis, Galway, Athenry, Tuam, Claremorris, Westport, Ballina, Sligo. All are, or were recently, on the rail system. The weakness however was that the rail system was originally conceived as a feeder for Dublin and as a means of moving the military between the main garrison towns, not as a means of encouraging regional economic growth.

Is it possible, given the adverse layout of the system, to recover the situation, and make it service the development of the West to modern European standards? It is, perhaps, worth a look.

Consider the possibilities opened up if there were to be a complete rail link between Limerick and Derry via Sligo. (The Limerick Waterford line still exists marginally; the Tralee Limerick line has been abandoned but is still recoverable; this is another similar story). The distance is such that by rail, to modern standards, it could be a 2-hour journey, or to modest 19th-century standards, 3.5 to 4 hours. Let us plan for 2 through trains per day Limerick to Derry, and let us see what we can achieve with an hourly local-link service with a modern fast rail-car, on the network as projected.

The projected network would require little major civil engineering works, as the roadbed is mostly there. The only roadbed gap is between Sligo and Strabane (Strabane to Derry exists via the old GNR line from Dundalk via Clones). To bring it into existence would therefore not involve a prohibitive amount of investment.

Compare the investment that has gone into the Shannon-Erne Canal; not that I want to denigrate this visionary reconstruction; simply to point out that payoff needs to take social and environmental aspects into account. Railway construction, in areas of sparse population, is substantially cheaper than motorway, or indeed than ordinary road, construction.

The following schedules should be feasible:

1. An hourly service Limerick Ennis Galway via Athenry.
2. Galway to Sligo via Athenry and Claremorris.
3. A Westport Ballina shuttle via Castlebar, linking with Claremorris.
4. Run all Dublin trains to the West from a re-opened Broadstone (taking the load off Connolly and Heuston) and go via Mullingar, thus substantially shortening the Dublin-Athlone link, which currently has a long N-S dogs-leg to Portarlington. Replace the high-frequency Portarlington-Athlone service with modern local-link equipment, on the Western pattern.
5. Sligo to Derry via Strabane.

The overall pattern should be at least two through long-distance trains each way per day, with an interspersed high-frequency high-speed rail-car service, everything interconnecting, and with a higher standard of passenger comfort than is possible in a road vehicle, and a substantially higher standard of schedule reliability than is possible under conditions of urban road congestion.

The foregoing may be visionary, but it is no more so than the Shannon-Erne Canal, and is much more likely to service a growing urban economic life in the West, to modern European standards, than investment in motorways.

It is necessary to plan in this way for the re-population of the West, providing the necessary integrated infrastructure to enable it to develop, like the Netherlands, around strong interconnected regional foci.

I circulated this to some local contacts, to some Western Chambers of Commerce, and to the local press. There was little or no response at the time, but I understand that there has since developed a regional lobby working strongly towards the foregoing vision. I hope it succeeds, as it will have to if Irish economic development is to be long-term sustainable.

I took this up subsequently with the Minister:

TECHNE ASSOCIATES / Techno-Economic, Socio-Technical, Socio-Linguistic and Environmental Consultancy

PO Box 1881 / Rathmines / Dublin 6

Brian Cowen TD / Minister for Transport Communications and Power
Clare St / Dublin 2

July 6 1994

re: Integrated Public Transport Mesh

Dear Minister / I am stimulated to write in the context of a strategic decision I have made to give up ownership of a motor vehicle, under the pressure of negative experience of theft, damage, insurance rates, traffic jams and general stress. I have therefore become committed to the effective development of a good public transport system, comparable to what I have experienced when travelling on the continent.

There were two triggers, in the form of recent train journeys I have made. One was from Westport to Dublin, when I noticed that the Athlone to Mullingar link has rusty rails, implying disuse, and the entry to Heuston was delayed. The other was from Dublin to Newbridge on the new Arrow service.

