Executive Summary
Executive Summary
Moving Together – ‘A Collaborative Approach to Systems Change in Transport’ has been developed to make our transport system more efficient for everyone and to help alleviate the impacts of congestion on the economy, the environment and the health of our society.
In line with commitments in the Programme for Government 2025, this Strategy is a call for collective action across Government and society not only to reduce carbon emissions from transport over the medium to long term but to help alleviate the more immediate issues of congestion, road collisions and air pollution.
but the personal costs of congestion are just as concerning. As well as the air quality implications of congestion – for vehicle occupants and those in close proximity - and the negative health impacts due to stress and inactivity, time spent in traffic can also mean a displacement of time away from family and community life.
In the revised NDP, the Government has committed to investing in a diverse range of transport options— public transport, active travel, roads, maritime, and aviation—to enhance connectivity across urban and rural areas, giving people more choice and supporting sustainable growth.
Compounded by a historical misalignment between population growth, economic activity, land-use patterns, and infrastructure capacity, Ireland has become ever more reliant on private transport in recent decades. While our carbased system has served us reasonably well up to now, it is largely accepted that change is needed especially by those who routinely spend large parts of their life negotiating heavy traffic. In previous decades, space across the country was systematically reallocated to cars - through urban planning and as part of large-scale road building programmes. This was done to keep pace with a swell in vehicle numbers on our roads. For example, the number of licensed vehicles in Ireland increased by 2.3 million from 1985 to 2025. While goods vehicles increased by 465% over this period, private cars accounted for most of the growth, with an increase of 1.8 million vehicles2.
The Strategy will unlock the full potential of this investment in sustainable mobility options by prioritising these modes. Essentially, it is about putting people, and their needs, at the centre of Ireland’s future transport system.
While the impetus for this document arises from a commitment in the Climate Action Plan, and will support the Government’s pledge to take sustained action to tackle the climate crisis and to decarbonise the economy, the Strategy is also seeking to reinforce a shift to more sustainable modes of transport for better health, safety and wellbeing outcomes through network optimisation and associated reductions in congestion, air and noise pollution as above.
Good infrastructure is vital, and high-quality roads will continue to be the life-blood of the transport network, but there are physical, environmental and societal trade-offs in supporting an everincreasing car-dependent system – with limits on the level of additional capacity that can be built. For this reason, a more efficient use of the existing system is needed – one that reduces the need for travel in the first instance by delivering significant system change, and by releasing the full potential of the Government’s investment – current and future - in active, shared and public transport infrastructure and services.
The economic cost of congestion in the Greater Dublin Area was estimated to be €336m in 2022, rising to circa €1.5bn by 20401. An additional analysis of the regional cities - Cork, Galway, and Waterford - shows that congestion costs are projected to rise substantially in these cities over the same period. Without further intervention, the per capita economic impact could double or even triple in certain locations. Clearly, time lost from congestion has significant economic costs,
2 https://data.cso.ie/table/EIIEEA25
In relation to climate targets, the 2022 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report ‘Redesigning Ireland’s Transport System for Net Zero’3 advised that Ireland is unlikely to achieve its ambitious climate goals without a systemic change in its transport system and substantially different patterns of travel behaviours than those observed today. By way of demonstration, the recent National Household Travel Survey 2024 (NHTS) reported that over 7 in 10 (71%) journeys in Ireland are made by car.
particular, the Strategy notes the potential that new rail services and extra capacity within our existing services can provide and notes the need for ongoing investment in rail in order to deliver a fully efficient public transport system. The Strategy further acknowledges the need to continue supporting electrification and improving the charging infrastructure for electric vehicles across Ireland, in particular noting that people in rural areas are more dependent on cars and, on average, use cars more than in urban areas. This will continue to be the case for many, and the Strategy reflects this reality.
The OECD called on the need for policies with a high transformative potential such as road space reallocation, the mainstreaming of on-demand shared services and greater communication efforts to address car-centric mindsets.
It is intended that this Strategy will provide the guidance needed for public bodies, including local authorities and local council representatives, to develop bespoke plans for their own areas – plans that are co-created with local communities.
The development of ‘Moving Together’ is a policy response to the recommendations of the OECD, and will provide an over-arching direction for achieving fair and equitable efficiencies in our transport system, guided by four key principles Just Transition; Accessibility and Inclusion; Rural Recognition; and Economic and Financial Sustainability.
Reflecting the system-wide changes required to optimise the use of the transport network across all modes, this Strategy has been guided by substantial research, notably the work of the Five Cities Demand Management Study, insights from the 2022 OECD Report and the International Transport Forum4. Engagement has been central to its development also, involving stakeholders from government departments and agencies, local authorities, industry, academia, and NGOs. Key areas that were considered as part of the Strategy were Integrated Land Use and Transport Planning; Optimal Use of Space; Fiscal Measures; Generators of Demand (Movement of People); Generators of Demand (Movement of Goods) and Captive Car Users. The outcome from this engagement is reflected in Chapter 9 of the Strategy and the collective suite of recommendations, are represented in Chapter 10.
This Strategy is not about eliminating the car as a mode of transport or curtailing travel and personal freedoms. It is about finding new approaches to making travel, by whatever means, more efficient and pleasant for everyone.
In this way, the Strategy seeks to:
ᴏ identify and leverage the potential of existing Government policies and programmes to impact travel demand;
ᴏ identify and address any impediments to policy measures that reduce travel demand and/or increase transport system efficiencies; and
The Strategy does not, however, contain a prescriptive set of top-down actions. This type of approach will not work. It is a strategic framework intended to provide the high-level direction required at a national level to achieve the objectives identified, referencing a wide range of options that can be selected at national, regional and local level, and supporting, guiding and enabling the appropriate authorities and entities, both in the public and private domain, to take ownership and shape their own actions in a coherent, evidence-based manner.
ᴏ enable action at national, local and community level that will help deliver the objectives of the Strategy in a coherent and collaborative manner.
It also recognises the importance of an efficient, comfortable and affordable public transport system, and emphasises the need to significantly improve the availability and reliable frequency of public transport in rural and urban areas. In
3 https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/redesigning-ireland-s-transport-for-net-zero_b798a4c1-en.html
4 https://www.itf-oecd.org/tcad
The 32 recommendations in Chapter 10 are the product of a constructive, collaborative and concerted effort across a broad range of Government departments, members of the National Steering Group, the expert subgroups members of the public and a wide range of representative and civil society bodies to identify the type of interventions that can cumulatively make a lasting and positive impact on behaviour.
This Strategy provides a framework for delivering the systemic change recommended by the OECD by signaling the need for that change, identifying all the policies and programmes that can contribute to that change and enabling those actors across the system, whether national, local, civil society or business, to collaborate and move together towards the vision of a future transport system that sustainably connects people and places, in a way that is efficient, accessible, safe, and healthy for all. It is vital to the credibility of the Strategy that its implementation is demonstrably fair and equitable. This has been the approach taken to developing the Strategy and it will be the approach taken to its implementation.
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