Passenger numbers outside Dublin show strongest recovery from pandemic

Passenger numbers on public transport and through national airports have shown a strong recovery from the pandemic, with services outside of Dublin recording particularly strong numbers compared with 2019 levels.

The latest transport bulletin published by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) on Friday shows bus transport volumes continued to exceed pre-Covid volumes in July.

The number of bus journeys outside Dublin in the week beginning July 24th was up 10 per cent on 2019 figures, and up by a fifth compared with the same week last year.

In Dublin, the number of bus journeys for the same week was 2 per cent higher than 2019 levels, and up 23 per cent on the same week in 2022.

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Luas journeys were down 3 per cent in comparison with 2019 levels, but were up by 24 per cent on passenger numbers in 2022.

Overall, airport passenger numbers in July were on par with 2019 levels for Dublin, Cork and Kerry airports combined.

The three airports handled 3,771,383 passengers in July compared with 3,768,415 for the same month in 2019. Data for Knock and Shannon airports was not available at time of publication.

Figures show Cork Airport saw a 1 per cent increase in passenger numbers last month when compared with July 2019, while Kerry Airport saw an increase of 13 per cent in passenger numbers over the same period. Meanwhile, the number of passengers travelling through Dublin Airport remained at pre-pandemic levels, with little change between July 2023 and July 2019.

In the first seven months of 2023, 19,071,949 passengers were handled by Dublin Airport, compared with 18,868,759 in the same period in 2019.

The number of new cars licensed in July increased by 20 per cent to 18,106 when compared with the same month in 2022, while the number of used cars licensed last month (4,348) was up 6 per cent.

At 289 million litres, clearances of auto diesel in June were 3 per cent lower than in June 2022, while at 84 million litres, clearances of petrol in June 2023 were 7 per cent higher.

There were 16 fatalities on Irish roads last month, compared with 12 in July 2022 and 10 in July 2019, the data show.