Congestion charges are not en route for Dublin motorists, according to Dublin City Council’s traffic chief, despite international studies indicating worsening traffic in the capital.
A recent report from US-based transport analytics company Inrix ranked the capital the 11th-most congested city in the world, from 15th last year, and the third in Europe, behind Paris and London.
Last month, Gwen Morgan, director of service operations at Dublin Bus, said charges to “discourage” motorists from driving in the city centre should be introduced to improve bus services.
However, city council head of traffic Brendan O’Brien said while the council was proactively working to tackle traffic, it was “not really in favour” of congestion charges.
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Charging motorists for driving into the city may not have the expected deterrent effect, Mr O’Brien said.
“There is an element of considering what it is you are trying to achieve,” he said. “If you’re trying to achieve a reduction of car traffic, look at the port tunnel. It costs €13 in the morning peak, and most mornings, the tunnel has to be metered just to stop a build up traffic. So what level would the charge have to be?”
There is also an element of fairness that has to come into the equation, he indicated.
“I’d be reluctant to just say we’ll hit everybody on the head who’s trying to drive into the city. It’s not as simple as that. I know a lot of businesses in the city would think this was another penalty for coming into the city, and people will just go to Blanchardstown or somewhere else,” he said.
“We also have a lot more people who have to live further outside the city, and providing public transport for them is actually the way to go about resolving some of these issues.”
Initiatives such as BusConnects, camera enforcement of bus lanes, and the eventual construction of MetroLink, coupled with the Dublin City Centre Transport Plan, could be more effective in reducing traffic, he said.
The transport plan, implemented in stages since 2024, aims to reduce the dominance of private vehicles on the city streets by improving public transport and cycling infrastructure and making it less attractive for motorists to use the city centre as a rat-run to other parts of Dublin.
Congestion charging “unquestionably works in some cities” but its implementation “is far from straightforward”, Mr O’Brien said.
The Government, two years ago, approved a strategy to give local authorities the power to introduce congestion charges, but has yet to introduce legislation.
“One of the things people have to consider is what kind of infrastructure you need to put in place. Is it a pay-by-kilometre system? Is there a fixed cordon of entry points around the city?
In Dublin, the “obvious cordon” would be on roads crossing the Royal and Grand canals, “but then you have to put up quite a bit of fairly heavy infrastructure at each canal crossing. None of that has been properly looked at,” he said.
“At some stage in the future, perhaps when it was felt that adequate public transport alternatives are there, you could consider it, but you would have to have a clear rationale for it.”
