Councillors have heaped praise on a pilot bus project in Killarney, as hopes build that it will be extended for another year.
Local Link Kerry expects over 105,000 journeys to be made on the Anseo bus in Killarney by the end of this year.
That’s according to the General Manager of TFI Local Link Kerry, Alan O’Connell.
He gave a presentation on the pilot project to councillors at the recent municipal district (MD) meeting.
The on-demand bus service was launched in Killarney on 11 August last year (2025).
Instead of following fixed routes and timetables, Anseo buses travel wherever passengers need to go within a designated zone; in Killarney, this is a 10.4 km radius.
Mr O’Connell said the project has proven far more popular and successful than anyone anticipated, including Transport for Ireland (TFI).
A total of 53,205 passengers used the service during the first six months of 2026.
That’s an average of over 2,000 (2,091) passengers each week.
The highest number of passengers carried in a single day was 385.
A customer survey found that many passengers rely on the service regularly, with 53 per cent of users travelling on it between four and seven days each week.
Almost half of users (48%) said they would have made the same journey by car if the TFI Anseo service had not been available.
Mr O’Connell stressed that both Killarney and Tralee need full town bus services with fixed routes.
He was responding to calls from councillors to extend the service outside the town.
Mr O’Connell said that a full town bus service would be able to cater for areas on the outskirts of the town.
However, he said the nature of the Anseo bus means that the entire service would stop working if its operational area were expanded.
When the service first started, the average wait time was between five and seven minutes, but as demand has grown, this has increased to 25 minutes.
While Transport for Ireland (TFI) has not yet confirmed that the pilot will be extended for a second year, Local Link representatives are optimistic.
