Galway City Park & Ride service has its best year yet

Date Published: 19-Dec-2011

By Denise McNamara

This year’s Christmas ‘park and ride’ service has had its most successful year since its inception seven years ago – at the weekend more than 4,000 people availed of it to go shopping in Galway City.

The figures should help improve Galway City Council’s longstanding push to establish a permanent facility to take more cars off the road.

Last weekend the service proved particularly popular, with 569 cars using it to ferry 2,256 passengers from Ballybrit Racecourse on Saturday and on Sunday there were 1,784 people hopping on the bus from 424 vehicles.

This represents a 32% and 80% increase on the same days last year respectively.

A survey carried out among passengers found 17% were from outside the county, namely from Mayo, Roscommon and Clare and the average number of people per vehicle was four, forking out just €2 regardless of the number of passengers.

Last year peak use was recorded on December 18 when 417 cars and 1,704 used the service.

There has been a year-on year increase in demand for the service.

The 2010 total for the service was 4,023 cars and 12,638 inbound passengers which marked a 25% increase on 2009.

In 2009 there was an 11% increase recorded on the year before.

Cathy Joyce of the Galway Transportation Unit said figures should again be up on last year, although it is not expected the increase will be of the same magnitude as last year.

While weekend usage is particularly heavy, the numbers are down during the week because of the recession.

The council has been trying to set up a permanent park and ride for years.

This year’s service continues until Christmas Eve.

Read more in today’s Connacht Sentinel.