Travelling by motorbike is the quickest way to travel through Dublin during rush hour, new research has found. 

The AA organised an experiment where six individuals left South Williams Street in the city centre at the same time and made their way north to Whitehall Church Park and Ride. 

The journey is 5.4km in length; one individual walked, one ran, one took an e-bike, one took a bus and the final one drove a Volkswagen.

“We all set off at 5.45 on a Tuesday evening,” AA Head of Communications Paddy Comyn told The Pat Kenny Show.

“You shouldn’t get anywhere fast but it was interesting to see how all that worked.”

Mr Comyn said the traffic was “quite light” but early on it was clear that two-wheeled transportation had an advantage. 

“Straight away what we saw was the motorbike and the electric bike flew off,” he said. 

The motorbike finished slightly ahead of the e-bike with a time of 19.30 mins. 

“The cost was too much - 79 cents in terms of fuel used was what we estimated for the six kilometres,” Mr Comyn said. 

The e-bike took only 30 seconds longer - but it was also significantly cheaper to run than the motorbike. 

“The e-bike would be the most efficient because it cost virtually nothing - 0.2 cents per minute,” Mr Comyn said. 

“So, 2 cents overall.” 

In third place was the runner who took 29 minutes and in fourth place was the man who took the bus. 

“[The bus passenger] said he found it a little bit frustrating being held up by cars, a huge amount of taxis and, obviously, all the stops,” Mr Comyn,” he said. 

“It took him quite a long time to get down O’Connell Street… but that one cost him, he’s a student, a euro.” 

A view inside a Dublin Bus. Picture by: Keith Poynton / Alamy Stock Photo

In fifth place was the car driver, who spent 45 minutes completing the journey in what was “an incredibly light day for traffic”. 

“We decided we would take a reasonably small, efficient electric car and that used 0.83kwh of electricity - so 36 cents,” Mr Comyn said. 

“If we had driven a petrol or diesel car that would have been considerably more.” 

Finally, the slowest traveller was Mr Comyn himself who walked the six kilometres

“I’m no greyhound but I managed to get there in 55 minutes,” he said. 

“Which is not bad for 5.4km - it’s a normal stroll on a nice sunny day. 

“No cost and I burned about 250 calories.” 

Mr Comyn said the thing to take away from the experiment is that driving across Dublin is “pretty much the worst way” to travel.

Main image: Person with pillion passenger riding. Picture by: Alamy.com