Free app to alert drivers to traffic issues at Cork's Dunkettle interchange

The busiest junction outside of Dublin, it is used by 115,000 vehicles per day.

In approximately a year, major construction work will begin on upgrading the interchange and it is likely to cause severe disruption at times.

TII spokesman Sean O’Neill said a key tool in the management the traffic impacts will be reliable real-time information available directly to the travelling public via local and national media outlets as well as a dedicated ‘Dunkettle Travel App’.

We are currently testing the application and plan to have it available for free early next year,” Mr O’Neill said. “It will be the first of this type of dedicated App that will allow people and businesses to plan their specific travel needs around the construction works.

He said if there is a breakdown or an accident in or around the Dunkettle interchange it has the potential to become a local, regional and national concern very quickly.

TII has said engineers will do everything in their power to ensure diversions are kept to a minimum, but warned that will be difficult because the junction is the intersection that links a number of key national routes — the Cork-Dublin M8, Cork to Waterford N25 and Southern Ring Road N40 through the Jack Lynch Tunnel.

This is a very important national roads project for TII, Cork County Council and Cork City Council,” said Mr O’Neill. “Planning commenced three years ago and a primary objective was the management of traffic. The reality is the contractor will be rebuilding the very road people are driving on, over, and under.

The plan is to remove the signalised roundabout on the northern side of the tunnel to allow free traffic flow through it. A dedicated slip road will be built on the city side of the tunnel, so traffic can directly access the northbound lanes of the M8.