National Primary Route 50 Traffic Counts

Sources: TII Traffic Data and now-defunct NRA Traffic Count Data. More counters.

The M50 carries by far the most consistently high traffic levels of any road in the country. The older top end, from Turnapin (M50/M1 junction) as far as Red Cow, completed between 1990 and 1994, has always been high and has always experienced high growth. The Red Cow counter was showing 57,300 vpd even back in 1997, the highest figure in the country at the time and surpassing even the M1's 56k count north of the same junction in the same year. As for Red Cow's current level, for some reason this is unavailable after the year 2000.

Before 2001, when the road was extended to Ballinteer, the Tymon end showed a low volume of around 45k. This jumped quickly to 65k within 2 years, and to 84k within another two. The numbers for the new counters opened up at this time, Balrothery and Ballinteer, grew strongly to the 80,000+ region before slipping slightly due to the recession and road works.

Unfortunately, the extensive rebuild of 2006-2010 has resulted in a data gap for this period, with few statistics available.



Turnapin (West of Junction 3 M1)


Turnapin - Year on Year Growth


Finglas (North of Junction 5)


Finglas - Year on Year Growth


Blanchardstown North (North of Junction 6)


Blanchardstown North - Year on Year Growth


Blanchardstown Toll (South of Junction 6)


Blanchardstown Toll - Year on Year Growth


Tymon (South of Junction 10)


Tymon - Year on Year Growth