Performance measures

The Islands Connectivity Plan supports the National Transport Strategy and overall progress will be measured through Transport Scotland’s Monitoring and Evaluation of the NTS2 Indicators.

To support improvements in reliability and resilience, which is our priority, accurate data is needed so that investment can be targeted and the most effective use made of funding that will continue to be under pressure, following cuts to our capital budget from the UK Government.

To measure progress with respect to ferry services, we will be developing a series of performance measures as part of work on the ICP which go beyond the measures applied to the ferry operators through the CHFS and NIFS contracts – and so capture a wider range of essential activity and better reflect the lived experience of users and communities. These could include:

• Customer and community satisfaction.
• Average fleet age of 15 from the end of the decade.
• Service reliability – reflecting user experience in addition to operator performance.
• Progress against the proposed Accessibility Standard, by vessel and port.
• Indicator on Timetables linked to Deck Space Reservation pilot.
• Ratio of passengers to vehicles as an indicator of better “integration” and increased foot passenger usage; Measure of progress against a proposed “integration baseline”.
• Carryings, capacity, and capacity utilisation (passengers, cabins, and vehicles) by route.
• Volume of freight moved to/from islands.
• Number of zero/low emission vessels in the CMAL fleet.

Fares indicator: e.g., ratio of fares to subsidy as an indicator of cost to Government; changes in fares vs inflation as an indicator of cost to users.