The number of passenger journeys on public transport jumped by almost 24 million last year when compared with 2018 .
According to figures from the National Transport Authority (NTA), the 9 per cent year on year increase is “by far the largest since” it began keeping records a decade ago.
All told 290 million passenger journeys were provided by Dublin Bus, Bus Éireann, Iarnród Éireann, Luas and Go-Ahead, Ireland’s Public Service Obligation (PSO) services, in 2019.
Bus Éireann posted an increase in passenger journey numbers of 14 per cent and attracted 40.4 million passengers in 2019 compared to 35.5 million in 2018.
Numbers on Bus Éireann’s city services also rose by 14 per cent with a 30 per cent increase recorded on services in Waterford city as passenger numbers climbed from 840,000 in 2018 to 1.1 million last year.
Passenger numbers on bus services in the Dublin metropolitan area increased by 7.5 per cent.
PSO services in the Dublin area are provided by Dublin Bus, and by Go-Ahead Ireland and combined numbers across both companies climbed from 141m in 2018 to 151m last year.
Dublin Bus provided the largest number of passenger journeys in 2019 at over 138 million with the NTA attributing the increase to new timetables and improved frequencies across the network.
While Dublin Bus was operating fewer routes in 2019 than previously, overall passenger numbers on those routes rose by some 5 per cent.
Last year saw a significant ramping up of Go-Ahead Ireland operations as a PSO transport operator and the company provided 13.9m passenger journeys during the year on Dublin routes representing an increase of approximately 24 per cent compared to the same routes in 2018.
These include new routes such as the 175 which connects CityWest to UCD and extended routes such as 33A linking Skerries, Swords and Dublin Airport.
Trains and trams
The figures also looked good for Iarnród Éireann with numbers on Dart, Commuter and Inter City services all increasing and overall passenger numbers rising by 4.3 per cent and hitting 50 million for the first time in the company’s history.
The numbers reflect the first full-year of 10-minute DART services, introduced in September 2018 and increased off-peak frequency on Maynooth, Northern and Phoenix Park Tunnel services introduced in December 2018.
Numbers on the Luas increased by 15 per cent to over 48 million in 2019,reflecting the first full-year of the capacity enhancement of the Green Line which saw seven new 55m trams brought into service.
In addition, two newly-extended trams were brought into service late in 2019, with a further 24 trams to be extended in the next 18 months. Delivery of a further eight brand-new trams is expected to commence in the second quarter of this year.
The NTA chief executive Anne Graham said “there is no doubt that when there is a reliable, high quality, value-for-money public transport offering that customers will respond positively to it.”
However she added that people were are “also looking to the future of the planet, and they know that by choosing to use public transport, they are behaving in a way that will reduce emissions, improve air quality and protect their local environment.”
Meanwhile figures from the Department of Transport highlight travel trends from 2018 suggest that 52.6 per cent of the people entering Dublin City Centre during the morning peak in November 2018 travelled by public transport, while 11 per cent walked, 6 per cent cycled and 28 per cent travelled by car.