Let me take the latter as starting-point: it is an excellent service, and people are beginning to discover it, as a stress-free alternative to the Naas dual carriageway. However it it unlikely to get the support it deserves while the interface with the Dublin bus system is as primitive as it is. I will return to this, below.

The first point I want to take up arising from the Arrow is that it is evident that Heuston is now overloaded, and cumulative delays appear to be happening with regularity. The Arrow has been the last straw. The decision made some years ago to centralise all traffic in Heuston except the Sligo line was made before the Arrow was conceived. Now we have the DART and it would clearly be impractical to revert to Connolly for the Galway and Westport lines. The case for re-opening Broadstone would seem to be worth considering. The Sligo, Galway and Westport lines could concentrate there, leaving Connolly as the terminus for only Rosslare and the North, leaving more slots for the DART.

If all trains for the West were to leave from Broadstone, the Mullingar link would be kept alive, though Tullamore and Clara would get reduced service. This however prompts the idea that perhaps the Arrow type of equipment and service would lend itself to a general upgrade of the network outside Dublin, making it less Dublin-centred.

The decline of the Western network took place in the 40s and 50s, in the general decline of the country, with the mass emigration from rural Ireland, and peoples rejection of ancient rail equipment, based on steam and 6-wheel wagons. Now however that regeneration of the West is likely to be on the basis of local industry in many developing urban areas, and with increasing awareness of the negative effects of traffic jams, the question arises whether the communications between these towns should not be improved, taking advantage of what remains of the investment in the rail network of the last century, supplemented by modern technology in the form of the Arrow type of equipment.

Why not keep the mainline inter-city services for non-stop of limited-stop services between Dublin and the main cities: Waterford, Cork, Limerick, Galway and Sligo. Then in this context develop the rest of the network as a mesh of Arrow-type services, interconnecting and feeding these main centres, which would of course include also Athlone. It would then be possible to make the trip from Waterford through Clonmel to Limerick and on through Ennis to Athenry (for Galway), Tuam, Claremorris (for Westport and Ballina) and on the Sligo via Collooney. In this context, the mesh of small but expanding towns in Mayo (Westport, Castlebar, Ballina etc), could be interconnected, on the basis of an hourly service, with the rest of the country, not just Dublin.

From the freight point of view, there must be potential for making greater use of Western ports like Fenit and Foynes. People in Dublin would feel more comfortable if they knew that the Asahi acrilonitrile bulk train went from Foynes or Waterford to Killala on the Western Mesh, rather than from Dublin. Similarly the bulk ammonia for fertiliser, which at present goes through Dublin, could be routed on the mesh, if the cross-links were to be reactivated or restored.

There is, I believe, in Yorkshire a local mesh system interconnecting a number of towns, which was one of the pioneers of the new wave of rail technology. This could be looked at as a possible model. Would the differing population density levels be a fatal barrier?

In the present Dublin-oriented schedules, you can go from Westport to Dublin or from Ballina to Dublin, but not from Westport to Ballina, unless you drive a car, or bring a book and have all day. With the Yorkshire-type mesh system, based on Arrow technology, new possibilities would open up. With the Regional College opening up in Castlebar, there is a focus, which will involve a need for communications all over Mayo.

Similar situations exist with potential for mesh development around Athlone, around Limerick, around Waterford, Cork and Tralee; in the latter case there is the Tralee-Limerick line, long disused, which would link Tralee to what we may call 'the Western Mesh'. Where the existing rail system, or recoverable rail roadbeds, do not exist, then of course the mesh can be completed with express buses. The whole mesh system, rail and bus, should then be promoted as an integral whole, with a single mapping system. At present, the bus map and rail maps are distinct, neither recognising the existence of the other.

Let me now return to Dublin: I mentioned above in passing the problem of linking Heuston into the Dublin system. This problem has its roots in the over-concentration of the route map of the Dublin buses on an assumed desired central focus at O'Connell Bridge. Once it is understood that with the expansion of Dublin the centre has expanded, it should become possible to reconstruct the route system so as to service an extended central region, in a manner which is easy to map.

