Mechanical issues blamed for majority of delays and cancellations on Cork bus routes

More than 6% of Cork city buses did not run as scheduled in the first half of this year, with mechanical issues the main culprit.

Buses across Ireland calculate reliability using a metric called “lost kilometres”, which looks at how many buses actually operate compared to schedules, and data is calculated across 13 four-week periods, with data up to the end of mid-June currently available for 2026.

Overall, 6.3% of planned bus kilometres were not travelled in the first half of this year, through buses being cancelled or not covering the whole route.

The data was provided by the National Transport Authority (NTA) on foot of a Freedom of Information (FoI) request.

More than half of the buses did not operate due to mechanical issues.

No electric charging infrastructure

Cork city cannot receive brand new buses as the NTA has not been buying new diesel buses for the last several years, and Cork does not have electric charging infrastructure, and will not until 2028.

Cork has received around 50 secondhand buses from Limerick since 2020, as they have charging infrastructure in place. In Cork, a temporary depot has had to be built to allow space for electric chargers to be installed in the main depot, a project which has seen many delays.

The other two main reasons for buses not running were staffing, followed closely by traffic, with staffing issues becoming particularly problematic in the last period data is available for.

Worst performing routes

Of the main city bus routes, the worst performing was the 208 from Lotabeg to Curraheen, with 13% of scheduled trips not operating in the first half of this year.

This was followed by the 202 from Hollyhill to Mahon Point on 9%; the 207 from Donnybrook to Glenheights and the 203 from Lehenaghmore to Parklands, both 7.5%.

The best performing routes included the 226 and 225, which go to the airport and missed just 1% and 2% of trips respectively, while the 219 from Mahon to CUH, 213 from the Black Ash Park and Ride to Lapps Quay and 201 from Lotabeg to CUH and 214 from to CUH all had less than 4% of buses cancelled or not doing the full route.

The total percentage of bus routes not travelled marks a slight decrease in performance from 5.6% at the same time last year, while the latter half of 2025 was considerably worse, with 8.5% of planned bus trips not carried out.

So far this year, performance has decreased from 5.4% of bus trips not running in the first four weeks of the year to 7.6% in the period covering mid-May to mid-June, suggesting that the latter half of 2026 will also see even less buses running as planned.

Seven bus routes saw lost kilometres roughly double between period one and period six of the year.