THREEQUARTERS TRAVELTOWORK BYCARINWEXFORD
THREE-QUARTERS of commuters in County Wexford travel to work by car which is significantly higher than the national average, according to figures published by the Central Statistics Office.
The CSO released its Census 2016 results on Commuting in Ireland which show that 74.6% of the Wexford working population or 39,203 people go to work by car, compared to 65.6% of commuters nationally.
Across the country, 9.3% of working commuters use public transport but only 1.5% of people in Wexford travel to work on trains or buses which is a negative reflection on the public transport network locally.
The number of people cycling to work in the county in April 2016 was 0.8% while the number of walking commuters was higher at 8.1%.
People are travelling longer distances and taking longer to travel to work nowadays with Wexford commuters spending an average of 26.7 minutes on the journey to work compared to 25.4 minutes in 2011. The national average commuting time is 28.2 minutes, up from 26.6 minutes in 2011.
More than one in three Wexford commuters (31.7%) have a travel journey of less than 15 minutes compared to 33.9% in Census 2011. Nationally, 22.9& of commuters had a journey of under 15 minutes.
The number of County Wexford commuters who spend an hour or more travelling to work is on the increase - it was 11.7% in 2016 compared to 10.4% in 2011 while 4.9% had a commute of over 90 minutes compared to 4.3% five years earlier.
At the time of the most recent census, there were 37,372 County Wexford residents working in the county while 3,156 people commuted into the county for work. An additional 8,447 people commuted to work outside the county, giving a net loss of 5,291 in the working population.
Among primary school children, the majority or 68.3% travelled to school by car while 15.4% (2,806) walked.The percentage travelling to school by bus fell from 15% in 2011 to 11.8% last year while 0.4% of students cycled to school.
The number of secondary school children walking to school fell by 141 to 1,788 or 15.1% while 47.9% travelled to school by car, compared to 44.8% in 2011. More than one in three (34.1%) travelled by bus while 0.3% cycled to school.