Pretty European capital city surprisingly named the worst for public transport

Dublin: aerial views show skyline of Irish capital

Dublin is one of Ireland’s oldest towns, a place where history, culture, and food cross paths to create a colourful settlement.

Some five million people make the journey to the Republic’s capital every year, making it one of the country’s most-visited destinations and Europe’s fourth most-visited city.

Many have made Dublin home, around 1.2 million people, meaning the city itself is regularly packed, especially its centre.

With such a dense population and relatively small size, you’d think the city would have an efficient and cheap public transport system to ferry visitors and locals around with impeccable efficiency.

Well, you’d be wrong: according to a new survey, Dublin was this year ranked as the worst European place for public transport among 30 other capital cities.

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Greenpeace, the climate group that collated the data, based the results on affordability and simplicity for users in purchasing tickets.

An evaluation the outfit published earlier this year called for a Europe-wide price ticket reduction to address the climate and energy crises and persuade people to ditch their cars.

It concluded that public transport is too expensive in many places, writing in a statement: “In the context of the climate, energy and cost-of-living crises, the least polluting, healthiest and most efficient modes of transport should be affordable for everyone.”

Dublin scored 36 out of 100 points in the city rankings, coming behind even London, one of the most expensive places to live in the British Isles.

“It is the only city analysed which does not have a fixed-price long-term ticket for all means of transport and available for all passengers,” read the report.

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A monthly ticket on public transport in the city is available, but only for employees, and only when their employers join the tax saver programme”.

“All other passengers can only buy monthly subscriptions for buses, trams and trains in Dublin separately,” the analysis found.

Dublin does have an electronic ticketing system — compared to many cities that still only accept cash and a physical ticket — with weekly payments capped at €32 (£28), but it doesn’t currently have a monthly ticket.

It means people pay on average €3.16 (£2.76) a day.

Students pay half of what adults pay, and seniors over the age of 66 travel for free all across Ireland.

This also applies to people receiving a disability allowance, blind pension, carers allowance or invalidity pension.

“Apart from this, there are no best-practice elements in the ticketing system,” the analysis adds.

In the EU, public transport tickets are taxed at an average of 11 percent VAT, higher than many other basic services and necessities, though in Ireland and the UK, transport tickets are exempt.

The cities that scored the best possible ranking — 100 — are Tallinn in Estonia, Luxembourg in Luxembourg, and Valletta in Malta.

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