Commuters in Cork lost 107 hours each sitting in traffic last year

Cork city commuters lost an average of 107 hours in rush-hour traffic last year, and traffic congestion is set to cost the local economy €97m by 2040.

Each commuter lost the equivalent of four days and 11 hours due to the city’s choked streets and arteries, which was an increase of seven hours and 40 minutes on the figure for 2024.

Cork TD and minister of state Jerry Buttimer told the Dáil recently that an analysis by his department showed that by 2040, the annual cost of Cork’s traffic congestion is projected to reach €97m.

The economic cost is calculated by collating travel time costs, but also emissions and adverse health impacts Data shows that the problem is getting worse in Cork city, with monthly congestion levels for 2025 higher than 2024, across all twelve months of the year. Population and employment growth will be the key drivers of congestion and resulting cost increases.

The traffic data, from the TomTom Traffic Index, revealed that last year the average distance driven in 15 minutes was 6.5km, which was 0.2km less than 2024.

The average travel time for a 10km drive was 23 minutes and 10 seconds, which was 37 seconds more than in 2024.

Meanwhile, the average speed during rush hour was 21.1km/h, which was 1km/h slower than the previous year.

During morning and evening rush hours, it took around 28 and a half minutes to drive 10km, with morning rush hours minutely busier than evening.

WORST DAY

The worst day to travel in Cork city last year was Tuesday November 11, when it took 15 minutes on average to drive just 3.6km at 8am, with an average congestion level of 94% across the day.

On average, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays were the worst days for traffic, with these being the main days that hybrid workers go to the office.

Last year, Cork city’s traffic was better than Dublin’s, with the capital ranked the third worst city in the world for traffic congestion. However, Cork’s congestion was considerably worse than the traffic in London, Paris, New York and Sydney, as well as similar-sized cities such as Utrecht in the Netherlands, Reykjavík in Iceland and Aarhus in Denmark.

Chair of Cork City Council’s Transport Committee and Labour councillor, Peter Horgan, said that people are living this reality every day “sitting in traffic for hours, watching their work time evaporate”.

He added: “These figures aren’t abstract numbers: they reflect every parent stuck trying to get to school, every worker fighting gridlock to get to a shift, and every bus being held up because we don’t use the tools already available to us.” “We keep being told that transformational investment is on the way, but that doesn’t help the countless commuters stuck in cars and on buses. The collateral of this congestion is a further attack on our public transport capacity and capability.

“When you are annoyed that the bus is late or non-existent it is because of heavy traffic more often than not. We need automatic traffic enforcement cameras, properly targeted at known bottlenecks across our city and ring roads this year, backed by legislation from ministers in Dublin.” 

It comes as The Echo recently revealed that 76% of people travel into the city by car, with nearly 90% of these cars having single occupancy, according to the National Transport Authority.