Free travel for kids up to five kicks in tomorrow

Free travel for all under-fives becomes a reality tomorrow.

Kids up to the age of five will be able to travel on all public transport for free, including Bus Éireann, Iarnród Éireann, Luas, Dart and Dublin Bus.

National Transport Authority boss Anne Graham said: “Today’s development will be good news for families, particularly around this time of year as people get geared up for going into town to do Christmas shopping and to see Santa Claus.”

Other initiatives have included extending child fare eligibility to a person’s 19th birthday, and introducing ‘Kids Go Free’ Leap promotions during the summer.

Following an analysis of the fare zones the cities of Cork, Limerick, Galway an extended city fare zone will also be in place from tomorrow.

When the city fare zone is expanded to satellite towns around these cities an extra 3 million passenger journeys each year will attract the lower city fares with most of these additional passengers within the Cork city area.

For example, a passenger travelling from Carriagline into Cork city currently pays €3.52 by leap card, or €4.40 cash. With the changes to the city fare zone from tomorrow, that journey with cost €1.89 by leap card or €2.70 cash, a saving of 46%.