Profile of responses

A total of 1,129 responses were available for analysis, a small number of duplicate responses were removed before the analysis was undertaken with most of these submitted through the Scottish Government’s Citizen Space consultation analysis platform.

The considerable majority of respondents (98% or 1,107 respondents) were individual members of the public. Only 2% of responses came from organisations.

Of the 1,107 individual respondents, a majority – 67% – were Shetland based, and 23% were Orkney based. Among the remaining 10%, the largest group were NIFS network users based on the Scottish mainland, followed by NIFS visitors or tourists.

Overall respondents used the Aberdeen - Lerwick service most frequently (73% of all respondents rising to 99% of Shetland residents). Orkney residents were most likely to use the Scrabster - Stromness route (62%), although a substantial minority (32%) indicated that they use Aberdeen - Kirkwall most frequently.

Respondents were most likely to say they use NIFS services ‘occasionally’, followed by ‘once a month’, and to report using NIFS services mainly for personal/leisure use, followed by for work/education reasons.

In addition to the online consultation, Transport Scotland undertook engagement events in Lerwick (Shetland), Kirkwall (Orkney) and Stromness (Orkney), with 104 members of the public taking part. Feedback from those events was also considered as part of the analysis.