More people are driving to work in cars while the proportion of people using the bus is falling, census figures show.
Commuters are also getting up earlier to go to work, with 285,000 people leaving home before 7am to get to work. People are leaving home earliest in commuter-belt counties such as Meath, Kildare and Laois.
The number of children being driven to school is increasing, with 44,000 primary-school students driven 1km (0.62 miles) or less in the mornings.
These are some of the statistics contained in the detailed breakdown of 2006 census questions relating to transport, released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) yesterday.
The figures raise a number of issues for policymakers, not least the continued increase in the number of people using cars (57 per cent drove a car to work in 2006, up from 55 per cent in 2002). The proportion using the bus was 6.1 per cent last year, down from 6.7 per cent in 2002.
However, there was a slight overall increase in use of public transport due to the success of the Luas, which resulted in a 66 per cent increase in the numbers commuting to work by rail.Train usage was highest in north Co Dublin, especially in areas such as Donabate (26 per cent), Skerries (24 per cent), Portmarnock and Malahide (both 20 per cent).
The proportion of primary-school students being driven to school has more than doubled over the past 20 years. Some 55 per cent of schoolchildren were driven to school last year, compared to 24 per cent in 1986. The opposite has occurred with the numbers walking to school, which fell from 55 per cent in 1986 to 24 per cent last year.
A similar trend was recorded among secondary-school students, although the biggest change was in the number of students driving themselves to school, which increased from 373 in 1986 to 5,131 last year.
The census figures also indicate that workers in commuter-belt areas are getting up earlier than the rest of the State to beat the traffic.
Some 113,000 left for work before 6.30am. The highest proportion of workers leaving home before 7am was in Meath (27 per cent), followed by Kildare (25 per cent), Wicklow and Laois (20 per cent).
Most workers in Ireland, however, left for work at a more leisurely time, with 575,000 leaving between 8am and 9am, and slightly less leaving between 7am and 8am (569,965). Men were more likely to leave home earlier, while most women and children tended to leave later on.
The average journey time to work was 27.5 minutes, up slightly from 26.8 minutes in April 2002.
Even though urban workers travelled shorter distances to their places of work than those living in rural areas, traffic congestion meant they spent longer periods commuting (27.9 minutes compared with 26.8 minutes for rural workers). The average distance workers travelled from their home to their workplace was 15.8km (9.8 miles).
