Numbers using public transport in Cork rises by more than 7%
A total of 13.8m trip were taken on bus and rail services in the Cork commuter region — up from 12.8m.
NTA figures show 12.6m passenger journeys were recorded on Bus Éireann services during 2016 — an annual increase of 7.2%.
Revenue from such bus routes grew by 11% last year to €22.7m.
“The growth in Cork City by Bus Éireann has been greatly helped by the reconfiguration of bus services in the city,” the NTA said.
Numbers using commuter rail services between Cork and Cobh, Midleton, and Mallow were up 9% to 1.2m last year.
The NTA said the overall number of passenger journeys on public transport services in Cork has now risen by more than 20% since 2013.
Growth was also recorded in the numbers using Bus Éireann city services in Limerick and Galway last year.
Passenger numbers were up 3.5% in Limerick to just over 2.9m, with corresponding revenue up 7.7% to €4.3m.
In Galway, journey numbers rose by 6.8% to more than 4.2m, while revenue was up 10.6% to €6.6.m.
The trend was not mirrored in Waterford where numbers using Bus Éireann services in the city were unchanged at 830,000.
Fare increases, however, saw revenue increase by 7% to just over €1m.
Overall, the number of people travelling on state-subsidised public transport services rose by 10m last year to 236.1m — an annual increase of 4.4%.
Growth was recorded across all the main bus and rail services with the exception of Luas where the number of journeys fell by 1.6% to 34m.
However, the reduction in numbers using Luas services in 2016 was due to a 12-day strike as well as the closure of the red line between Jervis and The Point for a period of six weeks to facilitate construction work on the Luas Cross City line.
The NTA said the increase in passenger numbers on public transport was largely due to the recovery in the economy.
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