The present concentration in one location of many route termini makes mapping impossible; there is no map in existence, or at least available to the public, which conveys the necessary information for getting from A to B at random in the city, as can be done with the Paris Metro-map. The way to overcome this problem is to take all north-going routes, join them to south-going routes, and move some of them west to make full use of the many bridges. Then you mesh them with east-west routes, with the cross-over points at well-identified named locations (Four Courts, Arbour Hill etc), giving a system that could be transparently superposed on a city map, as the Paris Metro map is displayed.

All the main-line stations would be nodes on this mesh, including projected neo-Broadstone,, and the frequency of services would be such that crowds coming from trains could easily be accommodated. Indeed, where crowds from trains need to interface with the system, you establish a safe haven or niche for that endangered species, the Dublin Bus Conductor, avoiding the overloading of the unfortunate bus-driver by ex-train crowds without pre-paid tickets.

In conclusion: the key messages I want to convey are:

1. the Arrow type of equipment opens up the possibility of an inter-town mesh system which is no longer centred on Dublin;

2. the mesh system would help to decentralise Dublin itself, enable the various 'urban villages' to interact directly with each other, and make the system mappable, with easy random access to all locations from wherever;

3. to take full advantage of the new developing market for stress-free high-quality rail travel, it would be appropriate to re-open Broadstone;

4. the Western Mesh system could be extended north to include Strabane, Omagh and Derry with minimal civil engineering, mostly using existing road-beds abandoned in the past; this would enable an inter-city express to be run from Waterford and Cork through Limerick to Derry, completing the all-Ireland mesh and bringing it up to the Dutch level of quality.

I am copying it to John Gormley, the current Lord Mayor of Dublin, in the hopes that he may be able to influence the setting up of a study group to look at the national transportation question from the Dublin angle, with particular reference to the distribution of traffic via the mainline stations, the mesh-like restructuring of the Dublin Bus system, and the interaction of the latter with the emerging multi-centred pattern of 'urban villages' which Dublin appears to be trying unconsciously to develop, against the negative influence of the present radial system centred on O'Connell St.

If such a study group emerges and gets status from the Dublin angle, I would urge you to consider extending it and giving it national scope, with a view to enhancing the structure of the public system outside Dublin, and extending it northward to help recover the disintegration of the economies of the border areas consequent on Partition, in the context of a new political settlement with the North.

Yours sincerely / Roy H W Johnston / cc John Gormley (Lord Mayor of Dublin)

I followed this up subsequently:

TECHNE ASSOCIATES / Techno-Economic, Socio-Technical, Socio-Linguistic and Environmental Consultancy

PO Box 1881 / Rathmines / Dublin 6

Brian Cowen TD / Minister for Transport, Energy & Communications
Clare St / Dublin 2

25/9/94

re: Railways in the West

Dear Minister

In August I initiated a correspondence in the Irish Times on this topic, which evoked a positive response, but the IT was not disposed to continue it, no doubt because of other pressing (and indeed welcome) developments regarding the North.

I feel I should place on record with you in one document both the published letter and the unpublished follower, which were along the following lines. The stimulus was an article by Frank MacDonald some weeks previous, on the decline and EC-stimulated resurrection of the railway system.

I feel I should also add in some additional comments, arising from recent experiences in the use of the railways, and the public transport system in Dublin.

August 6: I wrote as follows:

"We are indebted to Frank McDonald for his articles on the decline of the railway system, and on the possibility of its recovery in the European context. They prompt some questions:

1. What is the potential for inter-urban business between the towns of the West? The railway system was laid out on the assumption that everyone wanted to go to Dublin, and because it was laid our that way, the growth of Dublin was reinforced.

2. If the link from Tralee to Limerick and on to Sligo were to be regenerated, and upgraded with new rail technology of the quality and frequency comparable to the Arrow (as currently in use between Kildare and Dublin), would people use it? Would the Limerick Waterford link pick up business if there was an hourly quality service?

