While it affects Dubliners most, it also hits companies throughout the country that have cause to do regular business with firms or organisations in the capital.

The traffic gets worse every month and the government and its advisers wrestle with a host of grandiose plans to improve things, but it seems that simple solutions are sometimes overlooked in favour of 10-year plans with impressive names and cute logos. What's even worse is when those in power realise what should be done and then don't do it.

Back in 1999, the Progressive Democrats produced a policy document on Dublin Transport with a number of suggestions under 10 headings. One recommendation that could have had a tremendous impact on the city was that Dublin Bus should move to a cashless system.

Passengers would buy tickets from shops along the route and validate them on the bus. This would mean shorter waiting time at bus stops and faster journeys.

The PD document reckoned that journey times would be reduced by 20%.

Faster journeys would encourage more people to use the bus, speed the flow of traffic and increase the frequency of service on routes throughout the city.

Introducing this policy would not have required a vast investment. Dublin Bus has had ticket reading machines for many years:

moving to a cashless system would have only have required a major increase in the number of outlets selling tickets and a public information campaign to alert passengers.

The unions could hardly have complained at a system that removed all cash from the bus and, therefore, made its members much safer.

Yet, seven years after it became PD policy to move towards cashless buses, Dublin Bus drivers still take cash . . . although they don't give cash change. This increases the dwell time at bus stops, causes huge delays across the network and contributes greatly to traffic problems.

There are a number of Quality Bus Corridors, but many buses still stop on the main road, slowing the flow of traffic.

Dublin is still waiting on an integrated ticketing system to allow commuters move seamlessly between the DART, the bus and the Luas . . . but there is no reason why we could not have had cashless buses in the meantime.

Cashless systems exist in many other European cities and, when the Luas was introduced, from day one it operated on the basis that you had to buy a ticket in advance. Luas was at an advantage in that it could place ticket machines at stations and platforms but, given the explosion of convenience stores in recent years, Dublin Bus has a ready-made network of vendors throughout the city.

We do need strategic thinking about transport and a long-term vision of how to keep greater Dublin moving. But not at the expense of initiatives that could be implemented quickly to the benefit of all.