Number of new cars licensed up almost 50% in a year

The number of new cars licensed in the State in June was almost 50 per cent higher than in the same month last year, with the number of people using public transport and airports also increasing.

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) published its Transport Bulletin for June 2023 on Wednesday, which captures changing traffic volumes and the number of journeys taken on public transport.

It notes that in June 2023, 5,584 new private cars were licensed, an increase of 48 per cent compared with June of last year. The number of used private cars licensed last month (4,107) was up 4 per cent on June 2022.

Journey numbers on public transport remain above pre-pandemic levels, across both bus and Luas services.

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There was a 9 per cent increase in bus journeys in Dublin for week 26 of 2023 (the week beginning June 26th 2023) when compared with the same week in 2019, and the number of bus journeys outside Dublin in the same week was 11 per cent higher than in 2019.

Meanwhile, Luas journeys for the same week were 25 per cent higher and 7 per cent up on the same weeks in 2022 and 2019, respectively.

Pre-pandemic 2019 figures are not available for rail journeys, but the number of rail journeys in week 26 of 2023 was almost 30 per cent ahead of the same week a year earlier.

The total number of passengers handled by Dublin, Cork, Knock and Shannon airports last month (3,776,092) was 15 per cent ahead of June 2022 figures and up 1 per cent on passenger numbers in June 2019. Data for Kerry Airport was not available at the time of publication.

Shannon Airport saw the largest annual increase, with passenger numbers in June 2023 up 32 per cent on June 2022. Passenger numbers in Knock airport increased by 22 per cent over the same period, while passenger numbers in Dublin Airport increased by 14 per cent, and numbers in Cork Airport rose by 13 per cent.

There were 11 fatalities on Irish roads in June 2023, the lowest number of any month so far this year, bringing the total number of road deaths in 2023 to 88. This compares with 13 fatalities recorded in June 2022, and 11 in June 2019.