3. Are vehicle-owners not becoming tired of the stress of self-driving, being stuck in traffic-jams, and not finding parking space? Would a proportion of them not respond to an opportunity for making business trips under conditions where they could work in transit?

4. Why did Frank McDonald's maps stop at the Border? The 1924 rail system had a dense mesh in the North, cross-linking Derry, Enniskillen, Omagh, Dungannon and Newry with towns in their natural pre-Border hinterlands. Partition strangled the development of the border counties. If there is EC money going for cross-border links like the Shannon-Erne Canal, a visionary scheme worthy of support, why can we not put some EC money into the development of the Tralee-Limerick-Sligo upgraded rail link concept, and its extension through Omagh to Derry?"

This letter evoked a supportive response on August 11 from one Denis McGrath in Kilmacud, which prompted me to develop the argument, on the basis that experience indicates that the inter-city traveller will forsake his private vehicle only if the alternative offers a quality service.

On August 13 I therefore sent in a second letter as follows:

"Further to my letter of August 6 arising from Frank McDonald's articles on the railways, may I develop the argument further, focusing on one specific location in the West, namely the three towns of Westport, Castlebar and Ballina. Taken together they add up perhaps to about a Galway. Castlebar is the county town and is in process of getting a Regional College, so it is becoming in effect a regional capital, like Galway, Waterford, Tralee. etc.

At present the so-called 'inter-city express' goes through Castlebar and terminates at Westport, Ballina being served by an inferior connection from Manulla, which is one of the 'junctions in the middle of nowhere' for which the Irish rail system is notorious, being rooted in the old imperial 'divide and rule' principle.

Suppose that the 'inter-city express' terminus were to be defined as Castlebar, and arrivals and departures were to connect with a frequent shuttle service which ran between Westport, Castlebar and Ballina This would require that the Manulla junction be converted from Y to 'delta', with the aid of a few hundred yards of track. The shuttle would be serviced by two half-Arrow units. Castlebar station would need to be modified to accommodate easy transfer, on the level.

The two half-Arrow units would enable the provision of an hourly service between the 3 towns throughout the day, some of which would connect at Castlebar with the inter-city express to Athlone and Dublin.

The core-question is: would this pick up inter-urban business traffic, on the scale of the towns concerned? Business traffic will switch from car to train if the service is good: this is the modern European trend, identified by Frank McDonald. The point is, however, does there exist enough business potential between the towns of the West to support a frequent inter-urban rail service, of European standard? Would the 3 towns begin to cohere, instead of looking separately to Dublin?

I appreciate Paul McGrath's support for the concept (Aug 11), but there would be little point in visionary investment, along the lines I suggested on July 31, into an extended high-quality mesh, linking Tralee and Waterford to Derry via Limerick, Athenry, Claremorris and Sligo, unless it was established that a quality Arrow-type inter-urban service between towns with geographical distribution and populations on the Connaught scale would pick up quality business traffic.

The concept could however perhaps be piloted as suggested above, and if the results were positive, then it could be introduced step by step elsewhere, like Athenry, Tuam, Claremorris, and then on to Tubbercurry, Collooney and Sligo.

The investment has to be weighed against the destruction of urban amenity by the allocation of space to the motor-car, which is visibly going on apace.

Would the Regional Colleges perhaps consider taking up market-researching the concept in their Business Schools, with the support of the Chambers of Commerce?"

If the foregoing letter had been published (and I can see why it was not, in that it complexifies the issue, and takes it out of the 'letters' domain), I had in mind to go on with the argument, and begin to analyse the barriers to getting inter-city business traffic back to rail, along the following lines:

1. The positive aspect of using the private vehicle is door to door access; the negative aspects are inability to do paper work, driver stress, traffic jams and parking. The latter three can only get worse.

2. The positive aspects of of inter-city rail are (at least potentially) speed, freedom from stress, ability to do paper work; the negatives are lack of door-to-door access, compounded by friction at the interface between rail and the local urban public system.

