Fixed fares and half-hourly runs: details of Mullingar's proposed bus routes

The provision of a bus service in Mullingar won’t come without challenges, members of the Municipal District of Mullingar Kinnegad heard at their February meeting.

Among those challenges will be that of sourcing the 16-17 drivers required to get and keep the buses running, NTA representative John Nott told council members in a presentation on the progress of the project.

There are also still question marks over funding for the service, he added.

Planning is, however, well under way: two provisional routes have been drawn up, and procurement of an operator is anticipated to take place later this year.

The intention is, he explained, that the buses should run daily over an 18-hour period in order to facilitate people wanting to move around in the evenings as well as providing connectivity to rail and inter-urban bus services.

“We want to offer a fixed fare of about €1.60 to €1.70 per trip for adults and €0.50 for children,” he told the meeting.

Describing the type of bus that is to be used, Mr Nott said it is be-low floor, urban, single-deck, accessible, examples of which can be seen in operation in Kilkenny and Navan.

Mr Nott said that the NTA had been engaged in route design work during the first half of 2022, and later undertook a number of test runs along the two proposed routes.

Work had also been undertaken on identifying where stops could be located; also terminuses and a depot.

Displaying the map of the two routes, Mr Nott said the buses are intended to run half-hourly.

The red route will cover 8.35km in 23 minutes, from Lough Sheever Corporate Park to Mullingar hospital, to the town centre via Castle Street, on to the Mullingar Park Hotel, out the N4 and back in via St Loman’s Hospital, terminating close to St Colman’s.

The blue route will take 27 minutes and will cover 7.5km. It is to commence at Mullingar Business Park, and travelling via the Clonmore Road and the C-Link, it will head to Mullingar hospital. From there, it will take passengers in to town via Castle Street, heading from there to the train station then to the greyhound track, before Lynn Road and Ballinderry Road.

“We have a commitment to have the service in operation by 2025 but we’d like to get it in sooner and will push to get it in as soon as we possibly can,” he said.

The mayor, Cllr Hazel Smyth, welcomed the report and comments from Mr Nott that there has been great support from the local authority and government departments. She asked about live timetable updates, park-and-ride and whether Belvedere could be serviced.

Cllr Denis Leonard hoped tickets would be ‘hop on hop off’ and that eventually the buses would be hydrogen-fuelled.

Cllr Ken Glynn noted that the routes were not going through any residential areas – and he particularly noted that residents of the Lynn Road area, Green Road, Willowbrook, Belvedere Hills were not being served and all of Patrick Street is omitted.

Cllr Aoife Davitt wondered about the wisdom of having what would amount to four buses an hour going up Castle Street and also argued that consultation would be important.

Cllr Bill Collentine also welcomed the service and said it would benefit the town, but Cllr Frank McDermott remarked that some of the routes would take longer by bus than by walking, and in some respects, a looped route would be better; and Cllr Andrew Duncan and Cllr Emily Wallace were anxious that amendments to the routes should be possible as usage was observed.