Luas has enjoyed its best year yet for passenger numbers with 37.65 million passenger journeys recorded in 2017 – an increase of 3 million on the previous years figures. The Luas increase is part of a general trend in Ireland for subsidised public transport which saw a total of 252 million passenger journey, up by 16 million from 2016.
The impressive Luas figures are set to increase even further when the next set of data is released as the extended Green line to Broombridge via the Cross City Line opened at the very end of 2017. A major increase in passengers has resulted in this new line with regular complaints now given from prospective passengers that they are unable to get on trams as they are so full.
In order to help with an increase in passenger numbers a new fleet of seven larger trams were recently delivered from Alstom. These trams started to enter service earlier this year before having to withdrawn owing to a fault but 5027 to 5031 have now been noted back in sercice.
The Luas increase is a rise of 10.6% whilst in 2017 61.99 million euros in annual passenger revenue was also recorded.