Northern Ireland Public Transport Statistics 2021-22

Public Transport Statistics Northern Ireland 2021-22 published.

Public Transport Statistics Northern Ireland 2021-22 published.

This report provides statistics on public transport operated by Translink in Northern Ireland and brings together information on public transport journeys, vehicles and staff.

This is a new official statistical report produced by the Analysis, Statistics and Research Branch (ASRB) of the Department for Infrastructure (DfI).

The publication is available on the DfI website at: Northern Ireland Public Transport Statistics

Key points:

Trips on public transport

• In 2021-2022, 59.3 million public transport trips were made; this is an increase of 33.6 million, or 131%, since 2020-21, when travel restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) were in place. The number of passenger journeys in 2021-2022 was still significantly lower than in 2019-20 (83.4 million), with advice and guidance to deal with COVID-19 and working from home likely to have affected the use of public transport.
• There were 50.5 million bus passenger journeys in 2021-22, up 126% on 2020-21 (22.4 million) but down 26% on 2019-20 (68.3 million ).
• There were 8.7 million rail passenger journeys in 2021-22, a 164% increase on 2020-21 (3.3 million) but a 42% decrease on 2019-20 (15.1 million ).
• In March 2022, the number of bus and rail passenger trips reached the highest monthly level since the beginning of the pandemic – 5.9 million and 1.03 million trips, respectively.

Public transport

• At the end of March 2022, there were 1,064 Ulster buses, 262 Metro buses and 34 gliders in service, with an average age of 9.4 years, 8.8 years and 3.6 years respectively.
• As of the end of March 2022, there were 143 railway cars in operation, the average age of which was 18 years.

Employees of public transport

• The average number of Translink employees in 2021-2022 was 4,064, 74% of which were in bus (3,027) and 26% of which were in rail (1,037).