3. Inter-city rail of business traffic quality, apart from the main lines terminating in Dublin, is virtually non-existent. Let us consider (a) the Dublin interface (b) inter-city rail other than Dublin.

[A] The Dublin interface has 2 distinct aspects, which may be labelled the Heuston problem and the Connolly problem. Let us consider these separately.

A1. The Heuston problem arises because of the structure of the Dublin local bus system, which has one overloaded central multiplex node centred on O'Connell Bridge. To connect with this a bus is run along the quays, which takes rail arrival people to the central node. This bus has no conductor, and so is slow to start, as everyone has to pay the driver at entry, and the bus can fill only slowly. People reject this, and go for taxis, with the result that there is a mad scramble for taxis. A new client of the system being wooed from his private vehicle would give this one trial, and then say, never again.

If the Dublin bus route system was mesh-like rather than centralist, Heuston would be a node on the mesh, and there would be 4 or perhaps 5 possible directions to go instead of one, increasing the chance that an arriver could get a bus to a randomly-distributed destination, and decreasing the load on the bus going towards O'Connell Bridge. I have argued elsewhere (see my Irish Planning Insitute prizewinning paper, as summarised by Frank MacDonald in the Irish Times of 28/1/92) for the mesh approach to routing; the main points in favour are mappability with random access to all locations in an expanded central-area of the city, taken as being between the canals.

The Heuston problem also arises because with the transfer of the Galway and Westport trains to Heuston from Connolly (presumably to accommodate the DART), and now with the introduction of the Arrow, Heuston has become highly congested.

There is emerging a strong case for re-opening Broadstone as the terminus for intercity trains to Galway, Westport and Sligo. This would also ease the Connolly problem (see below).

A2. The Connolly problem arises because of interference between the mainline services and the DART. Users of the DART will be aware of 'black holes' in the schedule at odd times during the day. These are to accommodate the inter-city expresses. These 'black holes' are such as to put off potential DART-users among current private vehicle users; they convey an image of schedule unreliability. They stand in the way of the DART becoming part of an effective city-wide mesh system, as noted above. They oblige the DART public to 'know the schedule', which places a barrier against uptake.

The solution to this problem is to decouple intercity from DART, by the following three expedients:

(a) opening up Broadstone for the Sligo inter-city,

(b) providing extra tracks as far as Howth Junction. To make Howth Junction or Malahide (when the DART gets that far) the terminus for Belfast would not be acceptable for a high-density route, as hopefully it will become now that peace has broken out;

(c) moving the mainline terminal for Wexford to Bray, and providing easy transfer from inter-city to DART at Bray. This would be acceptable for the Wexford line if if was combined with an upgrade of the service to Arrow standard, with short rail-car-type trains at high frequency Bray to Rosslare.

[B] The non-Dublin inter-city problem has two aspects, which may be labelled the 'user resistance' aspect, and the 'limitations of the rail system layout' aspect. The latter is somewhat basic, and is rooted in the history of the system, and the strategic thinking behind its planning, which would appear to have been imperial (Dublin-dominated) and military (movement of troops between barracks in the garrison towns). This may constitute a basic flaw, rendering the system beyond redemption.

The response of users in the context of new technology (eg the Arrow) and innovative marketing approaches however may indicate that it is worth investing in countering the negative legacy of the past.

B1. User-resistance can be overcome with quality of service and frequency. An hourly service with a relatively small train (ie the Arrow principle) would need to be given a chance for cross-linking services, like Wexford to Waterford, or Waterford to Cork and Limerick. Business traffic between Irish towns other than Dublin has never been actively sought; it is simply assumed such traffic always goes by road. The negatives for private vehicle traffic, as listed above, hold, however, and they are likely to get worse. It is a conjecture that such a market exists, and it could be researched. What is reasonably certain however is that a private vehicle user would make a rational choice if the option existed, and the concept is worth piloting. There are many pairs of towns which might respond to an Arrow-type service, if it existed. I have mentioned the trio Ballina Castlebar Westport above. Others are Mullingar and Athlone, Limerick, Nenagh and Ennis; Carlow, Kilkenny and Waterford.

