Attending:
Gregg Patrick - CSO (chair)
Steve MacFeely - CSO
Margaret McLoughlin - CSO
Mairead Griffin - CSO
Ken Jordan - DoTTS
Gerry Keane - CIE
Emer Dennehy - SEAI
Martin Howley - SEAI
Mary Holland - SEAI
Frank McCabe - NTA
Barry Colleary - NTA
Micheal MacAree - NTA
Stephan Leinert - EPA
George Hussey - DEHLG
Derek Brady - NRA
Nigel O’Neill - NRA
David King - RPA,
Brian Richardson - IMDO
Apologies:
Brian Caulfield - TCD
Agenda adopted without amendment
Steve MacFeely, CSO gave a short introduction, apologising for delay in hosting this meeting but as it had been agreed that results of the pilot National Transport Survey should be a substantive item on the agenda, the timing had been dictated by the production of the results.
There were no comments or amendments to the minutes from the previous meeting, other than to encourage all stakeholders to detail their data holdings and data gaps so an up to date inventory could be compiled.
In June 2010 a deputation from CSO, DTTS and DEHLG met with colleagues from DRD in Northern Ireland to discuss areas of mutual interest and cooperation. This was a fruitful meeting and initial areas for cooperation centred on methodologies for calculating Total vehicle KMs. Since then CSO and DRD have been asked by DTTS to examine issues around the harmonization of freight statistics for the purposes of supporting the All Ireland Freight Forum. CSO, DTTS and DRD met again on June 28th 2011 to discuss this. It was agreed that CSO/DTTS/DRD would co-host a stakeholder workshop in October 2011 dedicated to freight. It was also agreed that the North-South – TranSG would be suspended pending other substantive issues arose.
It was also noted that all material from the TranSG meetings would be posted on the CSO website for reference.
Gregg Patrick (CSO) gave a summary outline of the developments within CSO Transport statistics since the previous meeting. It was noted that despite the significant reduction in resources dedicated to transport statistics, development work is still ongoing, but timeliness had temporarily slipped in a number of areas. The key development features noted were:
· Maritime Statistics: CSO hope to expand the Port Traffic release and have also initiated discussions with Safe Seas Ireland to establish if there are opportunities for data sharing etc.
· Aviation Statistics: CSO also hope to expand the number of aviation statistics released. Development work is also being undertaken on aviation emissions (see below).
· Rail Statistics: CSO may expand rail statistics to include private (Bord na Mona) rail network. CSO also conducted a data reconciliation exercise with the Rail Safety Commission during the past year.
· Road Freight Statistics: A methodological review was undertaken during the past year, resulting in the sample being reduced and improving the response rate.
· Vehicle Licensing & Registrations: On the licensing side there have been no major developments except the inclusion of “electric vehicles” to the classifications. Some additional tables on these vehicles may be compiled in the future. The publication of registrations data were ceased in June 2010 as a resource saving exercise (registrations data are also published by SIMI and Motor Check so there is no data gap).
· Vehicle KMs: No 2009 data were published in 2010 – it is anticipated that 2009 and 2010 data will be published in the 2011 Transport compendium. It was also noted that some methodological issues that emerged in 2010 are still being resolved.
· The Transport compendium for 2009 and 2010 will be published in autumn 2011. This publication will include additional data on aviation, rail and the Dublin Bicycle Scheme.
· Results from the pilot National Transport Survey will be published July 2011 (see below).
Frank McCabe of the National Transport Authority (NTA) outlined their plans for a National Transport Survey and explained the importance of this work as there are currently no comprehensive travel pattern data available. He noted the NTA need to update their GDA model and develop a new national model in order to test national transport policy and predict transport emissions. They are particularly interested in learning more about (1) longer distance trips, (2) shopping trips (3) leisure trips and (4) business trips, where time is particularly important.
A key recommendation was to conduct a NTS during a Census of Population year so that over lapping data could be corroborated. The NTS project work will be outsourced, and they hope to go to tender this week and award tender in August.
The data will be collected over two reference periods Sept – Nov 2011 and Jan – Apr 2012 (approximately). While the exact details are yet to be finalized, the survey will include a number of important features:
· There will be a self completion travel diary for everyone in the household aged 4+ (most likely paper based);
· There will be a face-to-face interview with the head of household to establish household characteristics, socio-economic details, car ownership information etc.);
· The reference period (days) will cover both weekdays and weekends;
· The survey will also conduct “stated preference” modules on a sub-sample basis to support transport model requirements;
· Design must take account of regional-spatial and urban-rural issues.
The sample will be approximately 6,000 households and the NTA expect that data collection will be complete by summer 2012. The NTA noted that they are open to alternative methods of data collection (e.g. GPS tracking devices).
The NTA also noted they are eager to consult with CSO to ensure the highest standards are adhered to. They would also like CSO to be involved in tender selection and available to consult on methodological issues if that there possible (the CSO noted they are happy to assist). They are also happy to keep the group informed of progress and results.
Mairead Griffin (CSO) presented the results from the pilot survey. From the discussion that followed, members were content that the results seemed to stack-up with other data sources (e.g. the NRA Traffic Management Survey), although it was noted the average trips per day (2.4) seemed low (particularly as the scope of the CSO survey was limited to those 18+) but perhaps this had been influenced by the very adverse weather experienced during the reference period.
The driver/passenger split was seen as very useful. It was noted that the “journey to work” should ideally be distinguished from “work” as for appraisal purposes, these are valued differently.
Gregg Patrick (CSO) gave a summary outline of a project to estimate aviation emissions. Preliminary results were presented for aviation emissions from commercial flights departing the main Irish airports from 2005-2010. However, the limitations of the existing European Environment Agency (EAA) data on aircraft fuel burn characteristics were emphasized.
In the next phase of the project, as an alternative source of information on aircraft fuel burn, Eurocontrol’s Small Emitter Tool (SET) will be examined. In August, a paper on aviation emissions will be presented at the Irish Transport Research Network conference (UCC). At the end of the year, aviation emission estimates will be published on the CSO’s StatBank service.
"Derek Brady and Nigel O'Neill gave a presentation on the area of transportation surveys in the NRA. Examples of transportation surveys across different NRA areas of activity were presented. These activities include:
· Strategic studies (National Roads Traffic Management Study and National Secondary Roads Needs Study)
· Project specific studies (examples used were M50 traffic management and Dunkettle Interchange upgrade projects)
· Development of project appraisal guidelines and the national traffic model
The information types generated across these activities included:
· Traffic counts from automatic traffic counter
· Journey times extracted from GPS data
· Origin-destination surveys from roadside interviews
· household/intercept surveys used to understand user's valuations of cycle facilities
The NRA outlined that their future survey efforts would be concentrated on acquiring data used to calibrate their national traffic model. The NRA also gave an overview of progress in their plans to upgrade the automatic traffic counter network.
It was agreed that the next meeting should be held around April 2012.
• All members encouraged to submit information to update inventory of data gaps and data sources
NTA to forward draft NTS tender to CSO for comments.