Introduction

Overview

Transport Scotland is currently developing the Islands Connectivity Plan (ICP), which will replace the Ferries Plan 2013-2022. Central to the ICP will be a set of ‘Community Needs Assessments’ (CNA), which will provide a consistent means of identifying the current level of ferry service provision received by an island or peninsular community, any problems associated with this and, where relevant, options for service improvements or reductions. Given the centrality of the CNA process to determining future service provision, it is essential that each assessment is based on a robust methodology. 

For the original Ferries Review and resultant Ferries Plan 2013-2022, the assessment of required service provision was undertaken using the Routes and Services Methodology (RSM). The RSM was a six-step process that aimed to identify whether gaps exist in the current level of ferry service provision and, where gaps were identified, generate, develop and appraise options to address these gaps. In line with best practice, Transport Scotland evaluated the application of the RSM at the end of the Ferries Plan period, building on feedback from stakeholders and consultants with direct experience in its application. Whilst the RSM as originally constituted served a purpose, a range of limitations were identified in its application, including:

  • From a purely appraisal perspective, the approach outlined in the Scottish Transport Appraisal Guidance (STAG) requires that any investment proposal is defined through an objective-led approach, starting with problems and opportunities and using these as the basis of defining Transport Planning Objectives (TPOs) against which options are appraised. The RSM methodology adopted a different approach, starting with a top-down statement of service based on given indicators, thus giving rise to a risk of misalignment between need and actual service provision.
  • Several of the RSM indicators used did not robustly capture the needs of a community, e.g. population and crossing time, and indeed served to lock-in many of the outcomes of the RSM at an early stage. Moreover, ‘dependencies’ such as commuting have emerged around the ferry service which currently exists and could be materially different with a different ferry service. However, the RSM did not recognise this and indeed locked-in current community characteristics.
  • The RSM process did not specify quantitative bandings for allocating a specific dependency to an island. For example, there were no fixed rules to state that islands with say >50% commuting should be scored as an ‘A’, 35%-49% a ‘B’ and so on. As a result, the allocation of an island to an RSM ‘pot’ required an element of judgement and as such was a subjective process, with scope for variation between assessments. Moreover, despite using a four-tier ranking, there were only two possible outcomes – an island either did or did not have a dependency – and thus there was no difference between ‘A and B’ or ‘C and D’ scores in practice.
  • Finally, the RSM defined service levels – in terms of the number of sailing days, service frequency and length of operating day – were largely detached from operational realities around crewing hours, vessel deployment and management of capacity etc.
  • Stakeholder feedback highlighted the requirement to assess against other identified needs which were not specifically included in the original RSM methodology. These were:
    • Reliability
    • Resilience
    • Capacity
    • Connecting and onward travel
    • Wider socio-economic needs and alignment with the National Transport Strategy 2 and the National Islands Plan.

Building on this feedback and the lessons learned, Transport Scotland has commissioned Stantec UK Ltd to develop a revised method for undertaking the CNA component of the ICP. The new method is intended to retain the principles of the RSM but further develop the analytical approach to address the issues with the original method identified above. It will sit beneath the strategic framework defined in the ICP.

Report Structure

The purpose of this commission is to provide a guide to Transport Scotland officials, local authorities and consultancies carrying out CNAs. Whilst developed for the purposes of assessing communities served by the Clyde and Hebrides Ferry Services (CHFS) and the Northern Isles Ferry Services (NIFS), the methodology could also be applied to local authority networks, as per the previous RSM. 

This new guidance is set out in Chapter 2. This chapter has been written as a standalone guidance paper which can extracted and shared with parties undertaking a CNA.

Chapter 3 sets out our wider thoughts on how the information gathered through the CNA process can be collated, reported and used to inform routes monitoring and investment planning. It is not anticipated that Chapters 1 or 3 of this report would be issued alongside the new guidance, rather they are for internal use by Transport Scotland.