Fare Prices
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Why are public transport usage numbers at a 20‑year high in Dublin?
Now the number of people using public transport to get into Dublin City Centre has reached its highest level in twenty years, according to the National Transport Authority's latest Canal Corden report. And at a time when public transport use is up, the number of people commuting into the city centre by car during their morning rush hour is down. But with public transport fares set to increase next year, there are now renewed calls to scrap those hikes. Our reporter Florence Okoje has been looking at the latest figures. Morning, Florence. Morning, David. When it comes to how people are travelling into the city, what can you tell us?
So the Canal Corden Report is carried out by the NTA every year. Essentially, it looks at the different ways people travel into the city between 7 a.m. and 10 a.m., so rush hour, and counts people crossing at the main points around the Royal and Grand Canals. And what the latest figures show is that more than 118,000 people, so around six in ten commuters, traveled into the city centre using public transport last year. The highest figure recorded in 20 years. And while public transport use is going up, like you said, car use is going in the opposite direction, falling to the lowest level on record outside of the COVID pandemic. Some factors that could be responsible for this is the Dublin City Council removing through traffic from going through the city centre and also limiting the use of the Liffey keys, as well as a lot more people now relying on public transport a bit more.
So now the number of cars coming. Into the city during the morning rush hour is down 37% compared to 20 years ago. But despite this shift towards public transport, fares, as you know, are set to increase by an average of 15% from January. And Jason Cullen, chairperson of the Dublin Commuter Coalition, says increasing fares are a surefire way, a surefire way to reverse the positive progress that has been made.
The NTA they appeared in front of the Eractus Transport Committee last week and at that meeting they gave pretty stark figures um that for every ten percent that the fares increase it will correlate to a three percent reduction in service. Now what that looks like practically with their announcement, fares are going up between fifteen and thirty three percent depending on the Type of route you take. And some fares are being discontinued entirely. So that'll see people move on to an even higher fare in terms of flexible travel on longer commuter trains. But what's kind of an even bigger impact above that is earlier this year Dublin moved to a zonal system in the Greater Dublin area. So in those kind of outskirt areas, Greystones, Scary's Rush.
All these kind of places on the outskirts of Dublin, they've already had a fare hike this year. So they're looking at nearly 50% fare hikes within the 12-month period. And with the NTA's own projections, that's gonna run into a 15% reduction in public transport use. The NTA said that the fare increases are going to generate about 70 million euros worth of increase. And in the context of a budget that is having billions of euros worth of spending expansion, 70 million euros is not a lot of money for the government to find to make public transport, sustainable transport, more affordable for people whom get up early in the morning as The tarnished I like to say very recently.
Uh yeah, but anyone who travels into the city centre, particularly at Russia, knows that public transport can be a lot easier than driving. So are those workers uh that get up early in the morning, they're still gonna have to use it. So that will they just have to pay up?
Well, we won't know exactly how people will respond until those higher fares come in. But while I was speaking to commuters in the city centre, it seems that many feel like they will have to pay up and they don't really have much of a choice. Um now the NGA says it's been eight years since fares were revised, and they do state that the increase is part of its wider strategy to support the expansion and improvement of public of public transport.
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