Heavy Rail Census for 2015

13 September 2016

The National Transport Authority today (September 13th, 2016) published its Heavy Rail Census for the year 2015 – which records information on all passenger boardings and alightings (every station, every service) on November 19, 2015 – a snapshot of rail usage on a “representative” day unaffected by traditional holiday periods, and when all places of work and education are in full session.

A summary report has also been published.

This is the fourth national heavy rail census; prior years’ data were collected for Greater Dublin Area (counties Dublin, Meath, Kildare and Wicklow) stations only.  Results are presented alongside data collected earlier years, and show trends in rail travel around the country.

The main findings from the 2015 Census are:

  • Close to 141,500 journeys were taken on census day (Nov 19, 2015), up 13% on the 2014 data
  • Dublin’s Connolly, Pearse, Heuston and Tara continue to be the busiest rail stations in Ireland, between them handling a third of all rail passengers on census day
  • The 10 busiest stations on the network between them accounted for nearly half (47%) of all passenger movements on the day
  • 25 stations generated fewer than 100 journeys on census day.  Of the quietest stations, 12 experienced fewer than 30 journeys
  • For the fourth successive year, the busiest train in Ireland was the 8:00 DART from Greystones to Malahide, with a total of 1,336 passengers using this service.  The peak passenger load on this service was between Booterstown and Sydney Parade, when 923 passengers were on board
  • The most heavily loaded commuter service was the 07:12 Drogheda to Bray, which carried 691 passengers between Howth Junction and Connolly

A summary Report of the Heavy Rail Census 2015 is available to download.

Full results are available to download in the Heavy Rail Census Full Report 2015.

The Heavy Rail Census Summary is the latest in a series of Statistical Bulletins published by the Authority. Earlier Bulletins are available on our statistical bulletins page – www.nationaltransport.ie/publications/statistics/bulletins/