Dublin : Ireland
The capital is also surrounded by what have been termed by Dublin City Council as an inner and outer orbital route. The inner orbital route runs roughly around the heart of the Georgian city from St. Stephen’s Green to Mountjoy Square and from the King’s Inns to St. Patrick’s Cathedral. The outer orbital route runs largely along the natural circle formed by Dublin’s two canals, the Grand Canal and the Royal Canal, as well as the North and South Circular Roads.
Public transport
The Dublin Area Rapid Transit system is the only electrified mainline railway in the State and serves stations at regular intervals on the railway line along the east coast. The first phase (Green Line) of the Luas light rail opened in June 2004 and it is hoped that it will usher a new era for south city and county Dublin; a second line (Red Line) connecting the two main train stations of Heuston and Connolly to the suburb of Tallaght has also opened for business. It had been hoped a metro system linking Dublin Airport to the city would be the next major infrastructural project but that now appears ever more unlikely. Plans to build a spur from the DART network to the airport and an interconnector system within the city centre area now appear more likely. Commuter lines to Kildare and Maynooth also service many of the suburbs of West Dublin.
The bulk of the public transport system in Dublin is made up of bus services operated by Bus tha Cliath (Dublin Bus), which operates a network of nearly 200 daytime routes (identified by number and sometimes suffixed with a letter, e.g. 40, 40A, 40B, 40C, 40D) and 24 “Nitelink” overnight services which run on Monday to Saturday nights, which are identified by a number suffixed with “N” e.g. 40N). Apart from some tourist buses, all Dublin Bus’ services are one-man operated, and daytime fares are determined by the number of fare stages travelled through – fares are payable in coin and only the exact fare is acceptable – if a passenger overpays, they are issued a “change ticket” which must be presented at the Dublin Bus office in O’Connell Street to be converted to cash. Alternatively, various pre-paid tickets and passes can be bought from Dublin Bus or its agents, and are processed by a validating machine on the right of the entrance door of the bus. Nitelink buses charge a flat fare regardless of the distance travelled.
