A bold concern is rising: Dublin’s morning congestion now rivals and even surpasses some of London’s worst traffic, and Dublin Bus is urging bold measures to address it. The issue, they say, is not just slower buses but the way city centre gridlock throttles service speeds and undermines reliability.
Gwen Morgan, who leads service operations at Dublin Bus, told The Irish Times that congestion is climbing year after year and is squeezing average speeds during peak morning periods. In October, the city centre’s average bus speed during rush hour was about 13.4 km/h, slightly behind London’s 14 km/h. Morgan emphasizes that Dublin is lagging behind even a major European benchmark: London has been identified as Europe’s most congested city in a recent study, with Dublin ranking third.
While Dublin Bus collaborates with the National Transport Authority to trim delays that aren’t essential to service, Morgan cautions that there are limits to what can be achieved without broader actions. She suggests congestion charges could be introduced either as a zone-based scheme or targeted at bottlenecks in the city centre—areas like Church Street, Dame Street, and Pearse Street—where bus services suffer most from traffic snarl-ups.
As a reference point, she points to the Port Tunnel, which already imposes higher tolls during peak times. The idea, she says, is to deter driving into the city centre by making it more expensive, thereby prioritizing public transport across the board.
The overarching message is clear: public transport should be given genuine priority across all modes, with private cars playing a smaller role. The growing congestion makes meeting performance standards set out in Dublin Bus’s contract with the NTA increasingly challenging, especially when enforcement of bus lanes is weak. Morgan notes that non-compliance by private motorists using bus lanes is a major problem, contributing to delays and congestion for buses.
One practical proposal Morgan supports is equipping buses with cameras on both the front and rear to capture license plates of vehicles using bus lanes. That data could be shared with An Garda Síochána to issue fines, a measure she argues has proven effective elsewhere and could bolster public transport reliability.
The Greater Dublin Area Transport Strategy for 2022-2042 already mentions congestion charges as a possibility, but a concrete plan requires more detailed analysis to understand how such measures would work in practice. In parallel, the Department of Transport is finalising a national strategy on traffic-enforcement cameras, which could play a role in supporting any future charging or enforcement schemes.
This discussion invites debate: should Dublin adopt congestion charges to curb private car use and protect bus lanes, or are there alternative approaches that could achieve the same goals without imposing charges? How might a phased, evidence-based rollout look, and what safeguards would ensure equity for commuters, visitors, and local businesses? Share your views on whether congestion charging is a viable path for Dublin, and what accompanying investments in public transport would be essential to make it successful.
