Fewer collisions on South Ring despite traffic rise
There was a drop in the number of collisions on Cork’s South Ring Road last year, despite a large rise in traffic levels.
New figures published by Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) show that 34 crashes were logged on the N40 in 2018, compared to 41 the previous year.
The overall number of incidents, including collisions and breakdowns, also fell from 125 to 113 last year.
At the same time, the number of vehicle kilometres travelled on the route between the Dunkettle roundabout and the N22 interchange near Ballincollig rose by 3.1% to 340mkm.
The TII figures reveal that several sections of the N40 now carry in excess of 80,000 vehicles on an average day.
The busiest section of the South Ring Road is between the Kinsale Road roundabout and the Bloomfield junction, which carried a daily average of 86,000 vehicles in 2018.
The data also showed that traffic flows were reasonably free and stable at all times on the west/southbound carriage last year.
However, congestion was recorded regularly on the east/northbound section between the Bloomfield junction and the Jack Lynch Tunnel during both morning and evening rush hours.
TII figures show the most common period for incidents on the South Ring Road is between 9am and 10am.
The average duration of all incidents on the N40 last year was 30 minutes — down from 32 minutes in 2017.
In Dublin, traffic on the country’s busiest road, the M50, averaged 145,000 vehicles per day. The number of incidents on the M50 last year fell by 22% to 1,164, with over 300 fewer breakdowns and accidents than in 2017, despite increased traffic.
They included 541 traffic collisions— three less than in the previous year.
Records shows that traffic congestion occurs regularly along the M50 between Dundrum and Liffey Valley northbound between 4pm and 6pm.
In a southbound direction, traffic is likely to come to a halt or a major slowdown between Blanchardstown and Dundrum during the morning rush hour from 7am to 9am.
Overall, vehicle kilometres travelled on the M50 last year rose by 1% to 1.52bn.
Traffic on the national roads network, which extends to over 5,300km including motorways, rose by 0.5% last year.
The biggest increases were recorded in the Mid-West (up 2.4%) and the Midlands (up 2.1%), while decreases in traffic levels were recorded in the West (down 1.1%) and the South-West (down 0.4%).
The data is collected by TII from over 370 traffic monitoring units around the country.
Another 30 sites are due to be added before June of this year.
“The continued growth in the Irish economy is reflected by the growth in traffic on the national roads network,” TII said.
TII said data showed that investment was required on the national secondary roads network where less than 50% of roads were operating within 80% of their daily capacity.
