The Local Workforce
Information was gathered encapsulating those commuting to cities and towns from within a 10-kilometre radius of Mountbellew. The information referenced here is from the 2016 CSO census. These numbers could be considered conservative given the increase in employment since that time.
The main workplace for those commuting from Mountbellew and its hinterland was Galway city. From the statistics analysed we have established that the daytime working population of Galway is 44,376. Of this 22,105 people commute into Galway city every day. These commuting workers put an enormous strain on feeder roads into Galway. Traffic congestion through Claregalway, Oranmore, Moycullen, and Barna, morning and evening, at peak traffic hours is common knowledge. Traffic tailbacks up to eight kilometres are a regular occurrence and traffic congestion in specific areas of the city (e.g. Parkmore) have been described as a crisis.
From our research we have established that approximately 1,246 people within a 10-kilometre radius of Mountbellew commute to and from Galway city every day. The average commuting time from this area is two hours per day, a loss of 10 hours per week per employee, a total of approximately 12,500 hours per week lost to commuting across the population.
The average distance travelled is estimated at 82km per car, per day. Assuming a conservative 800 cars travel from the area daily equates to a total of 65,600 km travelled. Estimating that the average car travels 17.7 kilometres per litre results in approximately 3,706 litres of fuel being burned every day. Estimating the cost of fuel to be €1.20 per litre the economic cost to commuters is around €4,817 per day.
The environmental cost of this commute is high. Considering that approximately 2.5 kgs of CO2 is released per litre of petrol/diesel resulting in 9,265 kgs of carbon emitted per day. These numbers speak for themselves.