B2. If the introduction of the Arrow type of vehicle, for inter-city services of high frequency outside of Dublin, turns out to be successful, then it will become necessary to look at the old rail-map and see how best Ireland as a whole can adopt the mesh rather than the radial approach. Candidates for re-opening, where roadbeds already exist, are Wexford to Waterford, Tralee to Limerick and on to Sligo via Athenry, Tuam and Claremorris.

In the context of the 'peace dividend' it would appear obvious to consider going on via Omagh to Derry, and then linking Omagh to Dundalk via Dungannon, thus completing the national mesh. This would require significant capital investment, but in comparison with a motorway network, and taking into account the road accident cost, no doubt a strong case could be made. It would all depend however on the response of existing vehicle users to the provision of a high-frequency high-quality inter-city service, and this could be established by the Arrow-type piloting process before going further.

The foregoing represents an approach to the re-invigoration of the Irish rail system which I suggest may be worthy of consideration. I would ask for it to be drawn to the attention of those responsible for strategic planning in transportation and regional development.

I am circulating copies of this letter to some selected chambers of commerce, with a view to getting some feedback on the questions raised.

Yours sincerely / Dr Roy H W Johnston

Recycling etc

PO Box 1881 / Rathmines / Dublin 6

Trevor Sargent TD / Leinster House / Dublin 2

2/10/96

Dear Trevor / By the way is there any chance of you in the end getting an Internet address? Is there not a Dail LAN with Internet access? Who is in command of the IT support system in Leinster House? It really is so much easier to communicate with the office and the MEPs and the EGF and now many of the key people like Phil, Steve, Lucille etc.

If the Dail documentation were on the Dail LAN and accessible to you, you could send them to me as e-mail appended files, and save all that paper. I am flooded with paper, as I am sure you are too.

Let me begin with the issues that have come up in the S&T community; then I'll look at the Dail agenda, and we'll see if we can make a correspondence.

1. I attended the Renewable Energy Conference, on Sept 25, in the Castle. Emmett Stagg introduced it, making positive noises. Wind is now regarded by bankers as 'low risk', with a mature technology. This was developed in Denmark, after the first energy crisis, with focused development, and a reward in the form of a maintained high price for the electricity generated, in the region of 6p per unit. This now dominates the world market; it is exported to California; there are 1000MW in Germany, 150MW in Denmark, but a mere 7MW here (Erris). The obstacle here has been the miserable 4p paid by the ESB. This is based on the marginal cost of imported coal, instead of being a strategic investment to develop renewables, as is done elsewhere. Despite the low price, the bankers and developers are moving in. The lore at the conference was that developments work when they arise from local initiatives, so that there are no objections to planning applications. Green local activists should be into this like a shot. There are local jobs in maintenance etc. Local energy co-ops are the preferred form of organisation, and there were many such models at the conference. I have all the contacts. So there is scope for asking Emmet if he is prepared to encourage local investment in wind energy by encouraging the ESB to pay a price related to peak production cost rather than on related to the marginal base-load cost.

I attended a conference at Glencree about 15 years ago, at which the Danish ambassador outlined the wind energy plans, and encouraged us to go along similar lines. The people at the conference were a handful of people regarded then as crank-fringe visionaries.

2. I then went on to the Engineers conference in Athlone, which was focused on waste and the environment. There is a mass of stuff here, which I am in process of digesting, primarily from the angle of the advanced software market potential. There is the makings of a Caorthann paper, which I may in the end get round to. But the immediate thing is the need to legislate to encourage alternatives to landfill, the key one being segregation and recycling. There is a firm called the Green Sunrise Group, which employs 72 people, and specialises in sorting out industrial waste for recycling; they claim that 62% of Semperit waste has been diverted from landfill towards value added (alas, Semperit!). So there is no question that alternatives to landfill exist, and need to be encouraged by positive actions, like making people who sell batteries facilitating the return of the used ones; likewise refrigerators, beds, mattresses, whatever. This is now emerging as an overall European policy, led by the Germans.

