183,000 users with 1.4 million journeys now taken per month using Leap
The Leap Card, the country’s first integrated transport ticket, is a year old today and has surpassed all expectations.
Public Transport Minister, Alan Kelly, has welcomed the Leap card’s "hugely encouraging start" with over 183,000 users accounting for 11.4 million journeys so far, according to the National Transport Authority. The average number of weekday users of Leap in November was close to 58,000.
The Leap Card, launched December of last year, allows commuters to switch easily from Bus to Dart to Luas and offers discount fares compared to cash.
In November, 1.4 million public transport journeys were made using Leap accounting for approximately 10 per cent of the public transport cash market in the Greater Dublin Area.
"The Leap Card is among one of the most exciting developments in public transport this decade," stated Minister Kelly.
"Commuters have taken to it and it has exceeded expectations. The projections put Leap at 120,000 users at this stage but we have surpassed that by over 60,000, which is highly encouraging. All of these commuters are getting a discount on the public transport fare and I would encourage people to continue to use it and hopefully it will grow even further," stated Minister Kelly.
The Minister emphasised that the Leap project is a multi-year project. Testing is on-going on various products to be added to the Leap card such as auto-top up, transfer rebate, tax saver smart cards and fare capping – having your daily or weekly costs capped regardless of the journeys you take.
"By international standards, The Leap Card is doing extremely well. But every country that has rolled this out has phased all aspects of this in over a number of years. More work is to due be carried out on Leap in the coming months, but it is certainly a highly encouraging start," concluded Minister Kelly.