Nearly 20,000 fines were paid by people committing fare evasion on Dublin’s Luas trams in 2025.
The Luas achieved its highest passenger numbers to date, with 55 million journeys during the period, but despite this, the number of successful appeals of fines fell.
Transdev, the current operator of the Luas tramline, deals with ticket enforcement in-house. Security, in their orange vests, issue standard fare notices to those found to be travelling without a ticket.
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Should recipients of these notices pay the fine within two weeks (14 days), they pay a reduced rate of €45. After the two-week mark, however, the penalty increases to €100. Failure to clear the fine can result in a court summons.
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In 2024, a total of 17,691 such fines were issued to passengers who had failed to pay the fare for using the service, according to figures released under the Freedom of Information Act by Transport Infrastructure Ireland.
These fines generated €825,475, with an average penalty paid of about €46.70, suggesting the vast majority of those who pay the fine for fare evasion do so within the two-week mark.
This past year, however, fines issued rose by more than one-tenth (10.6 per cent) to 19,574.
The value of these fines was €908,835 in 2025, an increase broadly in line with the number issued.
In a statement, a Transdev spokeswoman said the company is “proud of our strong fare compliance record, with 97 per cent of Luas passengers travelling with a valid ticket”.
Transdev’s internal data indicate that just 3 per cent of passengers evade fares, which the spokeswoman said is “a testament to the dedication and diligence of Luas staff in maintaining high standards, as well as the responsible behaviour of passengers”.
In a “record year for Luas”, 55 million passenger journeys were made across the network. With about 150,000 daily journeys – and a 3 per cent evasion rate – thousands of people are evading the fares each day.
The data suggest an average of 54 people paid fines each day in 2025, though more may be issued with standard fare notices that have yet to pay.
As part of the process, those issued with notices are entitled to appeal. In 2024, some 1,062 appeals were allowed, but that number fell to 876 this past year.
Among the anonymised appeal documents released to The Irish Times, faulty tag-on devices on Luas stations appeared on a number of occasions. Another frequent explanation was forgetting to tag-off on previous journeys leading to tagging-on ending the validity of their ticket.
