Long commutes to the workplace have often been tied to poor employee wellbeing, but the research into the relationship between long commutes and student wellbeing is only recently gaining traction. A ‘long’ commute is generally considered to be anywhere upwards of 45 minutes one-way, and in Ireland, the number of students who can be considered long commuters is steadily increasing.
Ireland’s commuter culture effectively boils down to housing. Data collected by Eurostudent, an EU-funded think tank into EU student life, reveals that Irish students living at home have an average commute time that is more than double that of their peers living outside of home. Then consider that 42 per cent of Irish students live and commute from home; a statistic considerably higher than the European average of 34 per cent. From this data alone, it is clear that long commutes have become a common part of student life for many across Ireland. This is compounded further by both physical and soft infrastructure, or lack thereof, that needlessly extends commutes into classifiably long one.
The number of students living at home is added to by Ireland’s unique university admissions process. Unlike many international admissions platforms, such as UCAS, the CAO does not allow for provisional university places to be offered prior to confirmation of said place upon receipt of grades. Nor does the CAO and Leaving Cert system account for this by moving results and course offer days to earlier dates. As a result, the struggle to secure accommodation after CAO’s round one offer day often leaves students with no other choice but to commute long distances from home. On the flip side, student loan systems such as SUSI only cover an average of 33 per cent of the costs associated with student life, forcing many students to accept a long commute in favour of paying extortionate prices in Dublin’s rental market.
Dublin’s physical infrastructure adds a further barrier to commuting students. A recent study by the SatNav company TomTom found that Dublin was the third most congested city in the world, and similar data showed Ireland’s rate of car usage to be the second-highest in the EU. Considering Dublin’s lack of underground metro service, all commuting students, whether or not they drive, therefore face longer commute times than their European counterparts. This has detrimental consequences for these students, who report a poorer university experience overall.
Senior Freshman student Aeladh, despite living a thirty minute drive to college from a South Dublin suburb, faces commute times averaging an hour. She believes that her commute “could be significantly shortened if buses were more frequent”, also citing the longstanding issue of “ghost buses” as a recurring challenge in her commute. This is a sentiment echoed by many commuters living within the Dublin metropolitan area: the length of commuting time can be attributed more to lack of reliable public transport, rather than proximity to college.
The negative effect of long commute times and university experience is twofold. The first relates to academic success. In 2024/2025, research was undertaken in Ireland to explore commuter student experiences in higher education institutions. Relating to academic achievement, the biggest and most common issue reported was timetabling. For commuter students, both early morning and late evening classes pose obvious challenges, as well as classes stretched out across all five days, necessitating more hours spent commuting. While some students surveyed said that these issues meant they had to miss classes, the larger consequence highlighted was tiredness.
Senior Fresh student Alastair, from Maynooth, while noting that transport is accessible from his home, still faces daily travel times averaging three hours per day. This, he outlines as a “net disadvantage” particularly when commuting during rush hour. For Alastair, long-commuting occasionally means leaving college early “knowing you have the commute ahead of you”. More frequently however, travelling during peak times on crowded trains “doesn’t make for the most effective study environment”, consequently impacting available time to commit towards class work and studying.
The Irish students surveyed would undertake long commutes for morning classes, but after long days, the added time spent getting to and from college meant that many felt unable to study in the evenings. One student quoted in the report stated: “by the time I get home I’ve no time or energy to study”, adding that issues with unreliable public transport in Ireland meant their commuting time was longer than necessary. Further, considering the aforementioned unreliability of Dublin’s public transport system (one only has to look to the existence of colloquially named ‘ghost buses’ for evidence), when long commutes cause students to miss a class where attendance is graded, this student is either marked down or at the mercy of their TA to have some sympathy for the situation. Even if commuting students are able to make all of their classes, they still face higher barriers to academic achievement than their non-commuting peers.
Outside of academic attainment, there is a second outcome in student life for commuters: their social life. Engagement in university life, such as society participation, is correlated with higher levels of wellbeing reported among students. Yet, as many society events occur in the evening, students with longer commute times are the first to miss out. Outside of formal events, commuter students have restricted flexibility when it comes to socialising with peers. N-Tutorr, which led The Commuter Project Study (2025), reported that “commuting impacts negatively on their [Irish commuter students] wider higher education engagement”, specifically socialising with classmates. Aeladh’s experience reflects this: “after what might be a long day at college the knowledge of my impending bus ride home can make me less likely to stay around.” While she accepts that many students face longer commutes both in terms of proximity and time, the impact of commuting on her social life is still noticeable.
As the number of long-distance commuters increases in Ireland, the question remains: how can institutions like Trinity better the lives of their students? First steps could include alleviating the negative link between commuting and academic attainment. Several suggestions are made by N-Tutorr: recording lectures, adjusting attendance policies with more leniency for commuters, and reducing large gaps in timetables would all have immediate benefit for these students. For Alastair, more useful accommodations for commuters looks like improving student facilities on campus, “with the likes of microwaves and kettles”, measures which would alleviate the inconvenience of long gaps between classes.
On a wider level, however, long-commuters are often first and foremost victims to an extortionately priced and wildly competitive rental market, in which Trinity’s stake remains relatively small. In discourse about commuters, the most crucial piece of data shows that Irish students living at home have a commute time three times that of students that live in student accommodation. Higher student accommodation provisions would eliminate issues for a large proportion of commuters. The recent announcement of an additional 358 beds to Trinity Hall will certainly stop some incoming students from becoming long-commuters. Yet this is not enough.
Long-distance commuters, once a tiny minority of the student body, now make up a significant proportion of Trinity students. As such, institutions must work to improve accommodation in both senses: accommodations for attendance and timetabling within their day-to-day college life, and wider access to affordable student accommodation.
