The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021 may have had an impact on some of the indicators (such as emissions to air, transport and energy) in this publication.
The number of licensed vehicles in Ireland increased by 215% from 915,000 in 1985 to 2.9 million in 2021. Private cars accounted for most of this growth with an increase of 1.5 million vehicles between 1985 and 2021.
The number of goods vehicles has increased by 312% from 93,400 in 1985 to 385,000 in 2021.
The number of public bus and coach passenger journeys in Ireland fell from 238 million in 2005 to 191 million in 2013, before rising to 228 million in 2019. The number of journeys declined to 120 million passenger journeys in 2020 due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The number of rail passenger journeys in Ireland rose from 38 million in 2005 to 46 million in 2007. This fell to 37 million in both 2012 and 2013, before rising again to 50 million journeys in 2019. Rail passenger journeys fell sharply in 2020 to 18 million due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The number of Luas passenger journeys increased from 22 million in 2005 to 28 million in 2007, before falling in 2008 and 2009. This figure increased in subsequent years to peak at 48 million journeys in 2019. In 2020 the number of Luas passenger journeys declined to 19 million.
An error was discovered in Table 8.2. This was corrected on November 18th 2022.
The number of rail passenger journeys per capita increased in most EU27 Member States in 2021 compared with 2020 but were still below the pre-pandemic levels of 2019. In Ireland there were 3.5 journeys per person in 2021. Luxembourg was the EU Member States with the highest level of passenger journeys per capita at 26.3 in 2021, while Greece had the lowest level at 0.9.
| Country | Passenger journeys per capita |
|---|---|
| Luxembourg | 26.3237624500531 |
| Austria | 24.3920956964242 |
| Denmark | 22.9920616030033 |
| Germany | 21.180490040803 |
| Sweden | 15.8874700799985 |
| France | 13.2363822306478 |
| Czechia | 12.6271072209035 |
| Portugal | 11.7219627581836 |
| Finland | 9.94820005920923 |
| Spain | 8.83553705738895 |
| Slovakia | 8.40070586593054 |
| Italy | 8.27374674520542 |
| Latvia | 5.89018700317662 |
| Slovenia | 5.54741942495763 |
| Estonia | 4.57081567661159 |
| Ireland | 3.49241041107783 |
| Croatia | 3.34399074929706 |
| Romania | 2.85161106136697 |
| Bulgaria | 2.47216078996079 |
| Lithuania | 1.41258048184451 |
| Greece | 0.937412459332292 |
The number of passengers who travelled on international journeys through Irish airports fell by 78% from 38 million in 2019 to 8 million in 2020 due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. This number increased to 9 million in 2021 but was still below the pre-pandemic figure of 2019.
The number of international passengers travelling to and from Irish seaports also fell by 73% from 2.5 million in 2019 to 0.7 million in 2020, due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on transport. This figure rose to 0.9 million passenger journeys through sea ports in 2021, but was still below the pre-pandemic figure in 2019.
Between 1986 and 2016, the percentage of females aged 15 years or over driving to work has increased from 27% to 65%. The proportion of females travelling to work as car passengers fell from 16% to 5% in the same period.
The proportion of males aged 15 years or over driving to work increased from 42% to 53% between 1986 and 2016.
There were 10% of females aged 15 years and over who walked to work in 2016 compared with 8% of males. The number of females aged 15 years or over cycling to work declined from 6% in 1986 to 2% in 2016. The proportion of males aged 15 years or over cycling to work fell from 5% to 4% between 1986 and 2016.
The proportion of new licensed private cars in Ireland using diesel increased from 10% in 2000 to 74% in 2012, before falling to 34% in 2021. The proportion using petrol fell from 90% in 2000 to 23% in 2012, before rising to 40% in 2019. By 2021 this figure had fallen again to 32%.
The percentage of new licensed private cars using hybrid, electric and other fuels increased from 2% in 2015 to 34% in 2021.
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