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4. Public transport: bus, rail and air and ferry
4.1 Local bus services
4.1.1 In the 2005-06 financial year there were 477 million passenger journeys on local bus services in Scotland, a slight reduction (a 0.4% fall) from the previous year, but 6% fewer than in 1995-96. The decrease in passenger numbers in 2005-06 is the first reduction in seven years. However, over the longer-term, there have been large falls. There were almost 1,700 million passenger journeys on local bus services in 1960. The number had almost halved by 1975. Since then, it has roughly halved again, from 891 million in 1975 to 477 million in 2005-06. There were falls in every year between 1960 and 1999 apart from 1985, 1987 and 1988. Figure 3 shows the trends since 1975; it and Figure 4 show that local bus passenger numbers are significantly higher than those for other modes of public transport .
4.1.2 Since 1995-96, the number of passenger journeys on local bus services has fallen by 6% in Scotland compared with an increase of 5% for Great Britain over the same period (which is due to an increase in London). However, Figure 10 shows that, relative to the size of the population, the usage of local bus services is higher in Scotland: in 2005-06, 94 journeys were made per head of population in Scotland compared with 81 in Great Britain.
4.2 Rail passenger services
4.2.1 The total number of ScotRail passenger journeys in the 2006-07 financial year was 77.3 million, 2.2 million (3%) more than in the previous year, and 46% more than 10 years earlier. Over the longer-term, the number of rail passenger journeys originating in Scotland (including cross-border journeys) fell from a peak of 73 million in 1964 to a low of 50 million in 1982. Figure 4 shows that, from then until 1996-97, passenger numbers remained between 50 million and 60 million per year. Latterly, rail patronage had been rising since 1994-95 and reached almost 65 million in 1999-00, but then fell to just over 61 million in 2002-03, before rising again to almost 73 million in 2004-05. Figures for 2005-06 and 2006-07 were not available at the time of going to press, but the 2006-07 figure is expected to be around 81-82 million (and so by far the largest number since the current series started in 1960), given the number of ScotRail passengers.
4.2.2 The 3% increase in ScotRail passenger numbers between 2005-06 and 2006-07 was less than the 6% rise in rail passengers for Great Britain as a whole. Over the past ten years, passenger numbers have increased more for ScotRail than for GB as a whole. However, the rise in the number of rail passenger journeys originating in Scotland (including those on other operators' services) had not been as rapid, at least up to 2004-05 (the latest year for which such figures are currently available). Figure 11 shows that, per head of population, there are fewer rail passenger journeys originating in Scotland than in Great Britain: 14.4 per head in Scotland in 2004-05, compared with 18.0 per head in Great Britain.
Figure 5 Freight lifted: road and coastwise shipping
Figure 6 Freight lifted: coastwise shipping, pipelines, inland waterway, rail
4.3 Air passengers
4.3.1 There were about 24.4 million air terminal passengers at airports in Scotland in 2006, the largest number ever recorded: 3% more than in the previous year, and 85% more than in 1996. Figure 4 shows the rise since 1975. Over the longer-term, terminal passenger numbers grew from 1.2 million in 1960 to 24.4 million in 2006.
4.3.2 Between 1996 and 2006, the number of air terminal passengers increased by 85% for Scotland and 73% for the UK as a whole. Over the past ten years, the number of passengers per head of population has been higher for Scotland than for the UK.
4.4 Ferry services
4.4.1 In 2006, over 6 million passengers were carried on those shipping services within Scotland for which figures are available back to 1973 (i.e. Caledonian MacBrayne, P&O Scottish Ferries / NorthLink Orkney and Shetland, and Orkney Ferries). This was 1% more than in the previous year. Figure 4 shows the long-term trends, which were affected by the reduction in traffic that followed the opening of the Skye Bridge in 1995.
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