Car traffic on the State’s main roads into Dublin has risen again for the second day since lockdown restrictions were eased to allow some workers return to their jobs.
Overall, car traffic on Tuesday’s morning rush was down by between 48percent and 66percent of the volumes recorded one year ago, across a range of counters sampled by roads authority Transport Infrastructure Ireland.
The traffic counters inserted in the roads can differentiate between lorries and cars and show that while lorry use has remained relatively constant since the March 27th lockdown, car traffic volumes began an upward trend on April 21st and grew dramatically since restrictions were eased on Monday of this week.
On Tuesday TII recorded car volumes on the radial routes into Dublin showing an increase of between 21 per cent and 35 per cent, compared with last week.
Car traffic is up 35 per cent on the M11 at Bray; 27 per cent on the N7 at Citywest; 25 per cent on the M4 at Celbridge-Maynooth, and 21per cent on the M1 at Swords to Airport.
The M50between the N3 and the N4junctions showed a 29 per cent increase as compared with Tuesday, May 12th.
Overall , TII said car traffic volumes on Tuesday on the radial routes into Dublin were up by between one quarter and one third as compared with Tuesday May 12th.
However, on approaches to the regional cities, volumes on Tuesday morning were somewhat lower than Monday, but close enough to be described as “consistent” by TII.
In the case of the regional cities the increases in car traffic volumes on Tuesday as compared with Tuesday of last week are as follows: N40 Cork 25 per cent; M7 Limerick 21 per cent; , N6 Bóthar na dTreabh into Galway, up 20 per cent and M9 Waterford, up 15 per cent.
TII said the initial three weeks following the introduction of the March 27th lockdown showed consistently very low volumes of traffic, typically down approximately 65-70per cent across the national road network.
From Tuesday , April 21st, an upward trend in car traffic volumes became apparent.
Weekly heavy goods vehicle traffic has remained largely stable and accordingly the daily figures provided are for cars only.
