Island resident regular day-to-day travel

Regular travel undertaken by island residents will typically comprise:

• Part-day journeys, typically for leisure, shopping, personal business (including health), sport, visiting friends and relatives – the extent of this will depend on provision on-island (which will be set out above).
• Longer / full-day journeys, typically for employment and education.
  • Where an island is within commuting distance of a major employment or tertiary education centre, it is reasonable to expect the ferry service to facilitate daily 09:00-17:00 commuting. There is however a maximum commuting time beyond which people will not typically regularly travel.

The commentary in this section should draw upon: travel behaviour research; the ‘island context’ set out earlier in this section; economic and demographic data where available; and carryings data as a means of understanding the scale and nature of regular travel.

Potential Indicators

• The number of jobs within say 60 or 90 minutes drive and public transport) of an island port (including any check-in time) would be an indicator of the potential for commuting. In Scotland in 2019, 91% of commuting trips were less than 60 minutes and 97% were less than 90 minutes (DfT Table TSGB0110b, derived from Labour Force Survey). If this is a significant number and the number of jobs on-island is low, then this would indicate the potential for viable commuting. BRES data can be used to inform this, with the caveat that this reports workplace jobs at datazone level, which can be a coarse measure in rural areas.
• A ‘regular travel requirement’ indicator could be developed based on (i) the range of day-to-day services and other services available on-island and (if available) (ii) the percentage of ferry users who make at least say three return ferry journeys per week.