73.2% of Mayo commuters travel to work by car

THE Central Statistics Office (CSO) has published Census 2016 Profile 6 Commuting in Ireland. The report shows that in April 2016, 34,389 people living and working in County Mayo (73.2%) travelled to work by car, compared to 65.6% of commuters nationally.

Just 0.9% used public transport, compared to 9.3% who did so nationally. A further 0.8% cycled, while 8.2% walked.

Commuting times rose in every county and the national average commuting time in April 2016 was 28.2 minutes, up from 26.6 minutes in 2011. Mayo commuters had an average commute of 23.3 minutes, compared to 22.6 minutes five years previously.

In 2011, 36.3% of commuters had a journey time of under 15 minutes, but this had fallen to 35.8% by 2016. Nationally, 22.9% of commuters were travelling for less than 15 minutes. In April 2016, 8.2% of commuters spent an hour or more travelling compared to 7.3% in 2011, while 2.5% had a commute of over 90 minutes, as against 2.1% five years previously.

There were 34,890 Mayo residents working in the county, while 3,479 people commuted into the county for work. A further 4,948 people commuted to work outside the county, giving a net loss of 1,469 in the working population.

Among primary school children, 70.2% travelled to school by car, while 1,444 (10.0%) walked. The
percentage travelling by bus fell to 15.1% from 17.8% in 2011, while 0.8% of students cycled to school.

There were 1,155 secondary school children walking to school, accounting for 11.3% of secondary students, while 51.4% went to school by car, compared to 46.6% in 2011. Another 34.6% travelled by bus, while 0.3% cycled to school.

Commenting, Deirdre Cullen, senior statistician said: “This report presents detailed statistics on and analysis of the commuting patterns of workers and students in April 2016. 

“It examines how we travel to work, school and college; the times we leave to get there and the length of time we spend commuting. It is particularly timely as we move into Autumn and the return of students to schools and colleges across the country.”