Galway City Bus Routes

It is my opinion that a very important, indeed fundamental, issue about Galway City has been completely overlooked by this draft plan: The shape of the city. Most cities grow in an approximate radial/circular fashion. Galway City is overwhelmingly not circular, not even approximately so. In fact, its shape is very close to a long rectangle, stretching east-to-west, with dimensions 15km × 5km (or maybe 12km × 4km). It is for this very reason that the modelling of the structure of any bus or transport network can be, and should be, different than in other cities (Dublin, Cork, Limerick, etc. all approximate closer to circular cities, even if Dublin is like a pizza with a slice removed (for Dublin Bay)).

 Let me refer directly to page 26 of the report. It talks about RADIAL vs. ORBITAL. To me, this indicates that whoever did the modelling took some “standard” model off the shelf, and used its ideas (standard models would be circular cities which Galway is not). One should not use the term radial - it has no meaning for Galway. The shape of Galway is a rectangle, so there is no such thing as a radius!

 • I put forward in the following a fundamentally different structure for the bus (or indeed any transport) network for Galway City, which takes advantage of its rectangular structure. I ask you to consider this model. 

• I would challenge NTA, Jarrett Walker & Associates, SYSTRA, to scientifically/mathematically show that the model I present here in outline is not superior to the draft currently presented. Since Galway has the shape of a rectangle which is 3 times as “wide” as it is “high”, what I propose is, as well as having the standard hub/interchange in the center of the city, one has two other hubs (so 3 in total - central hub, western hub, eastern hub), with the western and eastern hubs approximately at 5km from the central hub. To be specific, 

(A) Western Hub at or near Gateway Retail Park (A in Figure 1) 

(B) Central Hub at or near Eyre Square (B in Figure 1) The overall network would consist of 

(C) Eastern Hub at or near main ATU (Atlantic Technological University) campus (C in Figure 1)  (maybe this hub could be as far afield as Briarhill Shopping Centre)

The system would have:

• Efficient, very frequent, fast central (linear) bus route, running east ↔ west between these hubs (24 hour service, reduced but non-zero service through the night). These buses would take (*) the quickest route A to B, then (*) the quickest route B to C, then (*) the quickest route C to B, etc. For A ↔ B the bus goes over the quincentennial bridge. The total time A ↔ B should be about 10 minutes, A ↔ C about 20 minutes (comparing to about 40 minutes in current bus system, and also about 40 minutes in new proposed system. The improvements in travel time A ↔ C from 40 to 20 minutes comes from (1) Fact that bus does not stop at bus stops (each bus stop costs about 40 seconds), and (2) Route chosen is quicker (fewer traffic lights etc., each of these factors (1) and (2) saves about 10 minutes.

• Many short (5km or less) radial routes feeding in to each of the 3 hubs. In essence, one could imagine this structure as three (3) circles, side by side in a row: Within each circle we have short radial routes to the center of that circle, and then we have a single dedicated high-speed link between the three centers. The "bottom line" criterion here is - all normal routes in the city should run through at least one of the three hubs A, B, C.

People talk about "joined up thinking/planning". No mention is made in BUSCONNECTS of linking with e.g. public bike systems. Withe hubs at A, B, C, these are obvious places to put large public bike systems (or, no doubt, e-Bikes, e-scooters, etc., as these technologies develop), which can cover the last km or 2km for many people.

A further comment on the central hub B (evidently it should be near Eyre Square). For the non-stop express bus coming from hub A, after crossing the quincentennial bridge, most direct route is to turn right, coming through the shopping area (Mc Donalds on the right, LIDL/ARGOS on the left, either just come as far as WOODQUAY, or turn left at or before woodquay, to get near/to Eyre Square.

In this model, the smaller details can be changed/adapted in many ways, to match the details of the roads in Galway City, without changing the overall structure: 1. The number of short (indicated in black) routes in each hub may vary, for example 3 or 4 short routes. 2. Of course each of these short routes is not a “straight line”, some may be a bit longer than others. 3. Neither is the central route necessarily a straight line, though it should approximate a direct east ↔ west route A ↔ B ↔ C. To adopt the structure I propose here does require a bold step from NTA. With the central line in the model, we have both buses that stop everywhere (black line) and don’t (dotted red). The red line may coincide in parts with the black central line, but in many/most parts it would deviate. (All along Westside they use the same route, but the red line goes over quincentennial bridge, the black does not.)

Nowhere else in the Republic of Ireland has this principle been adopted for city buses (of having on the same route, some buses that stop everywhere, and some that don’t). Indeed the only example that comes to mind is in long distance travel (buses/trains Galway to Dublin for example). But, it is standard modus operandi in many countries in Europe. This network will involve more bus interchange for many people than the NTA current proposal (for example to get to Eyre Square from the suburbs, most people would make one interchange at A or at C). But, because the central (dotted red) line is both high frequency, and non-stop, waiting at an interchange should be on average 2 or 3 minutes (when the dotted red line runs every 5 minutes), and overall transit time should be less.

Figure 1: Schematic (simplfied, approximate and idealised) of bus network for Galway City. A, B and C correspond to three hubs. Black lines correspond to “normal” bus routes, stopping e.g. at approximately 0.5km intervals on average. The red dotted line is a (fast) “non-stop” line that just stops at the hubs. This schematic is to scale, with approximate dimensions 15km × 5km (width by height)