There is also the animal wastes problem, the key one being pigs. Cattle waste goes back to the land, no problem, but pig waste is usually larger in volume per unit available land due to the amount of imported grain. The solution here is anaerobic digestion, generating methane, which can be used to generate electricity on a scale comparable to wind-units (ie of the order of 500kW) and fed to the grid.

Thanks to the possibility of short-term gas storage, this can be fed to the grid only at peak times, and so should attract a peak price. The waste heat from the engine is used to dry the processed slurry, which can then be bagged and sold as a premium fertiliser. The latter is actually the main income earner.

This system will work however only if it is made available in standard mass-produced modules, like the Danish wind-generators. If each unit has to be separately designed, the cost is too high. We need a Danish solution here, and we need this approach to be actively encouraged by Government. Fixing a good price per unit of electricity sold to the ESB, which in this case could be higher than wind, because of the storage flexibility and peak-chopping potential, would be a good approach. There is however some development cost, and this would need grant-aid.

3. Finally on the weekend I ended up at the Johnstone Stoney event, which was addressed by Pat Rabbitte, who stayed to listen, fair play to him. This interfaced research scientists, State agencies and Government.

The key issue here is funding for basic research in the 3rd-level system, which is at an all-time low, and over-dependent on the EU. There was, it seems, a Lindsay Report, the results of which were embodied in a 1995 White Paper, which indicated that 5% of the block grants should go towards the funding of research by academic staff. The actual figure is closer to 0.2%. This mechanism needs to be made transparent, so that it doesn't just disappear in the admin system.

There is no focus in the State system looking after basic science research. Forbairt is totally focused on applied research and development. The creativity of science depends on having a good interactive mix of the two. This could be expressed in the MSc/PhD ratio, which should be about 3 to 1, with the MScs funded from industry and the PhDs funded from the (currently non-existent) basic research funding system.

There is a case for regarding basic research as part of the education system, and having this explicit focus in the Dept of Ed. Likewise there is a case for regarding it as a component of the culture, and putting it in with Arts. On balance, the edge is with Education, because this I think currently funds the Royal Irish Academy, which is a basic research institution, with membership recruited from the world-class research community. The potential role of the Academy needs to be looked into. This could be raised under the National Cultural Institutions Bill. The National Museum and the National Library are spin-offs of the RDS and the Academy in the last century.

The Academy exists on an all-Ireland basis, under an Act of Westminster of 1786 (it celebrated its bicentenary about a decade ago). It includes the cultural elite of the North among its membership. It could have a key role in the current Anglo-Irish negotiations on the future of the North. It is in some ways comparable with the Royal Society, which provides scientific advice to the British Government, and has similar historical roots. Why could not a re-vamped RIA, with all-Ireland constitution, suitably modernised by Acts of Westminster and the Dail, not advise the British Government on matters relating to Irish culture (including scientific issues like animal health and BSE), and the Irish Government on matters relating to the cultural scene in Ireland as a whole. This, to my mind, should be high on the political agenda.

On the foregoing agenda, a key contact-point would appear to be the National Cultural Institution Bill. I don't know if the Academy has worked out a position of its own on this Bill, but I intend to find out.

There is a Plant Varieties Bill (Appendix D) on which I may have something to say when I have had a chance to study some material I got from Ray Ryan. There could be a 'genetic engineering' dimension here. Could you perhaps get hold of these 2 Bills? I can then come up with amending ideas. The Litter Pollution Bill could provide a handle on the landfill issue, also. Plastic bags appearing to grow on trees etc. They should of course be recycled.

Yours sincerely / Roy H W Johnston PhD FInstP CIEI

See also the current Techne web-site which has many techno-economic aspects.

Some navigational notes:

Copyright Dr Roy Johnston 1999