Free foot passenger travel data: FOI release

Information requested

1. How many young people are currently eligible for free foot passenger travel on inter-island ferries in Scotland?

2. How many times has a young person used free foot passenger travel over the last five years (if possible, please split this up by year)?

3. What is the total cost of providing free foot passenger travel to young people over the last five years (if possible, please split this up by year)?

Response

1. The draft Islands Consultation Plan Strategic Approach was published for consultation in 2024 and included a proposal to provide free foot passenger travel for under 22 year old island residents on inter-island ferries within Orkney, Shetland and the Outer Hebrides. Work is ongoing to finalise the Islands Connectivity Plan and further detail on timescales for any implementation will be provided in due course.

At present young people aged 16 to 18, or aged 19-25 and a full time volunteer, that live on the Outer Hebrides, Orkney, Shetland, plus islands in North Ayrshire, Argyll and Bute and Highland Council areas are eligible for four ferry vouchers per year for travel to the mainland.

As of 1 February 2025 there were 3,329 young people that would be eligible for ferry vouchers. Please note that this data is taken from information supplied by the National Entitlement Card Programme Office (NECPO) as at 1st February 2025. NECPO work with stakeholders and partners to carry out regular data cleansing of the customer database which may impact cardholder numbers when records are updated.

2. We are able to provide a breakdown of the number of ferry vouchers used by young people that were eligible over the last five financial years in the table below. Please note that these figures include all customers travelling on the scheme and that it includes cabins on certain routes which is unable to be separated from the data. Figures for 2024/25 are up until Period 9 (8 December 2024).

Period year	Journeys made
2020/21	1,944
2021/22	4,346
2022/23	4,967
2023/24	5,277
2024/25	3,639
Total	20,173

3. We are able to provide the reimbursement costs for ferry vouchers used by young people who were eligible over the last five financial years in the table below. Please note figures for 2024/25 are up until Period 9 (8 December 2024).

Period year	Gross reimbursement
2020/21	£41,887.93
2021/22	£104,435.12
2022/23	£111,731.11
2023/24	£108,138.19
2024/25	£99,575.48
Total	£465,767.83

There are other scheme operational costs relating to the systems and third parties that we use to operationalise the scheme. However, these can’t be apportioned to a particular scheme/mode. These are on average approximately £24K per annum.

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.