Transport Scotland - Ferries and concessionary travel queries: FOI release

Information request and response under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002


Information requested

1. What is the annual cost of concessionary travel schemes on ferries to the Scottish Government? Please provide a breakdown by year since 2018.

2. How many journeys were taken under the concessionary travel scheme in each year since 2018?

2a. On which routes were these journeys taken? Which routes are the most popular?

3. What are the specific eligibility criteria for persons wishing to use the ferries concessionary travel scheme?

4. How many people does the Government estimate/know to be eligible for the ferries concessionary travel scheme?

5. How many people does the Government estimate/know to use the ferries concessionary travel scheme each year?

6. How much money has the Government spent on advertising or promoting the ferries concessionary travel scheme?

Response

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have requested. This relates to questions 2a and 5 and the reason is provided in the responses below.

1. The annual cost of concessionary ferry vouchers, each financial year since 2018, was:

2018/19 - £1,542,471, 2019/20 - £1,493,779, 2020/21 - £441,921,

2021/22 - £1,147,806,

2022/23 - £1,256,465, 2023/24 - £1,327,785 and

2024/25 (as of 10 December 2024) - £589,445.

2. The number of ferry journeys taken using concessionary ferry vouchers, each financial year since 2018, was: 2018/19 – 62,542, 2019/20 – 54,303, 2020/21 – 18,572, 2021/22 – 42,003, 2022/23 – 51,073, 2023/24 – 58,554 and 2024/25 (as of 14 November 2024) – 20,938.

2a. We are unable to provide journey figures at route level. The concessionary ferry vouchers have mainly operated using paper ferry vouchers and a manual process for the recording of these has beenin  place. We are in the process of moving this process to a smart ticketing platform, but this has not yet been rolled out to all ferry operators.

3. The eligibility criteria to qualify for concessionary ferry vouchers can be found on the Transport Scotland website. Individual local authorities may provide their own local concessionary ferry discounts with relevant eligibility criteria, which are not covered by the National Concessionary Travel Schemes.

4. There are 26,827 current National Entitlement cardholders that are eligible for concessionary ferry vouchers. This data is taken from information supplied by the National Entitlement Card Programme Office (NECPO) as at 1 November 2024. NECPO are working with stakeholders and partners to carry out a data cleansing exercise of the customer database which may impact cardholder numbers when records are updated.

5. We are unable to provide data for the number of people who have used concessionary ferry vouchers. These have mainly operated using paper ferry vouchers and a manual process for the recording of these has been in place. We are in the process of moving this process to a smart ticketing platform, but this has not yet been rolled out to all ferry operators.

6. The Scottish Government does not routinely pay to promote concessionary ferry vouchers, information is available on the Transport Scotland website and on relevant local authority websites.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

Contact

Please quote the FOI reference
Central Correspondence Unit
Email: contactus@gov.scot
Phone: 0300 244 4000

The Scottish Government
St Andrew's House
Regent Road
Edinburgh
EH1 3DG

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