The latest census shows more of us are spending longer in our cars and leaving earlier writes Geraldine Herbert
- The number of people commuting to work increased by 10.7% from 1.70 million in 2011 to 1.88 million in 2016.
- More of us are cycling than before, in fact cycling to work recorded the largest percentage increase of 42.8 per cent over the five years.
- We are spending longer getting to work; the average stated journey time to work was 28.2 minutes in 2016, up from 26.6 minutes in 2011 and 27.5 minutes in 2006
- 166,712 leave their homes before 6:30 am that’s up just under 40% in five years.
- 68 per cent of these early commuters were men.
- More women than men travelled to work between the 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. time slots (women making up 57.2%).
- So much for flexible working hours the number of workers leaving after 9.30 a.m. increased by only 2.1 per cent, from 184,701 to 188,565 between 2011 and 2016.
- Car ownership among households continued its upward trend with 1.39 million households having at least one car in 2016 – an increase of 30,063 on 2011.
- Meath had the highest proportion of households with at least one car (90.3%), followed closely by Cork County (89.0%).
- Meath also had the largest proportion (43.3%) of households with two cars. Cork County had the largest proportion (7.7%) of households with three cars while 1.8 per cent of households in the State had four or more cars.
Geraldine Herbert
15th June, 2017
