Objectives

Objectives

our towns and promoting sustainable transport and creating attractive places where people can live and work. This Strategy will look to reinforce the aims of these policies by examining how we can make better use of space in our town and cities streets to create liveable centres that are destinations rather than congested thoroughfares. By developing homes that are closer to workplaces, services and amenities, people have less need for travelling in an unsustainable way and more time for spending with family and friends.

The objectives for the Strategy have been developed to capture the broad potential benefits that can be achieved, extending well beyond carbon emission reductions. They are set out below:

To support the health, safety and wellbeing of people, and minimise the social, and environmental costs of transport and car dependency including those related to congestion, air and noise pollution.

To support economic and financial sustainability in the just transition to net zero.

The Strategy will also play a significant role in helping to achieving health, safety and wellbeing objectives, particularly in the context of improving urban air quality and the ambition set out in Clean Air Strategy. Irish cities are some of the most heavily congested in Europe. Recent studies by TomTom and INRIX ranked Dublin the third and 11th most congested city in the world respectively, while Cork was ranked 42nd on TomTom and Galway was ranked 71st according to the INRIX Global Traffic Scorecard. In addition to increased emissions, congestion means lost time, more stress, and increased costs for people and business as well as greater noise and air pollution with significant impacts on health and personal well-being.

The transition to net zero must be managed in a way that is fiscally and economically sustainable, both for the citizen and the State – having regard to the Just Transition Framework. This Strategy has been developed with fairness and equity as a core principle and, being mindful of this, the Strategy encourages the implementation of costeffective measures and the exploration of nontraditional and innovative financing options, that are less onerous on the taxpayer and offer more value for money to the State.

To contribute to the national target of halving transport emissions, through network optimisation and reduced kilometres travelled.

To improve the efficiency of the existing transport system, by reducing demand for less sustainable journeys, by people and by freight.

This Strategy, combined with the SMP, will be a key lever in Ireland’s effort to meet climate targets for transport. The Climate Action Plan established indicators of progress in this respect including a 20% reduction in total vehicle kilometres travelled by 2030 compared with 2018. Other indicators over the same period include increases in daily active travel journeys (50%) and daily public transport journeys (130%). Along with supports to assist in the transition to more sustainable journeys as provided for in the SMP, this Strategy provides the enabling framework for relevant authorities to implement any complementary demand management measures that may be required to contribute to the required reduction in vehicles kilometres travelled – an important target in the effort to halve transport emissions in the sector by 2030 in line with the Government’s Climate Action Plan and to reduce harmful emissions from transport as part of the Clean Air Strategy (2023). By reducing demand for less sustainable journeys, considerable societal benefits can be realised for society.

The Strategy will provide a framework for improving the efficiency of the existing transport system, by encouraging the implementation of measures across all sectors in an effort to reduce transport demand. With little scope to build additional capacity within the transport system, particularly the road network, a projected increase in population over the coming decade combined with a growing economy means further pressure on the transport system with more congestion, longer journey times and greater associated social, environmental, and economic costs.

To encourage compact, mixed use and transport led development, reinforcing the role of the city, town and village centres as attractive, walkable, accessible destinations.

Government policy set out in the Revised National Planning Framework, and further developed through Town Centre First, highlight the importance of compact growth in reinvigorating