Public transport in 2026: rail and regional buses lead another rise

NTA and CSO figures show how bus, rail and Luas use has grown from 2019 to 2025, and how CSO weeks 12 to 35 of 2026 compare with the same weeks of 2025.

Rural Local Link buses have more than doubled since 2019

The fastest growth in Irish public transport is not in Dublin. Rural TFI Local Link buses carried 5.8 million passengers in 2024, up from 2.5 million in 2019, according to the National Transport Authority (NTA). In 2025, Local Link carried 6.97 million, up another 19%.

These figures cover services paid for by the State, known as public service obligation (PSO) services. They include Dublin Bus, Bus Éireann, Go-Ahead Ireland, Irish Rail, Luas and Local Link. The NTA calls this the Transport for Ireland (TFI) network.

Passenger numbers are well above 2019 levels

In 2020, the first year of Covid-19, passenger numbers fell by more than half, to 137.7 million. They recovered to 249.7 million in 2022. By 2025, they reached 363.5 million, about 23% above 2019.

Irish Rail had its busiest year ever in 2025, with 55 million passengers, about 10% more than in 2019. Luas carried 55.1 million, 14% above 2019.

The two Luas lines moved in opposite directions in 2025. The Green line grew by 7.2%, to 27.4 million passengers. The Red line fell by 3.3%, to 27.7 million, so the two lines are now almost level.

Go-Ahead and Bus Éireann grew fastest of the big operators in 2025

Dublin Bus is still by far the largest operator, with 164 million passengers in 2025. But its growth slowed to about 3%. Bus Éireann, which runs city, town and regional services outside Dublin, carried 53.6 million, up about 17%.

Go-Ahead Ireland, which runs some Dublin and commuter routes for the NTA, grew by 18%. The NTA also reported 1.2 million passenger trips on town bus services in Carlow, Kilkenny and Portlaoise in 2025. Back in the week of 23 to 29 September 2024, the NTA counted an average of 1,070,901 passenger trips a day, a record at the time.

Each person now makes about 67 trips a year

Population growth explains part of the rise, but not all of it. In 2019, State-funded services carried about 60 passenger trips for every person living in Ireland. In 2025, the figure was about 67, an Irish Wire calculation using CSO population estimates.

Regional cities and rural routes grew fastest

Limerick's city buses grew by about a third between 2019 and 2024. Galway and Waterford grew by about a quarter and a third. Dublin city buses, by far the largest group, grew by 17%, from 152.7 million to 179.4 million.

Rail shows the same pattern. Cork commuter rail grew from 1.5 million passengers in 2019 to 2.2 million in 2024, up about 47%. Dublin commuter rail and DART grew more slowly, from 35.6 million to 36.7 million, about 3%.

2026 so far: up again, with rail growing fastest

The CSO publishes weekly passenger counts for bus and rail, but not Luas, from NTA data. Over weeks 12 to 35 of 2026, bus and rail together carried 134.4 million passengers, 8.8% more than in the same weeks of 2025. Across the first 35 weeks of 2026, they averaged about 5.6 million passengers a week.

The CSO's own reading for the first months of the year matches this pattern. Rail carried almost 22 million passengers between 1 January and 24 May 2026, up 13% on the same period of 2025. Luas carried 1,258,421 people in the week beginning 25 May 2026, 11% more than a year earlier.

Compared with before the pandemic, the change is larger. In weeks 1 to 35 of 2026, buses carried 158.2 million passengers, against 123.5 million in the same weeks of 2019. Buses outside Dublin were up 54%, and Dublin buses up 22%.