The Portlaoise Bus Service has been described as the ‘success story of 2025’ as figures revealed this week shows the amount of people using it continues to grow.
In February, the town bus service launched with two main routes, PL1 and PL2.
The PL1 route connects areas like Colliers Lane, Borris Road, and the Train Station, while the PL2 route serves Kilminchy, Midlands Regional Hospital, and the IDA Business and Technology Park.
At this week’s monthly meeting of the Portlaoise Municipal District, a presentation showed how the numbers using the service each month has grown steadily.
Delivered by Simon Walton, the presentation detailed the passenger numbers for the first five months of the service.
From February 24 to March 23, 24,881 passengers took the two routes.
The most recent period available is from June 16 to July 13 and showed that 36,907 passengers availed of the service.
That represents a 48% increase in five months and Director of Service Walton described it as one of the best performing town bus services in the country.
He said: “It’ll be interesting to see the figures for August and more particularly for September, October, and hopefully the trend is in the same direction.
“That is a very significant increase in passenger numbers period on period to an overall total of just under 37,000 passenger boardings in the one-month period between the 16th of June and the 13th of July.
“So this is very positive, and I think that would reflect very, very favourably and probably outscore significantly a lot of the other towns for which the town bus service has been introduced.”
The presentation was widely welcomed by all of the Councillors with Independent Caroline Dwane-Stanley hailing the bus service as the ‘success story of 2025’.
While Cllr Catherine Fitzgerald echoed that, saying: “I have to say the bus service is absolutely really successful, and people are delighted with it.”
But the Fianna Fail Councillor, and the majority of the other speakers, said the service could be enhanced further with additional routes.
She said: “We’ve had requests on the Ballyfin Road, but also the Abbeyleix Road, there’s a lot of older residents living on it now, there’s new houses going up, and there’s more houses.
“Then you go out to the Plaza, and out to the business park, and any young people that’ll be working out there in that industrial area, there’s no bus service out to it, and I think it’s a vital service to come in that road.”
Cllr Paddy Buggy asked that a stop in Kilminchy be considered as he explained that several people had contacted him.
He said: “Could we get a bus stop in Kilminchy, closer down to where the older generation are living?
“It’s down the hill from where the existing one is and would make a big difference.”
Director of Services Simon Walton said that he would bring these requests to the National Transport Authority (NTA).
He said: “We facilitated it, and we made arrangements for bus stops, and supported the NTA.
“But the service is funded fully, in its operational phase, by the NTA. So they control the purse strings, and they control how the service will or will not be expanded into the future.
“What I previously committed to was, coming up to a year into the service, it is our intention to make a submission to the NTA.
“That will have regard to some of our own comments, on the sort of Municipal Districts Office side, together with comments that have been made to us by the elected representatives.
“But ultimately, the decision maker regarding expanding the service, will be the NTA. But as I understand it, the numbers, using the service here, by comparison maybe to other, are very encouraging.
“Now whether that sort of supports our request for a broadening of the service or not, I don’t know.”
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