Ireland
Dublin
UMR Index Rank
#36
(-1)
Score: 51%
Sustainable Mobility
#19
(-4)
Score: 59.1%
Public Transit
#33
(+1)
Score: 50.1%
Technology Adoption
#43
Score: 33.5%
| Population | 1.3 million |
| Surface area (km2) | 461 |
| Population-density (people/km2) | 2,896 |
| GDP per capita ($) | 120,554 |
UMR Index Rank
#36
(-1)
Score: 51%
Sustainable Mobility
#19
(-4)
Score: 59.1%
Public Transit
#33
(+1)
Score: 50.1%
Technology Adoption
#43
Score: 33.5%
What Dublin Does Well In Urban Mobility
Dublin boasts good air quality, thanks partly to car-free zones that are relatively larger than in regional peers Paris and London. The Irish capital is implementing additional initiatives to reduce the number of cars in the city center, including limiting through traffic to specific quay areas north and south of the River Liffey starting in August 2024. In 2022 the City Council launched the City Edge Project, a development plan that focuses on land use, urban design, and green infrastructure. The project notably aims to redesign western neighborhoods under a 15-minute city concept.
The city experiences relatively few road fatalities, with fewer deaths per capita than in cities such as Rome and Lisbon. Dublin’s 2030 road safety plan aims to make further improvements by building separate infrastructure for cyclists and pedestrians, promoting modal shifts away from internal combustion engine vehicles, and reducing vehicle speeds.
Urban Mobility Readiness Index, Sustainable Mobility, Public Transit, and Technology Adoption scores
Source: Oliver Wyman Forum and University of California, Berkeley
Challenges And Opportunities For Dublin’s Transportation System
With residents preferring to drive personal cars over cycling and public transit, congestion remains an issue throughout the city. Dublin has poor traffic fluidity, with a 10-kilometer (6.2-mile) trip typically taking 30 minutes. However, the Dublin City Development plan aims to reduce traffic 40% by 2028 while increasing walking, cycling, and public transport use.
Dublin is known as a leading tech hub, but its mobility innovation ecosystem lags behind peers such as London and Amsterdam. The city has few leading universities and labs operating in the mobility space, including research in new technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning with a mobility focus. Innovation in the mobility ecosystem is more muted than in other leading cities, but there are signs of improvement. Dublin published its Drone and Urban Air Mobility Strategy in 2024, which aims to prepare the city to use drones to improve public services, such as for security and emergency response or environmental monitoring.
Dimensions of the Urban Mobility Readiness Index score
Source: Oliver Wyman Forum and University of California, Berkeley
How Dublin Can Improve Its Urban Mobility Performance
Dublin aims to reduce private car use with investments in more metro stations and better pedestrian walkways. In the meantime, the city can increase the cost of parking and restrict car access to more places, building off the through-traffic ban in the city center that was introduced in 2024.
Dublin does not have a very diverse public transport system. It can invest more in public transit, including better integration of different modes and extending public transit routes to better connect different parts of the city.
Expanding bus services with dedicated bus lanes can be a cost-effective way to improve service. Investing in zero-emission buses as part of this can simultaneously improve the sustainability of public transit. Investing in the infrastructure to build a metro system can also improve transit speed, but this would be a lengthy and expensive undertaking.
Urban Mobility Readiness Index relative ranking evolution (2020-2024)
Source: Oliver Wyman Forum and University of California, Berkeley