More than 6,000 more vehicles on M50 than a year ago

Almost 159,000 vehicles are using M50 on a daily basis - up 6,300 on the same period of last year.

Rush hour traffic now lasts a full eight hours each day, with the morning peak 7am to 10am, and evening peak 3pm to 7pm.

Commuters are being forced to leave for work an hour earlier because there are so many cars, trucks and buses using the road.

Several incidents caused traffic chaos in the morning peak last week, and it is becoming increasingly apparent that the system is unable to cope.

New data from Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) shows that every month there are 120 'incidents' including breakdowns. Of these, 50 are collisions.

An analysis of traffic data supplied by TII for the Irish Independent gives a snapshot in time on how the M50 is faring as the economy shakes off the recession.

It based the analysis on volumes on the first Wednesday of October in 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016, and shows numbers are steadily growing year-on-year.

On the first Wednesday of October in 2013, just over 133,345 vehicles used the road. The figure has increased by 19pc for the same day of 2016.

People are leaving up to an hour earlier to get to work. Since 2013, the numbers using the road between 6am and 7am has increased by 72% to 6,591.