The Central Statistics Office have revealed that almost 3 million people commute to work, school, or college daily.
The report, drawn from Census 2016, shows that 2,962,550 people commute, with 1,875,773 of these going to work.
The CSO said that 9,336 people crossed the border for work and school, a decrease of 2.1 per cent on the 2011 figure of 9,536. Most of these (three-quarters) were going to work (7,037), while 10% were students (2,299).
Donegal accounted for the largest number of cross border commuters, with 5,600 commuters, 76% of whom travelled to Co. Derry.
The most frequent destination of commuters across the border region was Co. Derry with over 4,320 commuters who stated this as their commuting destination. Just over 1,200 commuters travelled to County Tyrone, with just over a 1,000 travelling to County Armagh.
Source: CSO
Letterkenny was the busiest town for commuters, with 5,036 people commuting to Letterkenny each day. 1,823 people living in Letterkenny left each day to work elsewhere.
They say that there has been a large increase in the use of buses and trains (up 22% and 19.7% respectively), with cycling to working rising by 43% since 2011. Over 42% of rural secondary students were reliant on the bus to get to school, compared to nearly 1 in 5 urban students.
Nationally 1,229,966 people either drove or were passengers in a car, and in rural areas 7 out of 10 people used a car to commute.
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.
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.”
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